The Importance of Sexual Intimacy

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Introduction:
Sexual intimacy within any long-term relationship is very important for the relationship to last (Armstrong, 2006). Married and cohabiting couples have to be intimately comfortable to be sexually intimate. Sexual intimacy is defined as sexually being intimate with your partner at a level where both individual are aware of what their partner likes sexually and what they expect (Armstrong, 2006). Once there is the comfort level of being intimately comfortable couples express to their partners what they expect sexually (Armstrong, 2006). Several things are to be correlated with sexual intimacy and long-term relationships with married and cohabiting couples. Some examples include sexual satisfaction, infidelity, sexual dysfunction, separation etc. (Breitmaier, 2010). The current study focuses on how putting more time and effort into sexual intimacy is important for long-term relationships to work. The following literature helps support the hypothesis why sexual intimacy is important for heterosexual couples that have been married or involved in a cohabiting relationship for more than two years.
Literature Review:
In a research article by Breitmaier (2010) an empirical study on Sexuality and Religiousness was done to investigate importance of sexual intimacy between Christian married couple. One hundred and ninety couples were given a survey about sexual attitudes and behavior to complete before the sexuality seminar and eight weeks later fifty couples retook the survey after the sexual seminar (Breitmaier, 2010). The participating couples in this study included couples with martial issues as a result to sexual dysfunction, low sexual satisfaction and couples who wanted more marital enrichment (Breitmaier, 2010). Breitma...

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...nship between household labor time and sexual frequency. Journal of Family Issues, 31(2), 135-163.
Haning, R. V., O'Keefe, S. L., Randall, E. J., Kommor, M. J., Baker, E., & Wilson, R. (2007). Intimacy, orgasm likelihood, and conflict predict sexual satisfaction in heterosexual male and female respondents. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 33(2), 93-113.
Kornrich, S., Brines, J., & Leupp, K. (2013). Egalitarianism, housework, and sexual frequency in marriage. American Sociological Review, 78(1), 26-50.
Moore, K. A., McCabe, M. P., & Brink, R. B. (2001). Are married couples happier in their relationships than cohabiting couples? intimacy and relationship factors. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 16(1), 35-46.
Sassler, S., Addo, F. R., & Lichter, D. T. (2012). The tempo of sexual activity and later relationship quality. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(4), 708-725.

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