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Very little is known about how enjoyment of sexual behavior is linked to the relationship context of the behavior among young adults in the United States. To examine this association, multivariate logistic and ordered logistic regression analyses were conducted using data from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, collected when the participants were 18 to 26 years old (N = 2,970). Analyses explored the associations between four measures of sexual enjoyment and three measures of relationship context. Perceived equity was associated with sexual enjoyment, but the pattern of associations differed by gender. Perceiving oneself to be underbenefited was associated with less enjoyment for all four measures of sexual enjoyment among women, but for only one measure among men. Perceiving oneself to be overbenefited was associated with less enjoyment for three of the sexual enjoyment measures among men, but for only two among women. Most of these associations were no longer significant when subjective relationship commitment was added to the models. Among both young adult men and women, subjective relationship commitment was associated with all four measures of sexual enjoyment. In contrast, formal relationship status was not consistently associated with any of the sexual enjoyment measures. Young adults perceiving that they are in more-committed relationships enjoy their partnered sexual acts more, on average, than those in less-committed relationships. Anticipation of higher sexual enjoyment could be used by public health campaigns to motivate young adults to engage in fewer, more-committed sexual partnerships.

Little is known about the non-genitally-focused sexual behavior of those experiencing sexual difficulties. The objective of this study was to review the theory supporting a link between sexual touching and difficulties with sexual arousal and orgasm, and to examine associations between these constructs among older adults in the United States. The data were from the 2005–2006 National Social Life Health and Aging Project, which surveyed 3,005 community-dwelling men and women ages 57–85 years. The 1,352 participants who had had sex in the past year reported on their frequency of sexual touching and whether there had been a period of several months or more in the past year when they were unable to climax, had trouble getting or maintaining an erection (men) or had trouble lubricating (women). Women also reported how of ten they felt sexually aroused during partner sex in the last 12 months. The odds of being unable to climax were greater by 2.4 times (95% CI 1.2–4.8) among men and 2.8 times (95% CI 1.4–5.5) among women who sometimes, rarely or never engaged in sexual touching, compared to those who always engaged in sexual touching, controlling for demographic factors and physical health. These results were attenuated but persisted after controlling for emotional relationship satisfaction and psychological factors. Similar results were obtained for erectile difficulties among men and subjective arousal difficulties among women, but not lubrication difficulties among women. Infrequent sexual touching is associated with arousal and orgasm difficulties among older adults in the United States.