Dear Harry please could you tell me for what purpose you need that kind of data? I don´t have the proper longitudinal screening, but I might have some interesting retrostpective recalls for you. All the best Katerina

 Katerina,

Thank you for your response.

I will be examining individual differences in trends by attachment orientation, so I am initially interested in knowing if my normative data are similar to what others have reported.  I would be grateful for any information you have that provides trends on sexual frequency and/or companionship from new romantic relationships to long term (>2 years) among 19-25 year olds, or between-group data that can compare monthly differences along this same relationships time frame.

Best,

Harry

Hi Emmanouil,

Thank you for your suggestions.  Sexual orientation should not present a problem given that participants report on sexual frequency with their current romantic partner only, same sex or heterosexual. I am also able to examine if sexual frequency  trends differ for young adults in same-sex or heterosexual relationships, albeit my same-sex sample is quite small. 

There is good information available on general trends in sexual activity over the third decade of life, but not that is specific to the life-cycle of exclusive relationships, at least none that I can find. 

Best,

Harry

Hi Harry,

I encountered a similar problem. Here are some references that might help your search, although some may not be so current:

Christopher, F. S., & Sprecher, S. (2000). Sexuality in marriage, dating, and other relationships: A decade review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62, 999-1017.

Reece, M., Herbenick, D., Schick, V., Sanders, S. A., Dodge, B., & Fortenberry, J. D. (2010). Sexual behaviors, relationships, and perceived health among adult men in the United States: results from a national probability sample. The journal of sexual medicine, 7, 291-304.

Willetts, Sprecher, & Beck (2004). Overview of sexual practices and attitudes within relational contexts. In J. H. Harvey, A. Wenzel, & S. Sprecher (Eds.), The handbook of sexuality in close relationships (pp. 57-85). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Thank you, Ohad.

I did not have these sources and the Christopher and Sprecher piece led me to another source that used relationship duration as a factor:  Tanfer, K., & Cubbins, L. A. (1992). Coital frequency among single women: Normative constraints and situational opportunities. Journal of Sex Research, 29(2), 221-250.

This article by Tanfer and Cubbins is the first I have found to provide some information on sex frequency by duration among non-married dating young adults (albeit restricted to women); they used the following categories:  0-6 months, 6-12, 12-24, and over 24 months.  Although the sample size for the 0-6 was small (n=39), their results indicate that sex frequency for Caucasian women had already peaked by this time, with a steady declining frequency thereafter (based on between-subject data).  This trend, however, was not observed for their African American sample, who showed about half the overall coital frequency and no overall trend by relationship duration.  The sample for this study was primarily a community household sample of never-married women from 20-29 years. 

It would be nice to see a finer grained examination within the first 6 months of a relationship for men and women, If anybody has some relevant data or knows of a source. 

Thanks, again. It feels like I have finally left the starting gate on this question. 

We didn't look at coital frequency, per se, but did look at some other relationship factors including companionship, etc and differences between serious and casual partners among young adults in this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223988984_Condom_Use_with_Serious_and_Casual_Heterosexual_Partners_Findings_from_a_Community_Venue-Based_Survey_of_Young_Adults.  Might that be helpful?

Article Condom Use with Serious and Casual Heterosexual Partners: Fi...

Thank you, Dare

I am sure this will be useful as I am looking for trends in companionship, as well as other relationship factors that may change over time or that may be different between new/casual and committed relationships.  I have not taken a close look at your paper yet, but I am curious how much of the observed differences you believe are a function of relationship duration versus personality or relationship-style factors (i.e., people who choose casual dating versus an investment in a committed relationship)? I imagine you discuss this in your paper, so I look forward to taking a closer look. 

Best, Harry

Hi Harry,

I think one of the interesting aspects of this research that we were not able to entirely flesh out is how much relationship factors were mutually dependent on contraceptive factors, ie, did stopping condom use make the relationship serious or did the seriousness of the relationship precipitate condom drop off? Further, we found that the horizon of relationship transition was around 3 months, which is in agreement with a lot of other work with this population.  We did not look at personality factors, but did look at sexual scripts and heuristics, which figured prominently in contraceptive decision-making.

Let me know if I can help with more info.

Best,

Dare

Hi Dare,

That is interesting.  I see that duration, using the 3 month demarcation, did not predict last condom use amongst the 'casual'  group.  The logistic regression, however, appeared to hint at a possible trend, that greater length may actually encourage condom use among this group. Did you test for an interaction? That is, if relationship type (casual or serious) moderated the association between duration and last condom use?  

I am also very interested in any sources or reviews you can provide that document 3 months as a marker or horizon for a transition in relationship quality, attitudes, or experiences. 

Thank you again for following up with me. 

Harry

Thanks to all for your questions and answeres, It was also very helpful for me, these papers of sexuality development in early dating couples are not easily available. I am working on that topic but in the sample of long-term and married couples, and I have some reprospective recalls to the beginning of relationship, but this is still not published. But in any case, if you want to cooperate on something like this, I will be happy to share - I think this is an important topic.

I am always interested in possibilities for collaboration. It would seem that retrospective data is still useful in this area given the seeming absence of available longitudinal research.  Could you describe your sample and current research questions.  You can also email me at [email protected].