The Next Step: Current Sexual Lifestyles and Future Intentions

Abstract

Using data from a nationally representative survey of sexual behavior in the United Kingdom, this visualization shows participants’ current sexual lifestyles and their ideal lifestyles five years from now. It demonstrates strong preferences for relationship progression toward cohabitation, marriage, and monogamy. Only a small minority of participants express a long-term preference for casual relationships, no sexual relationship, or any nonmonogamous lifestyle. Of currently nonmonogamous participants, a majority indicate a preference for a monogamous future, although a significant minority of nonmonogamous participants who are cohabiting or married wish to keep their lifestyles in five years’ time.

Life-course research on partnering centers a normative progression that moves from unattached youth to marriage and parenthood, with marriage a major object of study. However, over time, the time American adults spend in marriage has declined, with more sexual and relationship experience happening prior to marriage and after divorce (Sassler 2010:557). Unmarried cohabitation has received substantial attention as a relatively new life stage that most young adults experience (Sassler 2010:564). More casual sexual behavior has also been studied as a life stage for youth, who report that committed relationships clash with their lives’ current demands (Lyons et al. 2014).

Data on other nontraditional relationship formations, while growing, remain limited by prevailing social norms. Surveys of sexual behavior tend to privilege a “charmed circle” of socially approved behaviors (Westbrook, Budnick, and Saperstein 2022). Monogamy, particularly within committed relationships, remains a strong norm, with 98 percent of partnered Americans expecting their partners to be sexually exclusive (Rosenfeld, Thomas, and Falcon 2016). Studies of the small minority of nonmonogamous individuals frequently use small convenience samples (Sizemore and Olmstead 2017). In contrast, Britain’s National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) provides unusually robust data on nonmonogamy.

Figure 1 categorizes participants on the basis of their current sexual lifestyles and what lifestyles they would prefer in five years’ time. Natsal offered nine ideal lifestyle options, which differed in number of partners (zero, one, or multiple), “casual” or “regular” descriptors, cohabitation status, and marital status. Figure 1 demonstrates an overwhelming preference for the norm: marriage and monogamy. Two thirds of the sample wish to be monogamously married in five years, and more than 40 percent of the sample already are. The desire for monogamous marriage is dominant regardless of participants’ current lifestyles, and it is the only lifestyle for which the majority of people who are in it want to stay in it.

Figure 1.

Current sexual lifestyle and desired lifestyle in five years’ time.

Three quarters of participants are currently monogamous, and more than 90 percent want to be monogamous in the future. However, a nontrivial minority, 7 percent, prefer nonmonogamy for their future. Marriage is an ideal for this group as well, with nonmonogamous marriage the most popular ideal nonmonogamous lifestyle. But all of the nonmonogamous lifestyles are less desirable than even the least desirable monogamous lifestyle (one regular partner, not cohabiting). Of those who do not wish to be monogamously married in five years, the majority wish to be monogamously cohabiting. Almost no participants want to have no partners, or only casual partners, in five years’ time (each <1 percent).

These data are from the second wave of Natsal (Natsal-2), collected from 1999 to 2001, because a more recent version of the survey omitted the question about ideal lifestyle. Natsal-2 is nationally representative, includes approximately 12,000 participants aged 16 to 44 years, and describes nonmonogamy in neutral language. This results in uniquely valuable data on sexual and relationship beliefs and behaviors, allowing us to better understand both normative behavior and a variety of alternatives, potentially destigmatizing nonnormative behavior and expanding our collective imagination.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231231188335 – Supplemental material for The Next Step: Current Sexual Lifestyles and Future Intentions

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231231188335 for The Next Step: Current Sexual Lifestyles and Future Intentions by Jennifer Schweers in Socius

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-2-srd-10.1177_23780231231188335 – Supplemental material for The Next Step: Current Sexual Lifestyles and Future Intentions

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-2-srd-10.1177_23780231231188335 for The Next Step: Current Sexual Lifestyles and Future Intentions by Jennifer Schweers in Socius