Could Casual Sex be Linked to Depression and Anxiety?

A new study has been reported on, which seems to show that sexual health can have a direct influence on emotional wellness and wellbeing. Headlines in a variety of publications claim that casual sex can lead to depression and anxiety. It may be, however, that the headlines are misleading, as they seem to insinuate a relationship where having casual sex leads to these mental health conditions, whereas it may well be that having depression and anxiety already can lead to low self-esteem, which then results in the sufferer having casual sex.

 

Researchers studied the sexual behaviour of around 4,000 heterosexual students at US colleges, and then also assessed their mental wellbeing to check for associations between mental state and sexual habits.

 

During the study, the researchers found that having casual sex was most frequently found in both men and women who had increased rates of depression and anxiety and poorer overall psychological wellbeing.

 

Whilst these results seem conclusive, it is important to remember that this was a cross-sectional study, which only asks participants for their response on one occasion. This, therefore, only shows how they were feeling and behaving at one particular period in time, and does not take into account any other factors that may be influencing their behaviour or mood.

 

Published in the Journal of Sex Research, the study makes it quite clear that it is very hard to tell whether having casual sex could lead to these types of mental health problems, or whether young adults who have an existing mental health condition are more likely to engage in riskier forms of sexual behaviour.

 

Whilst cross-sectional studies are useful for showing up patterns (in this case, that depression and anxiety often appear at the same time as high rates of casual sex) it is impossible to find out cause and effect factors from them, as they do not show which factor came first and influenced the other – this would only occur in a study that was repeated regularly over time.

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