Predicting initiations and refusals of sexual activities in married and cohabiting heterosexual couples

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Abstract
Twenty‐two men and 55 women used a self‐monitoring procedure to keep an ongoing record of three aspects of sexual frequency in marital and cohabiting relationships: sexual initiations, responses to these initiations, and considering initiating but not doing so. In addition, respondents provided descriptive information on one negative and one positive response situation. Two of the goals of the study were to determine whether one or more of these aspects of sexual frequency: (1) was related to the factors relevant to sexual frequency; and (2) differed for men and women. A third goal was to determine the strategies individuals used to initiate sexual activity and to respond to sexual initiations, and to relate these to the partner's response. The results indicated that male partners initiated and considered initiating sex more often than did the female partners. However, contrary to sex‐role stereotypes, when the number of initiations was controlled, men and women did not differ in their responses to the sexual initiations. Regression analyses indicated that cohabiting (as compared to married) individuals and individuals with greater sexual satisfaction reported more initiations. When the number of initiations was controlled, less sexually satisfied individuals were found to give more negative responses to initiations.