SEXUAL STYLES IN AMERICA (BY PARADE SURVEY): LONELY EROTIC AND OTHER STYLES
The Lonely Erotic
Life satisfaction: Low
Sensuality: Low
Eroticism: High
121 persons per 1,000
27 percent women, 73 percent men
These are lonesome people who respond more to sexual imagery, depictions (i.e., pornography), and certain sexual activities than to their sexual partner per se. They have difficulty forming relationships, and their main sexual outlet is masturbation. They get nothing out of foreplay and are unhappy in most aspects of their lives, including sex. They dislike their bodies.
Although a significant number of women are Lonely Erotics, men outnumber them by more than two to one. People who have had homosexual experience also congregate in this style.
The Satisfied Sensualist
Life satisfaction: High
Sensuality: High
Eroticism: Low
109 persons per 1,000
54 percent women, 46 percent men
These people are happy with their sex lives, their partners, and themselves. Most are married. They love to snuggle up to their partner, kiss, fondle, and hug. Such foreplay is sufficiently arousing for intercourse. Most of the more erotic sexual activities – such as pornography, fantasy, oral sex – turn them off, however. They have sex with partners frequently but not often by themselves.
Says one typical Satisfied Sensualist, a 50-year-old man who has been married for 25 years with only one sex partner in his entire life, “It’s important for me to be in love with the person I am making love to.”
The Unsatisfied Sensualist
Life satisfaction: Low
Sensuality: High
Eroticism: Low
85 persons per 1,000
67 percent women, 33 percent men
Very unhappy in many aspects of their lives – their looks, feelings, and sexuality – these people seek human contact. For them, sensual behaviors such as kissing and fondling are arousing, so there is some spark of sex. But their sex lives are unsatisfactory. Many Unsatisfied Sensualists lack partners, because they never married or are no longer married. In fact, many are older women alone. They are lonely people with a low sex drive who infrequently have sex, even by themselves. Generally, sex is not important to them.
The Sexually Conservative
Life satisfaction: High
Sensuality: Low
Eroticism: Low
111 persons per 1,000
67 percent women, 33 person men
Sex may not be central to the lives of these people, who are otherwise happy and who like themselves. They do not find most foreplay arousing. In fact, they may be turned off by it. Yet, with frequent intercourse, they are satisfied with what they are getting. Six of seven are married. A 37-year-old woman, typical of the Sexually Conservative, wrote on her questionnaire, “I think that a couple’s ability to work together so that they are both happy far outweighs location, ‘climate,’ sexual frequency, or technique.”
The Nonsexual
Life satisfaction: Low Sensuality: Low
Eroticism: Low
132 persons per 1,000
68 percent women, 32 percent men
Very unhappy with their lives and bodies, without frequent sex, and un-aroused by any sexual stimulation – even the most erotic – these people have no interest in sex. A 40-year-old woman reflected this by writing, “I am too uptight”.
*118/266/5*
