CASUAL SEX--AND NO EMOTIONAL WRECKAGE?: The Star-Tribune

sort of reports, kind of, in a sense:

...They asked more than 1,300 young Minnesota adults about their most recent sexual encounters, their self-esteem and their emotional well-being. Interestingly, only about one-fifth of the subjects said their last encounter was casual. But their overall emotional status was no different than the four-fifths who said they were in committed relationships with their most recent sexual partner. ...

The researchers surveyed 1,311 young adults in Minnesota, pulled from a group they began following years ago as part of a major ongoing research study in adolescent health and nutrition. All the people in the study were sexually active and answered a series of survey questions about their last sexual encounter, depressive symptoms and self-esteem.

The researchers divided the responses by how the subjects described their most recent sexual encounter. About 25 percent said it was with a committed partner, 55 percent said it was an exclusive dating partner, 12 percent said it was with a close, but not sexually exclusive, partner, and 8 percent said it was a casual acquaintance.

That breakdown fits with other similar surveys of young adults, Eisenberg said.

But what was different is that they found no differences in reports of depression or self-esteem, regardless of gender or the type of most recent sexual encounter, she said. ...

They did find some differences among the groups. Black men, for example, were more likely than white men to describe their last sexual encounter as casual. And twice as many men as women said their last sexual encounter was casual - 29 percent compared to 14 percent.

That difference raises the obvious question: How can there be twice as many men having casual sex as women? The answer, Eisenberg said, most likely lies in cultural norms that make it more acceptable for men to describe their sexual encounters as casual.

"Young women have more of a tendency to characterize it as more special than, perhaps, the man did," she said.

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Labels: committed relationships, gender differences, premarital sex, sex, universities

posted by Eve at 2:20 AM VOTE

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