Definition
Sexual activity in which an individual uses their mouth to stimulate the genitals of their long-term partner in an effort to retain that partner.
Introduction
People in long-term relationships perform a diverse array of behaviors, the motivation for which developed over evolutionary history, to minimize the likelihood of their partner’s infidelity. Oral sex performed on a long-term partner may be one such behavior, as reviewed below.
Oral Sex as Mate Retention
Humans may have evolved psychological mechanisms that motivate the performance of “mate retention” – behaviors that lessen the risk of partner infidelity and desertion (see Mate Retention). Buss (1988) identified 104 acts of mate retention, and these were later grouped into two superordinate “domains”: Cost-Inflicting mate retention behaviors and Benefit-Provisioning mate retention behaviors. Behaviors in the Cost-Inflicting domain reduce the risk of partner infidelity by lowering a partner’s self-esteem, thereby...
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References
Buss, D. M. (1988). From vigilance to violence: Tactics of mate retention in American undergraduates. Ethology and Sociobiology, 9, 291–317.
Pham, M. N., & Shackelford, T. K. (2013a). Oral sex as mate retention behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 185–188.
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Pham, M. N., Shackelford, T. K., & Sela, Y. (2013). Women’s oral sex behaviors and risk of partner infidelity. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 446–449.
Pham, M. N., Shackelford, T. K., Holden, C. J., Zeigler-Hill, V., Sela, Y., & Jeffrey, A. J. (2015). Men’s benefit-provisioning mate retention behavior mediates the relationship between their agreeableness and their oral sex behaviors. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44, 1723–1728.
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Sela, Y., Pham, M. N., & Shackelford, T. K. (2015). Do men and women perform oral sex as mate retention behavior? In T. K. Shackelford & R. D. Hansen (Eds.), The evolution of sexuality (pp. 69–79). New York: Springer.
Sela, Y., Shackelford, T. K., Pham, M. N., & Euler, H. A. (2015). Do women perform fellatio as a mate retention behavior? Personality and Individual Differences, 73, 61–66.
Sela, Y., Shackelford, T. K., Pham, M. N., & Zeigler-Hill, V. (2015). Women’s mate retention behaviors, personality traits, and fellatio. Personality and Individual Differences, 85, 187–191.
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This entry is based on Sela, Pham, and Shackelford (2015).
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Sela, Y., Pham, M.N. (2021). Oral Sex as Mate Retention. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_143
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_143
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