Real Reasons Some Couples Have More Sex Than Others, According to Science

Ahhh, is there anything better than the honeymoon phase? When you can't get enough of your significant other. You spend every waking moment that you can together, and you're definitely having a lot of sex. But that eventually fades, and it will affect your sex life. But how much? Here are some real reasons some couples have more sex than others, according to science.

Some obvious beginnings. According to one study, “in heterosexual marriages, the happier people are with their sexual lives, the happier they are with their relationships,” reports NY Mag. Okay, well that makes sense. But there’s much more to discuss.

The key. It turns out that a newlywed’s sex life can be observed through their personalities. “If she’s super curious about life and easy to be around,” according to NY Mag, “it’s more likely that the couple is getting laid, or so says a new study.”

The other side. “The man’s personality, on the other hand,” reports to NY Mag, “doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on how often the couple has sex.” It seems the woman holds all the cards, but how do they know…

The study. Andrea L. Meltzer and James K. McNulty, two psychologists from Florida State University, conducted the survey polling over 250 heterosexual newlywed couples. The couples all kept sexual daily diaries, “a more reliable way of measuring sexual frequency than asking people to retrospectively remember.”

The Big Five. The 278 heterosexual newlywed couples were also asked to take a personality test using the most agreed-upon personality model, the Big Five personality traits. “Unlike the Myers-Briggs and its peers,” reports NY Mag, “the Big 5 had repeatedly held up in empirical testing.”

The traits. The first is conscientiousness, or “how likely you are to be on time to meetings and reply to emails.” Agreeableness was second, or “how eager you are to please people.”

Third, fourth, and fifth. Openness to experience was third (“or how much you crave adventures”), then neuroticism (“or how much you react to the sundry difficulties of life”), then extraversion (“or how much you want to hang out”).

What were they asked to do? The couples, who were mostly aged between their mid-20s and early-30s, kept diaries for two weeks. “They were asked to report whether they had sex every day, and, if they did, how satisfied they were with it on a seven-point scale,” reports NY Mag. “The couples averaged having sex on three to four days in that two-week period.”

Previous studies. Apparently, men want and initiate sex more than women do, the authors of the study say. Women are thusly labeled as “the gatekeepers” of sex within relationships. "Traditionalist as this idea may be, the authors wrote that their own findings support it as well: The higher a wife rated on openness to experience or agreeableness, the more often the couple had sex. The husband’s personality, on the other hand, was not a predictor of sexual frequency.”

Sexual satisfaction. Personality does matter when you’re talking about sexual satisfaction. “For men and women, higher levels of neuroticism were linked with lower levels of satisfaction,” according to the study.

Negative correlation. “Intriguingly,” writes NY Mag, “Husbands’ openness was negatively correlated with satisfaction, while for wives it was the opposite. And it was the individual’s personality — not their partner’s — that correlated with satisfaction.”

But… “This study — comprising 14 days for couples who are perhaps still in the honeymoon phase — should not be taken as representative of all couples in all stages of relationships of all time.” Of course! There are some people who weren’t polled — the LGBTQ community.

Liberated. Sexuality is very deeply informed by culture and upbringing, notes NY Mag, so more “liberated areas,” New York and San Francisco perhaps, would produce much different results as opposed to conservative areas. But is there a certain amount of sex a couple should be having?

Meltzer speaks. “What I can say is that, in a number of studies of newlywed couples (most of whom are extremely happy), couples report having sex approximately every three to four days,” says Meltzer. “I am not sure, however, how frequently ‘happy’ couples who have been married longer (or even dating couples) have sex.”

Have more sex! According to NY Mag, a group of researched asked couples to double the amount of sex they were having, for the sake of science! This turned out how you’d expect — sex became a chore, and couples enjoyed it less. So don’t force it.