Women with partners higher in trait conscientiousness get more pleasure from sex

By Christian Jarrett Especially if you are in a long-term relationship your own sexual functioning is not a purely an individual matter but is bound up with your partner’s. Previous research has looked at this dynamic, finding for example that people are generally happier with their sex lives when they have the perception that they and their partner are sexually compatible. Surprisingly, however, before now the influence of your partner’s broader personality traits on your own sex life had not been studied. A German study of nearly a thousand long-term couples (98 per cent of them heterosexual) is the first to look at this question. Among the stand-out findings is that, for women, having a more conscientious partner was associated with having better sexual functioning and a more satisfactory sex life. Writing in The Journal of Sex Research, the researchers, led by Julia Velten at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, suggested that “men who are thorough and dutiful may feel the need to satisfy their partner sexually, which may in turn lead to better sexual function of their partners.” The researchers interviewed each participant and his or her partner individually over the phone about their personality traits; their sexual responsiveness (that is, how easily aroused or easily turned off they are, which psychologists consider stable traits and refer to as “sexual excitation” and “sexual inhibition”); and finally, in detail, about their se...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Gender Personality Sex Source Type: blogs