People in the early stages of romantic love tend to have sex more often, but new research suggests that this has less to do with how intensely they feel in love than simply being in that early phase of a relationship. The review, titled “Romantic Love and Sexual Frequency” and authored by Adam Bode, Severi Luoto, Marta Kowal, and Fabio Cannas Aghedu, highlights how complex the connections are between emotion, biology, and behavior. Ongoing studies are expected to refine these insights and explore how they apply across different ages, cultures, and relationship types.
Published in Current Sexual Health Reports, the review combines findings from large international surveys and brain research to examine how romantic love influences sexual activity. The findings suggest that although couples in new relationships generally have sex more often, the intensity of romantic feelings does not appear to predict how frequently they have sex.
Romantic Love as a Distinct Psychological State
Researchers describe romantic love as a powerful motivational state that typically dominates the first one to two years of a relationship.
It is characterized by intense emotions, persistent thoughts about a partner, biological changes, and a strong desire to establish a lasting bond.
Over time, this passionate stage often develops into companionate love, which is generally calmer and characterized by deeper emotional attachment.
Sexual frequency, by contrast, is a straightforward behavioral measure referring to how often people report having sex over a given period.
Previous research has consistently shown that sexual activity tends to decline as relationships become longer, contributing to the widespread belief that the earliest stages of romance are also the most sexually active.
Investigating Love and Sexual Frequency
To better understand this relationship, Adam Bode and colleagues analyzed data from the Romantic Love Survey 2022, an international study involving more than 1,500 young adults from 33 countries who identified themselves as being in love.
The researchers examined whether different aspects of romantic love—including commitment, intrusive thoughts, and emotional intensity—were associated with how frequently participants had sex.
The Evolutionary Origins of Love
The review also explores how romantic love may have evolved.
One modern theory proposes that romantic love emerged by adapting ancient neural and hormonal systems originally responsible for mother-infant bonding rather than evolving as a completely separate biological system.
This differs from earlier theories that viewed sexual desire, romantic attraction, and long-term attachment as three largely independent evolutionary mechanisms.
Instead, researchers suggest that attachment systems became integrated with reproductive processes such as sexual attraction and courtship.
Both maternal bonding and romantic love involve many similar behaviors, including a strong desire for physical closeness, intense focus on another individual, empathy, and protective caregiving.
The repetitive thoughts many parents experience about their newborns resemble the persistent preoccupation often reported by people in new romantic relationships.
Brain imaging studies support this idea by showing that maternal and romantic love activate many of the same reward-related brain regions, including the ventral tegmental area.
Other brain regions rich in oxytocin and vasopressin receptors also show similar activation patterns in both forms of attachment.
Hormonal evidence points in the same direction.
People experiencing early romantic love often have elevated oxytocin levels similar to those observed in new parents, supporting trust, bonding, and social recognition.
Being in Love Matters More Than Feeling It More Strongly
Across the global survey, participants who were in love reported having sex approximately 3.5 times per week on average.
Some individuals reported considerably higher frequencies, with a small number describing as many as 20 sexual encounters each week.
The researchers note that this average is substantially higher than the one to two weekly encounters commonly reported in studies of long-term married couples.
To focus specifically on early-stage romantic love, the researchers limited part of their analysis to participants whose relationships had lasted less than two years.
They then examined whether stronger romantic feelings, greater commitment, or more frequent intrusive thoughts about a partner predicted higher sexual frequency.
Surprisingly, none of these psychological characteristics meaningfully predicted how often participants had sex.
Commitment, relationship duration within the first two years, obsessive thinking, and the intensity of romantic love explained only a very small proportion of the differences in sexual activity.
The findings suggest that simply being in the early stage of romantic love is associated with more frequent sex, regardless of how intensely those feelings are experienced.
Four Different Types of Romantic Lovers
The researchers also explored why some people reported much higher sexual frequency than others.
Using cluster analysis published separately in Personality and Individual Differences, they identified four distinct romantic love profiles: mild, moderate, intense, and libidinous.
People in the mild group, representing about 20% of participants, reported the weakest romantic feelings, lower commitment, and fewer intrusive thoughts.
They also tended to report poorer health, lower levels of agreeableness and extraversion, higher rates of Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnoses, more substance use, riskier driving behavior, and more experiences of unreciprocated love.
The moderate group, comprising approximately 41% of participants, scored near the middle across most psychological measures, including sexual frequency.
They also reported the highest self-confidence and the lowest rates of antidepressant use.
The intense group, accounting for roughly 29% of participants, experienced the strongest romantic feelings, greatest commitment, and the most frequent thoughts about their partners.
This was the only group in which women outnumbered men.
Participants also reported higher relationship satisfaction, greater agreeableness and conscientiousness, and relatively low levels of unreciprocated love.
The smallest group, described as libidinous and representing nearly 10% of participants, stood out primarily because of exceptionally high sexual frequency rather than unusually intense romantic feelings.
These participants averaged almost 10 sexual encounters each week, and every individual in this group reported being sexually active.
They also described themselves as more energetic, scored highest on openness to experience, expressed the strongest desire to travel, and were often in committed relationships without yet living together.
An Unexpected Finding About Antidepressants
One particularly surprising observation involved selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), medications widely prescribed to treat depression and anxiety.
SSRIs are well known for causing sexual side effects, including reduced libido and difficulty reaching orgasm.
However, the libidinous group—which reported the highest sexual frequency—also had the highest proportion of SSRI users, with nearly 13% taking these medications.
Overall, participants taking SSRIs reported having sex just as frequently as those who were not using antidepressants.
The researchers suggest that the biological and emotional effects of early romantic love may partially offset some of the sexual side effects associated with these medications.
Another possibility is that individuals experiencing severe medication-related sexual dysfunction may be less likely to enter or maintain intense romantic relationships and therefore be underrepresented in the sample.
Important Limitations
The researchers emphasize several limitations.
Most participants were young adults from Western, educated, industrialized societies, meaning the findings may not generalize to older adults or people living in different cultural environments.
Sexual frequency was also measured using a single self-reported question, and participants may have interpreted the meaning of “sex” differently.
Because respondents estimated their typical weekly sexual activity rather than recording it prospectively, some responses may also have been imprecise.
In addition, the available data focused on individuals rather than couples, meaning important factors such as a partner’s health, desire, and relationship dynamics could not be fully examined.
What the Findings Mean for Couples
The review suggests that higher sexual frequency appears to be linked more strongly to the stage of a relationship than to the intensity of romantic love itself.
As relationships naturally transition toward companionate love, declines in sexual frequency may reflect a normal part of long-term relationship development rather than a loss of affection.
The researchers suggest these findings may help reassure couples who worry that changes in sexual activity automatically signal relationship problems.
Instead, therapists and clinicians may encourage couples to focus on communication, mutual understanding, health, stress management, and realistic expectations about how intimacy evolves throughout the lifespan.
