THURSDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Many young American
couples can't agree on whether they've decided to have sex only
with each other, a new study shows.
Oregon State University researchers analyzed data collected from
434 heterosexual married and non-married couples, aged 18 to 25. In
40 percent of those couples, one partner said the couple had agreed
to be monogamous while the other partner said there was no such
deal.
Even among couples who agreed that they had decided to have sex
only with each other, nearly 30 percent had broken that agreement,
with at least one partner having sex outside the relationship, the
findings indicated.
The study also found that couples with children were less likely
to have a monogamy agreement in place and married couples were no
more likely than other couples to have an explicit monogamy
agreement.
In fact, the authors noted, the only relationship aspect related
to sustained monogamy was commitment. A scale from one to five was
used to assess whether participants viewed their relationship as
permanent, and the higher they scored on the commitment scale, the
more likely the couple was to have a sustained monogamy
agreement.
The findings will be published in an upcoming online edition of
the
Journal of Sex Research.
"Other studies have looked at perceptions related to monogamy, but this is really the first one that explores the discussions that heterosexual couples are, or aren't, having about monogamy," research associate Jocelyn Warren said in a university news release.
"Couples have a hard time talking about these sorts of issues, and I would imagine for young people it's even more difficult," study colleague Marie Harvey, a professor of public health, said in the news release.
"Monogamy comes up quite a bit as a way to protect against sexually transmitted diseases. But you can see that agreement on whether one is monogamous or not is fraught with issues," she added.
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines how
to
protect yourself from sexually transmitted
diseases.