Exploring Sexual Satisfaction across Relationship Statuses: A Comparative Study of Singlehood, Committed Relationships, and Long-Distance Relationships at Royal Military College of Canada

Abstract

Previous research focused on comparing singles with partnered individuals and geographically close relationships with long-distance relationships (LDRs). Despite sexual satisfaction being acknowledged as a universal indicator of one’s overall well-being via its relation to sexual health, there is a research gap on the relationship between sexual satisfaction and various relationship statuses. Comparing all three relationship statuses (i.e., singlehood, committed relationship, and long-distance relationship) contributes to closing the gap, considering that these groups have distinct characteristics from one another. Other deficient areas include studying military personnel and emerging adults. Therefore, this study aims to compare the levels of sexual satisfaction between individuals in singlehood, committed relationships, and LDRs with a military student sample. A sample of students (n = 176) with various relationship statuses was recruited from the Royal Military College (RMC). Upon consenting, participants answered a demographics questionnaire, completed the Satisfaction with Sex Life Scale-Revised (Park & MacDonald, 2022) to measure sexual satisfaction level, Sexual Desire Inventory-2 (Spector et al., 1996) for measuring sexual desire, and the Want and Do list (Park & MacDonald, 2022) for measuring desire for and engagement in specific acts, and they were debriefed with a list of available resources. Results indicated that relationship status had a significant main effect on sexual satisfaction, while gender and age did not. There were some differences based on relationship status with partnered individuals reporting the highest sexual satisfaction and singles reporting the lowest. Additionally, solitary sexual desire predicted sexual satisfaction in partnered individuals while age predicted sexual satisfaction in LDR individuals. Emerging adults are learning to balance between career and romantic relationships while navigating LDRs. Military personnel are also subjected to LDRs due to operational requirements, such as deployments and frequent relocations. This study aimed to close the significant gap in our understanding of the sexual satisfaction of these samples. Institutional implications for RMC and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and directions for future research will be discussed.