This Approach To Sex Tends To Backfire — Here's Who's Most Likely To Do It

People have different approaches to being in a relationship, and people also have different ways of approaching sex.

In terms of relationships, people can have one of several attachment styles. Your attachment style is your way of viewing and behaving in relationships, and according to psychological theory, it’s based on what your relationship to your earliest caregivers was like. One particular attachment style—called avoidant attachment—describes people who learned early on that other people can't be trusted, and so they tend to avoid getting too close to their partners and prefer being independent.

Sexual exchange norms (as it's called in psychology-speak) describes the tendency to approach sex as an equal trade: There's an equal give and take of sexual benefits between both partners, and keeping that exchange fair is a priority. That might sound like a good thing, but it can make sex seem less intimate and more transactional.

"When people endorse exchange norms, they give benefits with the expectation of receiving equal or comparable benefits in return and are concerned with keeping track of benefits to keep things even between partners," Stephanie Raposo, M.A., a Ph.D. candidate at York University and lead author on the study, and her colleagues write.

The opposite of sexual exchange norms is sexual communal norms, which describes people who are intrinsically motivated to meet their partner's sexual needs just because they want to. This approach to sex is all about giving for the sake of giving, without an expectation of reciprocation. There's trust that their partner will also care about their pleasure too, so there's less concern about keeping track of who's done what.

Raposo and her team surveyed and observed a total of 711 adults in committed relationships, asking them questions to understand their perspective on sex, how their sex life was in the relationship, and how the relationship was in general. Their findings showed that couples who had a more communal approach to sex—rather than a trade-and-barter style—tended to be happier with both their sex life and their relationship. 

The researchers found that people higher in attachment avoidance—aka people with a more avoidant attachment style, who tend to pull away from getting too close to anyone—were more likely to have the "equal exchange" approach to sex.

"Given avoidantly attached people fear of intimacy, their distancing tendencies may become triggered in sexual interactions with a romantic partner," Raposo and colleagues write. "Keeping track of favors may enable them to avoid closeness and maintain independence from their partner."

In other words, for people with an avoidant attachment style, viewing sex as an equal exchange may be less about ensuring both partners get equal pleasure and more about making sure your own needs get met. This approach can also allow them to feel like they're not getting too close to their partner, or at least feel like they have a reason for giving someone pleasure that doesn't have to do with creating real intimacy with them.

Although the sexual-exchange approach might feel safer and more beneficial to people with avoidant attachment styles, there are some consequences to the approach.

In one of their experiments, the researchers had 121 couples keep a daily log about their relationship, sex life, and approaches to sex. The researchers found partners who had a more communal approach to sex—that is, giving without expecting something in return—tended to have better sex. Those couples also tended to be more committed to each other.

In comparison, people who were more exchange-oriented in their approach to sex tended to have more bad sexual experiences. When the researchers checked on these couples three months later, those exchange-oriented people were also more likely to have a decline in relationship satisfaction.

"Endorsing sexual exchange (compared to sexual communal) norms in the bedroom does not benefit, and may actually detract from, sexual and relationship quality," the researchers write.

It's great to have an equitable approach to the bedroom, and closing that orgasm gap is a worthwhile goal. But your motivation matters, too. If your approach to sex is totally centered around keeping track of who's doing more of what, you might find that you're losing a lot of what makes sex great: sharing pleasure together. Meanwhile, if both partners are motivated to meet each other's sexual needs just for the sake of it, sex usually does end up being more pleasurable for both parties.

For people with an avoidant attachment style, connection and closeness may not be a goal of your sexual endeavors—which is OK—but the exchange approach also doesn't seem to come with a lot of sexual benefits. In comparison, being more motivated to meet your partner's needs tends to correlate with better sex.