Psychological research shows that couples who enjoy their sex lives have happier and more stable relationships.
Researchers Laura M. Wauels and colleagues the extent to which a scientific model can predict whether partners will achieve sexual satisfaction1.
While previous research has suggested that there are certain factors that contribute to a positive sexual experience, Vowels and her team say that no other study has compared multiple parameters in parallel.
A group of scientists turned to machine learning, a scientific approach to data that allows you to compare a set of variables. The researchers applied this machine learning algorithm to two groups of participants.
The first sample consisted of 891 participants with a mean age of 32, of which 54% were heterosexual, 21% bisexual, and 18% gay. The second sample consisted of 955 participants with a mean age of 30, of which 56% were heterosexual and 41% bisexual.
In both groups, participants completed online questionnaires that took into account various demographic and relationship factors.
In the second group, a survey was also conducted, in which 754 people who were in a romantic relationship took part. They answered questions regarding sexual desire, sexual behavior, contraceptive use, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction.
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The researchers identified ten main parameters among 94 variables in the first sample and 71 variables in the second sample. To achieve sexual satisfaction, the quality of relationships with a partner was important for the participants in both samples.
Romantic feelings were especially important among participants in the second sample, where more feelings for a partner predicted higher sexual satisfaction. Longer relationships and variety in sex life, including oral sex and mutual masturbation, also predicted greater sexual satisfaction among the second sample.
Contrary to some previous data, gender did not significantly determine the degree of sexual satisfaction.
An important role, according to the results, is played by sexual satisfaction, romantic feelings, mutual desire and relationship satisfaction on the part of the partner.
«For women, partner’s sexual satisfaction was almost as much a predictor of one’s own sexual satisfaction… This is less true for men,» Vowels and her team report, noting that this fact may reflect public opinion about what is more important to a man. get sexual satisfaction for yourself than for a woman.
Further studies are needed to confirm the results. The authors acknowledge the limitations of their study as they were unable to explore all dimensions of sexual satisfaction and may have missed key variables such as self-esteem and sociocultural characteristics.
1. Laura M. Vowels, Matthew J. Vowels, Kristen P. Mark «Identifying the strongest self-report predictors of sexual satisfaction using machine learning», Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.