A recent study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences explores the relationship between casual sex and self-esteem, challenging long-held stereotypes about women who engage in non-committed sexual relationships. The researchers found that, contrary to popular belief, there is not a strong link between casual sex and low self-esteem among women.
Casual sex, defined as sexual activity outside of a committed relationship, has become more socially acceptable and prevalent in recent years. Despite this shift, there are ongoing concerns about the potential negative effects of casual sex on well-being, particularly for women. Previous research (Krems 2021) has shown that women who engage in casual sex are often stereotyped as having lower self-esteem.
The new study study aimed to investigate whether there is any truth to this stereotype by examining the relationship between casual sex and self-esteem among young adults. The researchers sought to determine if this association has changed over time and whether it differs based on specific aspects of self-esteem and sociosexuality (the acceptance and pursuit of casual sex).
“I have had a long history of looking at issues about young adulthood sexuality. We read with interest the Krems et al. paper. They had found that there was generally no association found in their data between participants’ own sexual attitudes and behaviors and their self-esteem scores,” said study author Susan Sprecher, a distinguished professor of sociology and anthropology at Illinois State University.
“However, they found that there was a stereotype that people seem to hold (based on their vignette research) that people linked casual sex with a lower self-esteem for women. Because I had data collected at my university over almost 30 years, we were interested in examining whether there may have been a kernel of truth to the association (between people’s [and especially women’s] own sexual attitudes and behaviors and their own self-esteem) 2-3 decades ago even though it may no longer be found today. Thus, we did the analyses with the data available.”
The data for this study were collected from students at a Midwestern university in the United States from 1990 to 2019. The participants, who were enrolled in a human sexuality class, completed anonymous surveys during class. The final sample included 8,112 students, with a median age of 20. The surveys included measures of global self-esteem, relationship self-esteem, appearance self-esteem, and sociosexuality, which encompassed three dimensions: behavior (actual engagement in casual sex), attitudes (beliefs about casual sex), and desire (fantasies about sex with alternative partners).
The researchers found no significant correlation between overall sociosexuality and global self-esteem for either men or women across the entire sample and within each decade. This finding indicates that, broadly speaking, engaging in casual sex does not significantly impact one’s overall sense of self-worth.
Despite the lack of a strong overall correlation, the researchers observed gender differences when examining specific dimensions of sociosexuality and types of self-esteem.
For men, higher levels of casual sexual behavior were associated with slightly higher global self-esteem. Men who felt more positive about their physical appearance were also more likely to have an unrestricted sociosexual orientation. In other words, men who were confident in their looks tended to feel more comfortable engaging in casual sex.
For women, the researchers found that those who reported heightened sociosexual desire tended to have lower global self-esteem. Additionally, women who had higher relationship self-esteem (viewing themselves positively as relationship partners) were less likely to engage in unrestricted sociosexual behavior. These findings imply that women who value themselves as good relationship partners tend to prefer committed relationships.
Interestingly, the researchers found that heightened sociosexual desire was negatively associated with relationship self-esteem for both men and women. This means that individuals who frequently fantasized about alternative partners tended to view themselves less positively as relationship partners. For both genders, this negative association held true across most of the time periods studied, except for the most recent cohort.
Overall, these findings indicate that while there are some gender-specific associations between different aspects of sociosexuality and self-esteem, the general stereotype that casual sex is linked to low self-esteem for women does not hold up under scrutiny.
“A general takeaway is that women (and men) who have more unrestricted sociosexuality (i.e., are okay with casual sex) do not have a poorer self-esteem than women (and men) who are more restricted in their sociosexuality,” Sprecher told PsyPost. “And, this would be true more recently, as well as 2-3 decades ago.”
The lack of a significant overall correlation suggests that other factors, such as individual motivations and societal pressures, may play a more critical role in influencing the link between casual sexual behavior and self-esteem. For example, the researchers suggest that the stereotype linking women’s low self-esteem and interest in casual sex might hold some truth when non-autonomous motives, such as having sex to avoid rejection, are involved.
But the study, like all research, has limitations. It only included university students from one Midwestern U.S. university, which may not represent the broader population. Additionally, the study relied on self-reported data, which can be subject to biases. The researchers plan to continue investigating the relationship between casual sex and self-esteem.
“In the future, we plan to investigate factors that may shed light on the sexual double-standard stereotype found by Krems et al. (2021), despite the lack of an association between past participants’ self-reported sociosexuality (proclivity toward casual sex) and self-esteem,” explained co-author Julie Verette Lindenbaum, an assistant professor at Russell Sage College.
The study, “Is there a kernel of truth to the stereotype that women who engage in casual sex have lower self-esteem?” was published online on March 1, 2024.