Women who perceive their partner as more desirable report higher motivation to please them sexually

A study of women in committed and sexually active romantic relationships in Poland found that women who perceived their mate value as lower than that of their partner showed a stronger desire to satisfy their partner sexually. In turn, this higher motivation was associated with these women initiating sex, performing fellatio, and faking orgasms more frequently. The paper was published in Archives of Sexual Behavior.

Being in a stable romantic relationship is beneficial for both men and women. Stable romantic relationships can provide emotional security, shared resources, mutual protection, and a reliable environment for raising children. From an evolutionary perspective, long-term bonds may have benefited men by increasing confidence in paternity and women by providing support during pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare. Cooperative parenting can improve children’s survival and development by distributing the demands of protection, caregiving, and resource provision between partners.

Nevertheless, maintaining a long-term relationship can be difficult because people must balance commitment to a partner with attraction to possible alternatives. To reduce the risk of infidelity or separation, people use mate-retention strategies aimed at preserving their partner’s commitment.

Benefit-provisioning strategies strengthen the relationship by offering affection, emotional support, resources, attention, or sexual satisfaction. Cost-inflicting strategies instead attempt to discourage defection through jealousy, surveillance, criticism, possessiveness, or restrictions on the partner’s behavior.

These efforts may become stronger when people believe that their partner has greater mate value than they do, because this discrepancy can produce insecurity and fear of abandonment. Mate value is a person’s perceived desirability as a romantic or sexual partner based on traits such as attractiveness, health, personality, status, resources, and relationship qualities.

In their new study, Natalia Frankowska, an assistant professor at SWPS University in Poland and Fulbright Visiting Scholar at UCLA, and her colleagues explored whether heterosexual women with a perceived lower mate value than their male partner engage in sex initiation, active oral sex, and faking orgasms more frequently.

“This study was a continuation of our earlier research on men’s sexual behavior in committed heterosexual relationships,” Frankowska told PsyPost. “Oral sex is interesting from an evolutionary perspective because it does not directly contribute to conception, yet people commonly engage in it. This suggests that it may serve important social, sexual, or relational functions.”

Previous research has suggested that oral sex may function as a mate retention behavior that helps maintain a partner’s interest and commitment. In their earlier study, Frankowska and colleagues found that men who perceived their female partners as having higher mate value than themselves were more motivated to sexually satisfy them, resulting in more frequent cunnilingus.

“We then wanted to test whether a similar mechanism could be observed among women,” Frankowska explained. “More specifically, we were interested in what happens when people feel that their partner may be more desirable than they are — what psychologists call mate value discrepancy. Such perceptions are subjective and may change over time, but they can shape how people think and behave within committed relationships.”

The researchers hypothesized that a larger mate value gap favoring the male partner would increase the woman’s motivation to sexually please him as a mate retention strategy. In turn, this would lead to more frequent attempts at initiating sex, fellatio, and faking orgasms.

“We thought that focusing only on oral sex would capture only one part of this process. In women, partner-directed sexual investment may be expressed both through behaviors that directly provide sexual pleasure, such as oral sex, and through behaviors that signal desire, sexual interest, or sexual satisfaction,” Frankowska said. “Initiating sex may communicate that the partner is wanted and desired, whereas faking orgasm may communicate that the partner is sexually satisfying. We therefore examined oral sex, sex initiation, and faking orgasm as different possible forms of sexual benefit-provisioning mate retention strategies.”

Study participants were 562 Polish women. Among them, 477 reported that they engage exclusively in heterosexual sexual activities, while 85 reported that they predominantly engage in heterosexual sexual activities. Participants were between 18 and 50 years of age, with the average age being 30 years. Nearly 64% of participating women were in relationships lasting more than three years.

Study participants completed an online survey. They first reported their demographic data, sexual orientation, and duration of their current relationship. Next, they reported how often they initiated sex, performed oral sex, and faked orgasms during their last 10 sexual encounters. They also reported how often they experienced orgasm and received oral stimulation from their partner during their last 10 sexual encounters.

The discrepancy in mate values between the participant and her partner was assessed using the Mate Value Scale. In this scale, participants rated their own perceived mate value and separately evaluated their partner’s. The scale itself consists of four items asking the respondent to rate the overall desirability of herself and her partner. The mate value discrepancy was the difference in ratings a woman gave to herself and to her partner. Participants also completed short assessments of their motivation to sexually satisfy the partner and of perceived vulnerability to disease.

Results showed that women with higher mate value discrepancy, meaning they rated their partner’s mate value higher than their own, tended to be slightly more motivated to satisfy their partner sexually. Women who were more motivated to satisfy their partner sexually tended to initiate sex, perform oral sex, and fake orgasms slightly more frequently. They also tended to be younger.

However, mate value discrepancy was not associated directly with the frequency with which women initiated sex, performed fellatio, or faked orgasms. Instead, the study authors tested a statistical model proposing an indirect relationship: higher mate value discrepancy makes women more motivated to satisfy their partner sexually, and that higher motivation then makes them more likely to initiate sex, perform fellatio, or fake orgasms. Results showed that such an indirect relationship between these factors is present.

“The main takeaway is that sexual behavior in committed relationships may be shaped not only by desire and pleasure, but also by perceived relationship dynamics,” Frankowska said. “In our sample of Polish women in committed heterosexual relationships, women who perceived their male partners as having higher mate value than themselves reported a stronger motivation to sexually satisfy their partners. This motivation, in turn, was associated with more frequent sex initiation, oral sex, and faking orgasms.”

Further analyses revealed that the relationship between mate value discrepancy and fellatio frequency did not depend on participating women’s perceived vulnerability to disease, their enjoyment of performing fellatio, or their perception of their partner’s enjoyment of receiving fellatio.

“The most surprising finding was that the indirect effect involving oral sex did not depend on how much women reported enjoying performing oral sex or how much they believed their partners enjoyed receiving it,” Frankowska noted. “This differed from our earlier study on men, where the effect was present mainly among men who enjoyed performing oral sex. This suggests that the mechanisms may be partly similar for women and men, but not identical.”

The study contributes to scientific knowledge about human sexual behavior. However, it should be noted that the design of this study does not allow any causal inferences to be derived from the results. Additionally, all data came from self-reports, leaving room for reporting bias to have affected the results. Previous studies have shown that reporting bias tends to be a particularly important risk in studies asking participants to report sensitive information about their sexual behavior. Finally, all of the reported associations were weak.

“This was a self-report study on sensitive sexual behaviors, so responses may have been influenced by memory, self-presentation, or cultural norms around sexuality,” Frankowska told PsyPost. “The study was also correlational, so we cannot make strong causal claims. We do not know whether perceived mate value discrepancy leads to these behaviors, whether these behaviors shape relationship dynamics, or whether both are influenced by other factors such as relationship satisfaction or perceived risk of infidelity. More research is needed to answer these questions.”

Future research will focus on better understanding the conditions under which sexual behaviors may function as mate retention strategies, and exploring cross-cultural differences in these behaviors.

“I think it is important to interpret these findings carefully,” Frankowska added. “Sexual behavior is complex and can have many meanings at the same time. Our study does not suggest that women’s sexual behaviors are reducible to mate retention, or that these behaviors are inherently problematic. Our point is more specific: perceived imbalance in partners’ mate value may be one factor shaping the motivation to satisfy a partner sexually, and this motivation may be linked to particular sexual behaviors in committed relationships. This is not necessarily conscious, calculated, or manipulative. It is one possible psychological mechanism within broader relationship dynamics.”

The paper, “Polish Women’s Sexual Strategies in Mate Retention: Initiating Sex, Faking Orgasms, and Performing Oral Sex in Response to Mate Value Discrepancy–Evidence from a Preregistered Study,” was authored by Natalia Frankowska, Aleksandra Szymkow, and Andrzej Galbarczyk.