London, May 7 (IANS): The time has changed but sexual practices may not. According to a fascinating study, 'hookup culture' among today's youth is just a myth and their sexual preferences are still the same as those of their parents.
To reach this conclusion, researchers compares a survey on sexual practices from 1988-1996 to one from 2004-12.
They found that respondents from the later survey did not report more sexual partners after age 18, more frequent sex or more partners than respondents from the earlier survey.
“We find no evidence of substantial changes in sexual behaviour that would indicate a new or pervasive pattern of non-relational sex among contemporary college students,” researchers from University of Portland were quoted as saying in a Time report.
Nearly 78.2 percent in the latest survey said their sexual partner was either a spouse or a significant other compared to 84.5 percent in the survey from the 1980s and 1990s.
In fact, said the report, most people are still having sex with a regular partner rather than with random people.
The study appeared in the Journal of Sex Research.