Posted March 28, Reviewed by Lybi Ma. But what exactly do we mean when we say we like, don't like, or want to try having, rough sex? And do our sexual partners mean the same thing when they think about rough sex? In a new study , recently published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy , researchers set out to explore how people conceptualize rough sex, specifically focusing on comparisons across genders, sexual orientations, and political-ideological backgrounds.
The study included 4, participants women, men, 10 transgender women, 16 trans men, 46 non-binary individuals. What does it mean to you select all that apply? Followed by 13 behaviors. They included: hair pulling, being pinned down, biting, being tied up, slapping, chocking, scratching, hair thrusting, punching, spanking, throwing someone into a bed, making someone have sex, and tearing clothes off.
Some of the most commonly endorsed behaviors that were considered rough sex across all participants were choking, hair pulling, and spanking; each being endorsed by at least two-thirds of each subgroup. Being tied up, being pinned down, slapping, biting, and scratching were endorsed by about half to two-thirds of participants, and throwing someone into a bed was endorsed by approximately half of participants. Just under half of the participants in this study identified tearing clothes off to mean rough sex.
Punching was only endorsed by around one third of participants. Making someone have sex was the least endorsed behavior considered to be rough sex, endorsed by less than one-fifth of study participants. The authors also looked and which behaviors might form together in a cluster or, in other words, be considered somewhat similar or related. Hair pulling, being pinned down, hard thrusting, spanking, and throwing someone onto the bed were found to create one cluster of behaviors for both men and women.
The second cluster consisted of being tied up, slapping, choking, punching, and making someone have sex. Across genders, tearing off clothes was the only notable difference, with women having this fitting in with the first cluster and men having it as a separate third cluster.
