Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The purpose of the present study was to provide a detailed examination of sexual behavior with different types of partners.
A sample of young adults reported on their light nongenital, heavy nongenital, and genital sexual activity with romantic partners, friends, and casual acquaintances. Young adults were most likely to engage in sexual behavior with romantic partners, but sexual behavior also often occurred with some type of nonromantic partner. More young adults engaged in some form of sexual behavior with casual acquaintances than with friends with benefits. The frequencies of sexual behavior, however, were greater with friends with benefits than with friends or casual acquaintances.
Interview and questionnaire data revealed that friends with benefits were typically friends, but not necessarily. Nonsexual activities were also less common with friends with benefits than other friends.
Taken together, the findings illustrate the value of differentiating among different types of nonromantic partners and different levels of sexual behavior. Most research on sexual behavior has not considered the nature of the relationship in which it occurs. When the context of the relationship has been considered, the research has focused on sexual behavior in romantic relationships or some subset of romantic relationships, such as marriages or cohabitating couples e.
Yet the sexual behavior of young adults and adolescents often occurs in other contexts. About half of these incidents with a nonromantic partner occurred only once Manning, et al. Most investigators have not differentiated among different partners within the general category of casual or nonromantic sexual partners. Some investigators have examined one particular category of nonromantic partners e. In the two studies that did include multiple categories Grello, et al. To date, relatively little is known about differences in the sexual activity with different partners.
