New “Body Count” study shows how sexual past shapes social perception

A study recently published in the journal Sexuality and culture sheds light on how a person’s sexual history influences how others evaluate them. The study found that people with a higher number of sexual partners or those who had casual or non-exclusive relationships were rated less positively. Interestingly, men were judged more negatively than women for the same sexual behavior.

The aim of the study was to examine how societal norms and perceptions regarding sexual behavior have evolved, particularly with regard to the sexual double standard. The sexual double standard refers to society’s tendency to reward men for the same sexual behavior and to discriminate against women.

Despite changing societal norms regarding premarital sex and casual relationships, previous research shows that sex outside of committed relationships is still more acceptable for men than for women. The goal of this study was to better understand how the number and type of previous sexual relationships affects people’s perceptions of and desire for social or romantic relationships with them.

“The topic of how people perceive others based on the number of their sexual partners or their ‘body count’ has always interested me, and I wondered if people’s opinions of others might change when the sexual partners come from different relationships,” explained study author Tara M. Busch, a lecturer in human behavior at the College of Southern Nevada

“In particular, if they might be less judgmental if someone had a ‘high’ number of sexual partners but no one-night stands, or vice versa, or if someone had only had sex with monogamous partners, would they be seen as more ‘moral’, etc.? Previous SDS research seems to suggest this, along with cultural and societal values ​​regarding entering into monogamous relationships.”

The researchers conducted an online survey through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform that compensates participants for completing tasks. The study included 853 participants from the United States between the ages of 18 and 69.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of eight vignettes about a fictional target person. These vignettes varied on three factors: the target person’s gender (male or female), the number of their sexual partners (one or twelve), and the type of relationships from which these partners came (long-term/serious or short-term/casual). These variables were selected to examine how these aspects of sexual history influenced participants’ perceptions and intentions.

After reading the vignettes, participants completed a series of questionnaires. They answered questions about their willingness to engage with the target person in various social situations, including friendship, dating, and sexual relationships. In addition, they rated the target person’s likability, success, intelligence, and values.

The researchers found that relationship type had a significant impact. Participants rated targets who were in long-term/committed relationships more positively than those who were in short-term/casual relationships. This trend was consistent across several measures, including overall ratings and behavioral intentions. Participants expressed a greater willingness to socialize with individuals who were in committed relationships, suggesting that relationship type plays a crucial role in perceptions of sexual history.

There was also a significant main effect of number of sexual partners. Targets with only one previous sexual partner were rated more positively than those with twelve. Participants reported greater willingness to become involved with targets who had fewer sexual partners, suggesting a preference for those with a less extensive sexual history. This preference was evident in both general evaluations and specific intentions to interact socially or romantically.

The researchers discovered surprising gender differences in evaluation. Female victims were generally rated more positively than male victims, regardless of the number of sexual partners they had or the type of relationship they had entered into.

This result suggests a reverse sexual double standard, where men are judged more harshly than women for the same sexual behavior. Participants showed stronger behavioral intentions toward female targets, suggesting a bias in favor of women when it comes to evaluating sexual past.

“I expected that women would be judged more harshly if they had a higher number of sexual partners, but that was not what we found. Men were judged more harshly,” Busch said.

Interestingly, the researchers found no significant interactions between gender, number of sexual partners, and relationship type on general evaluations and behavioral intentions, suggesting that these factors influence perceptions independently rather than combining to produce combined effects.

However, significant three-way interactions were found for interest in dating and sex with target individuals. Participants showed more interest in dating and sex with women, particularly those with fewer sexual partners in committed relationships.

“The main findings are that relationship type and number of sexual partners are unrelated, meaning that people are more likely to judge others for engaging in short-term/casual relationships than long-term/exclusive relationships and for having a higher number of sexual partners,” Busch told PsyPost. “People were also less interested in having sex or dating these individuals. But it didn’t necessarily have to be both having many partners and casual/short-term relationships, one or the other was enough to make them judge them and less interested.”

However, as with all studies, this study has some caveats. The sample was diverse in terms of age and relationship status. Future studies could focus on specific age groups or relationship status to see if these factors influence perceptions differently. In addition, the study did not take into account the level of sexual activity of participants, which could affect their assessments of others.

Importantly, using hypothetical vignettes may not fully reflect real-world perceptions. “Other recent research suggests that women become more negatively evaluated than men when evaluating people in the real world, or real people rather than hypothetical people, as their number of sexual partners increases,” Busch noted. “This makes me think that we might get different results if we conducted this study in a similar way, that is, with real targets rather than hypothetical targets.”

“It would be interesting to conduct a study like the one described above, where instead of vignettes of hypothetical targets, people rate other people they know from their own lives.”

Despite these caveats, the study makes an important contribution to our understanding of societal perceptions of sexual behavior, highlighting the persistent stigmas associated with casual sex and changing partners.

Authors of the study “The influence of sexual history and relationship type on social perception” were Tara M. Busch and Patricia Saldala-Torres.