Is Spontaneous Sex Ideal? Beliefs and Perceptions of Spontaneous and Planned Sex and Sexual Satisfaction in Romantic Relationships

ABSTRACT

Sexual satisfaction is critical for relationship quality and people hold lay beliefs (implicit theories) about what makes for satisfying sex. A common belief in Western culture is that spontaneous sex is most satisfying, but this idea has not yet been studied. In pre-registered analyses of two studies – a cross sectional (N = 303 individuals) and a 21-day daily experience study (N = 121 couples) – we found support for two distinct beliefs (spontaneous sex as satisfying; planned sex as satisfying). Across both studies, people held stronger beliefs that spontaneous sex is satisfying compared to planned sex, but stronger spontaneous sex beliefs were only associated with higher sexual satisfaction in Study 1. In Study 1, when people perceived their most recent sexual experience as planned (versus spontaneous), they felt less sexually satisfied, but this was not the case for those who endorsed stronger planned sex beliefs. In Study 2, endorsing stronger planned sex beliefs was associated with a partner’s lower sexual satisfaction at baseline. There were no associations between perceptions of the extent to which sex was spontaneous and sexual satisfaction at baseline or in daily life. Future research could test whether beliefs about spontaneity and planning have value in clinical settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual satisfaction
• relationships
• spontaneous
• planned

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2022.2163611.

Notes

1 Although we preregistered analyses predicting relationship satisfaction and sexual desire, we have included these analyses in the OSM to focus the paper on our key questions about associations between sexual spontaneity and sexual satisfaction (see OSM; https://rb.gy/tbvuzj).

2. Due to privacy reasons we have not included the gender variable in our data and syntax. However, if you are interested in replicating our gender moderation analyses, please reach out to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant 435–2017–0850 awarded to Amy Muise, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award 141986 to Natalie O. Rosen, and a SSHRC Doctoral Joseph-Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship awarded to Stephanie Raposo and to Eric Tu.