This research addresses the interrelations existing between trajectories of intimate partnerships and attitudes toward sexuality, sexual desire, and sexual satisfaction. It is based on a dataset of 600 adults aged 25–46 living in Geneva (Switzerland) and uses innovative multivariate techniques for clustering life trajectories. The results emphasize the diversity of men's and women's trajectories of intimate partnerships. Trajectories with frequent and short-term partnerships are associated with recreational attitudes and higher solitary and dyadic sexual desire. In contrast, trajectories featuring few or no intimate partnerships are associated with traditional sexual attitudes and less sexual desire. Women's attitudes toward sexuality are more strongly associated with their intimate trajectories than men's. This suggests that men and women do not develop their sexuality in the same relation with intimacy. The results are referred to the gendered master status hypothesis.
This article addresses the issue of the interrelations existing between trajectories of intimate partnership and attitudes toward sexuality, sexual desire, and sexual satisfaction. Most life course studies have been concerned with sexuality as far as it endangers the life opportunities of individuals, such as, for instance, by taking them out of the loop of educational training in the case of teenage pregnancy or by putting them at risk of sexual diseases (Crockett et al., 1996, Dickson et al., 1998, Dunne et al., 1997, Graaf et al., 2009 and Miller and Moore, 1990). Although a large number of studies exist on the timing of the first sexual intercourse or early sexual intercourse in teenage years and its link with attitudes toward sexuality and current sexual behavior (Bozon, 1993, Crockett et al., 1996, Furstenberg et al., 1987, Kinsman et al., 1998, Mueller et al., 2008 and Upchurch et al., 1998), few studies have focused on the interrelations existing between life trajectories and other dimensions of sexuality than the first sexual intercourse. This research refers specifically to individuals’ trajectory of partnerships (such as the number of partnerships, their duration, as well as the frequency and the duration of celibacy) and various dimensions of sexuality, such as attitudes toward sexuality, sexual desire, and sexual satisfaction. We address such issues empirically by using a dataset of adults and innovative multivariate techniques for clustering life trajectories. As sexuality is a social behavior entrenched in intimacy, we expect that trajectories of partnerships developed by individuals over time are related with the ways in which they currently experience sexuality.
