The Life Course As a Factor of Sexual Inequality: Trajectories of Intimate Partnerships, Sexual Attitudes, Sexual Desire and Sexual Satisfaction

Talk by Prof. Eric Widmer, University of Geneva

The talk will address the interrelations existing between trajectories of intimate partnerships and attitudes towards sexuality, sexual desire and sexual satisfaction. Studies dealing with sexuality in a life course perspective mainly focus on the first sexual intercourse and sexual behavior during teenage years as a predictor of later (and often unfortunate) outcomes. Overall, they stress that individuals who had their first sexual intercourse early are more likely to have permissive attitudes toward sexuality. Accordingly, we hypothesize that trajectories of partnerships that individuals develop throughout their life is a key factor for understanding important dimensions of their current sexuality. The empirical study  is based on a dataset of 600 adults aged 25-46, living in Geneva (Switzerland), and uses innovative multivariate techniques for clustering life trajectories.