A study by E. Sandra Byers, Ph.D., and Harry Heinlein, M.A., of the Department of Psychology at the University of New Brunswick concluded that men initiate sexual activity more frequently than women. The study surveyed 77 married and co-habitating individuals who had been romantically involved with their partners for an average of 8.7 years. During individual sessions, participants completed a number of questionnaires to measure sexual activity over a one-week period. At the end of the day, participants indicated: (1) whether sex had been initiated on that day, and if so, by whom; (2) if sex was initiated whether the non-initiator's first response was positive or negative; (3) if sex was not initiated by either partner, whether the partner had considered initiating sexual activity. The researchers developed a number of explanations to support their findings.

Finding #1

Men and women have a different interest in sex.

More than twice as many women as men did not initiate sex during the one-week period.
More men considered initiating sex on days when no sexual activity took place than did women.

The reason why women did not initiate sexual activity was NOT because they were waiting for their husband to make the first move or fearing that their sexual advances would be rejected by their partner. Women simply considered initiating sex less often than men.

Finding #2

Within long-term relationships, sexual initiations are usually successful in that the partner responds favorably to the sexual initiations.

Individuals in long-term relationships are more aware of how likely their partner is to respond to sexual initiation and thus only initiate when they have an expectancy of a positive response.

Individuals use contextual clues, predictions of past behavior and partner's signals to decide whether or not to initiate sex.

Women and men did not differ in their frequency of negative responses to sexual initiations.

Women gave more negative responses to sexual initiations than did their male partners; however, the women also responded positively and more frequently than men. These results are not consistent with the traditional sexual script that puts women in the role of restrictor of sexual activity and men in the role of always being interested in sex. Since men are more often in the position of actor, with respect to sexual initiations, women are consequently more often in the position of reactor.