"Sex in a Relationship" versus "Sex During a One-Night Stand": The Link Between Mental Representations of Consensual Sexuality, Mating Strategies, and Sexual Experience in Heterosexual Women and Men.

Abstract

Sexual scripts, that is, the mental representations of sexual behavior, are highly influenced by mating strategies and sexual experience. The relationship between these factors and sexual scripts is, however, poorly understood. Therefore, we assessed how long-term (e.g., "sex in a relationship") and short-term (e.g., "one-night stand") strategies, as well as experience with highly scripted sexual practices (BDSM: bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, sadism-masochism), influence verbalized sexual script composition and detailedness. To this end, 204 heterosexual men and women generated both a "sex in a relationship" and a "one-night stand" script. Regarding mating strategies, both men and women generated shorter "sex in a relationship" scripts than "one-night stand" scripts, due to a shorter approach (flirting) phase. In addition, in the "sex in a relationship" script, women generated longer foreplay phases than men. Regarding sexual experience, in the "sex in a relationship" script, individuals with high-BDSM experience generated longer foreplay phases than individuals with middle- or low-BDSM experience. This pattern was reversed in the "one-night stand" script. These results provide empirical support for interactions between mating strategies and individual experience with regard to the mental representations of sexual activity and gender behavior. Understanding this relationship may enable us to better predict sexual encounters and may help to prevent conflicting or abusive situations.