What Your Political Affiliation Says About Your Sex Life

Politics and sex go hand-in-hand. Here’s what the science and surveys have to say.

Politics and sex are crazy intertwined.

Politics as a profession tends to attract high testosterone individuals. It’s like gambling or getting hired by a drug cartel.

The stakes are high — but so too are the payoffs. Not only does politics tend to attract more men than women (and more power-hungry men than not), it also tends to attract the kinds of men who are less than faithful — the kinds of guys who have all sorts of weird sexual quirks.

Every once in a while, we see a big political sex scandal in the news, and in a few weeks, it all blows over. It’s forgotten about. Honestly, does it even surprise you anymore?

From Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” to Trump’s bombshells about grabbing and groping women, we’ve seen and heard it all from professional politicians.

News about their sex lives barely moves the needle on the Richter scale, anymore.

But the link between sex and politics runs much deeper than just the politicians themselves.

That’s right, my friends…

As above, so below…

Both economics and golden showers trickle down. And science has uncovered some interesting facts about what our politics say about our sex lives, you and me, the constituents.

The Substance of Sex and Politics

Before we get started, it would behoove us to understand why sex and politics are so deeply intertwined. While these two aspects of our lives tend to be separate (I hope you’re not having sex in the poll booth — and I definitely hope you’re not talking about politics in the bedroom), the truth is, both sex and politics are about values.

In theory, we pick both our partners and our parties on the basis of our deeply held convictions. It should come as no surprise, then, that what we value most tends to show up most in our sex and our politics.

Traditional sex values (and behaviors) tend to crop up in the lives of conservatives more often than they do liberals. Yes, it’s true, conservatives are much more likely to favor the missionary position.

And progressive sexual attitudes, like risky behaviors and adventurous sexual exploration, usually materialize in the lives of liberals more often. Yes, it’s true, liberals tend to sleep around and are more likely to be kinky.

It should come as no surprise, given Trump’s attitudes towards women, that Trump supporters are more likely to expect sex on the first date, according to a survey by Match and Research Now.

It should also come as no surprise that they’re also less likely to get it. According to a survey conducted by SKYN condoms, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to engage in one-night stands, 64% to 56%.

While these are admittedly quite predictable, some links between our sex and our politics can be quite a surprise. You may be shocked to learn that voters who identified as Libertarians were more likely to be anti-masturbation.

I never would’ve thought that pro-liberty and anti-masturbation would be the perfect pair, but then again, I bet it’s really hard to masturbate with the Invisible Hand of the market.

And while Democrats might be 30% more likely to have casual sex with someone other than a long-term partner, Republicans were 50% more likely to have sex outside, according to data from the dating app, Clover.

Republicans aren’t exactly the boring drones many people make them out to be, either.

Trump supporters are more likely to film themselves having sex with their partners than Hillary supporters, according to a survey by Match.com.

And a study of 1,074 Americans found that people who voted for the Republican Mitt Romney over the Democrat Barack Obama, in 2012, were more likely to be major fans of oral sex.

Sexual Preferences & Political Orientations

The study asked a slew of questions about people’s political leanings and sexual preferences. And there were quite a few doozies to be found in all the data.

While strong social conservatives were less likely to have sex with the woman on top, Republicans were slightly more interested in cowgirl than not. BDSM was negatively correlated with all forms of conservatism, as was masturbation (strongly). Conservatives were more likely to have fewer sex partners throughout their lifetimes and were more likely to have gotten a late start.

Their liberal counterparts usually started significantly earlier. Whether this is the cause of them being more open to new sexual experiences or the consequence of it, we may never know, but liberals are more open and this openness toward sex starts younger than it does in their conservative counterparts.

They also masturbate more and have more partners over the course of their lifetimes accordingly.

But more isn’t always merrier…

While conservatives may have less sex, and they might start later, they tend to be happier with their sex lives.

Conservatives tended to find one or two partners they really liked, and they stuck with them. So did Libertarians and people with Fascist tendencies (those who scored high on out-group punishment).

This makes sense.

The less satisfied with the sex you’re having, the more likely you are to go out and look for different sex — and the more sex you have, the more likely you are to have bad sex.

Libertarians tended to be more in line with run-of-the-mill conservatives when it came to sex within their relationships, while they tended to be more like Liberals when it came to the social aspects of sex (sex while drunk or high, sex with strangers, sex at parties, etc.)

Climax

At the end of the day, it’s all relative.

In the words of the great Sexologist, Alfred Kinsey, “A nymphomaniac is someone who has more sex than you do.”

It all comes back to what we desire — which should ultimately lead us back to what we value.

And now, we’re right back where we started. Both sex and politics are about values. Speaking of, the study authors concluded with something quite interesting.

They said:

Pundits often decry the public’s obsession with sex over substance, without realizing that sex is substance. Electoral campaigns orchestrated around sexual topics are not organized solely for purposes of voyeurism or entertainment, but rather align with individual self-interest. While some may claim such a strategy appeals to the lowest common denominator, it exists precisely because the interest in personal sexual experience is near-universal. When it comes to sex and politics, as our results show, individual preferences in the bedroom are reflected in one’s politics.

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