Do women who have casual sex have lower self-esteem? New research has found

A study recently published in the journal Personality and individual differences examines the relationship between casual sex and self-esteem, challenging long-held stereotypes about women who engage in casual sexual relationships. The researchers found that, contrary to popular belief, there is no 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 accepted and common in recent years. Despite this development, concerns remain about the potential negative impact of casual sex on well-being, particularly among 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 aimed to find out if there is any truth to this stereotype by examining the relationship between casual sex and self-esteem in young adults. The researchers wanted to find out whether this relationship changed over time and whether it differed depending on certain aspects of self-esteem and sociosexuality (acceptance and pursuit of casual sex).

“I have been interested in questions about sexuality in young adulthood for a long time. We read the work of Krems et al. with interest. They found that their data generally showed no relationship between participants’ sexual attitudes and behaviors and their self-esteem scores,” said study author Susan Sprecher, a renowned professor of sociology and anthropology at Illinois State University.

“However, they found that there seems to be a stereotype (based on their vignette research) that casual sex is associated with lower self-esteem in women. Since I have collected data at my university for almost 30 years, we wanted to investigate whether there might have been some truth to this association (between people’s (especially women’s) sexual attitudes and behaviors and their self-esteem) 2-3 decades ago, even if it may no longer exist today. Therefore, we conducted the analyses with the available data.”

Data for this study were collected from 1990 to 2019 from students at a university in the Midwestern United States. Participants, who were taking a course on human sexuality, completed anonymous surveys during class. The final sample included 8,112 students with an average age of 20 years. Surveys included measures of general self-esteem, relationship self-esteem, appearance-related self-esteem, and sociosexuality, which included 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 in total Sociosexuality and general self-esteem among men and women across the entire sample and within each decade. This result indicates that, by and large, casual sex does not have a significant impact on general self-esteem.

Despite the lack of a strong overall correlation, the researchers found gender differences in the study Specific Dimensions of sociosexuality and types of self-esteem.

For men, higher levels of casual sex were associated with slightly higher overall self-esteem. Men who were more comfortable with their appearance were also more likely to have an unconstrained sociosexual orientation. In other words, men who were confident about their appearance tended to feel more comfortable engaging in casual sex.

Among women, researchers found that those who reported increased sociosexual desire tended to have lower overall self-esteem. In addition, women with higher relationship self-esteem (who viewed themselves positively as relationship partners) were less likely to engage in unrestrained sociosexual behavior. These findings suggest that women who value themselves as good relationship partners tend to prefer committed relationships.

Interestingly, the researchers found that increased sociosexual desire was negatively related to relationship self-esteem in both men and women. That is, individuals who frequently fantasized about alternative partners tended to view themselves less positively as relationship partners. For both sexes, this negative association held across most of the time periods studied, with the exception of 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 associated with low self-esteem in women does not stand up to closer scrutiny.

“One general conclusion is that women (and men) who have a more free sociosexuality (i.e., are OK with casual sex) do not have lower self-esteem than women (and men) who are more restricted in their sociosexuality,” Sprecher told PsyPost. “And this is just as true in recent times as it was 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 crucial role in influencing the relationship between casual sex and self-esteem. For example, the researchers suggest that the stereotype linking women’s low self-esteem to their interest in casual sex may be partially true when non-autonomous motives, such as having sex to avoid rejection, are at play.

But like all research, this study has limitations. It only included students at a university in the Midwestern United States, which may not represent the broader population. In addition, the study relied on self-reported data, which may introduce bias. The researchers plan to further investigate the relationship between casual sex and self-esteem.

“In the future, we plan to examine factors that might shed light on the sexual double standard stereotype identified by Krems et al. (2021), although there is no association between self-reported sociosexuality (tendency toward casual sex) and self-esteem among previous participants,” explained co-author Julie Verette Lindenbaum, assistant professor at Russell Sage College.

The study, “Is there any truth to the stereotype that women who have casual sex have lower self-esteem?” was published online on March 1, 2024.