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Life without sex: Large-scale study links sexlessness to physical, cognitive, and personality traits, socioecological factors, and DNA (2024)

Romantic (typically sexual) relationships are important to personal, physical, mental, social, and economic wellbeing, 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 ~400,000 UK residents aged 39 to 73 and ~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% and 14% of variation in sexlessness in men and women, with a genetic correlation between sexes of 0.56. Polygenic scores predicted a range of related outcomes in the Australian dataset. Our findings uncover multifaceted correlates of human intimacy of evolutionary significance. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement K.J.H.V. and A.A. are supported by the Foundation Volksbond Rotterdam. A.A. is supported by Amsterdam UMC / UvA Talent Fellowship D&I. R.A is supported by the Czech Health Research Council (grant nr. NU21J-04-00024) and a MSCA Fellowships CZ, OP JAK (grant nr. CZ.02.01.01/00/22_010/0002828). ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: UK Biobank has received ethical approval from the National Health Service North West Centre for Research Ethics Committee (reference:11/NW/0382). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes Code is available at https://osf.io/6h7xj/?view_only=57a7810bd4034fe78812ce70ee4880d0, and the GWAS summary statistics will be made available at GWAS Catalog upon publication (www.ebi.ac.uk/gwas/downloads/summary-statistics). The UK Biobank data is available upon request via: https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/enable-your-research/apply-for-access

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