Life without sex: Large-scale study links sexlessness to physical, cognitive, and personality traits, socioecological factors, and DNA

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Abdellaoui, Abdel; Wesseldijk, Laura W.; Gordon, Scott D.; Smit, Dirk J. A.; Androvicova, Renata; Martin, Nicholas G.; Ullen, Fredrik; Mosing, Miriam A.; Zietsch, Brendan P.; Verweij, Karin J. H.
• 署名单位: University of Amsterdam; Karolinska Institutet; University of Melbourne; QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute; Karolinska Institutet; National Institute of Mental Health - Czech Republic; University of Queensland
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-14966
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2418257122
• 发表日期: 2025-09-23
• 关键词: young; intelligence; association; IDENTITY; resource; school; FAMILY; RISK

摘要

Romantic (typically sexual) relationships are important to personal, physical, mental, social, and economic well-being, and to human evolution. Yet little is known about factors contributing to long-term lack of intimate relationships. We investigated phenotypic and genetic correlates of never having had sex in similar to 400,000 UK residents aged 39 to 73 and similar to 13,500 Australian residents aged 18 to 89. The strongest associations revealed that sexless individuals were more educated, less likely to use alcohol and smoke, more nervous, lonelier, and unhappier. Sexlessness was more strongly associated with physical characteristics (e.g., upper body strength) in men than in women. Sexless men tended to live in regions with fewer women, and sexlessness was more prevalent in regions with more income inequality. Common genetic variants explained 17% (SE = 4%) and 14% (SE = 3%) of variation in sexlessness in men and women, with a genetic correlation between sexes of 0.56 (SE = 0.17). Polygenic scores predicted a range of related outcomes in the Australian dataset. Our findings uncover multifaceted correlates of human intimacy and raise important lines of enquiry in the evolutionary and social sciences.