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Popular culture would have us believe that make up sex is the best kind, but this study has found otherwise.
It's the things romantic movies and messy love songs are made of. It's something some of us fantasise about doing. But have you ever really had mind-blowing, rip-your-socks-off make up sex?
It's certainly something that should be investigated more, isn't it? Well, the folks at Auckland University did just that. And guess what? They found that make up sex isn't as good or as common as we think it is.
The study, done in collaboration with Florida State University, found that "make up sex" is less common and less exciting than popular culture would have people believe, New Zealand's 1 NEWS reported.
The study participants included 100 newlywed heterosexual couples who were surveyed on their sexual habits. Researchers then followed up on them six months later.
Each participant filled in a questionnaire to rate their sexual satisfaction in general and then again each of the following 14 days.
The results yielded the following information: Researchers analysed 2 539 daily surveys with couples reporting they had sex on 864 days, conflict on 494 days and sex co-occurring with conflict on 140 days.
It showed that when conflict was felt by one partner, sex was less likely to occur in the following two days.
“When couples are wondering whether they should engage in sex after conflict, I think they should be mindful that such sex may have short-term benefits by buffering reduced marital satisfaction on days of conflict, but might not be as satisfying as cultural myths would have us believe, or have long-term benefits," said Auckland University psychology professor and study author Jessica Maxell who also pointed out the myth associated with make up sex is exactly that.
"An interesting point is that for all of our findings, we saw little differences between how men and women responded to the survey questions," Maxwell concluded.
