The psychology of the booty call

From The Journal of Sex Research [subscribers only], in an article titled, "The 'Booty Call': A Compromise Between Men's and Women's Ideal Mating Strategies." The study drew on the responses of 61 undergraduates at the University of Texas, 69 percent of whom were women. The following passage is excerpted from the "General Discussion":

In two studies, we found support for our predictions. First, women reported receiving more booty calls (although men did not report initiating more). Second, various communication methods are used to establish booty calls, with the telephone being the most popular method. Third, with regards to accepting versus rejecting booty call partners, physical attractiveness was considered the most important criteria by both genders. Fourth, whereas men tended to cite other reasons related to sexual access, women tended to cite reasons related to friendship, compatibility, and personality. Fifth, for booty calls that do not progress into long-term relationships, both genders attribute the lack of progression to the man's not wanting a long-term relationship. Taken together, our results suggest that, although booty calls are mostly a sexual relationship whereby physical attractiveness is important, there are elements in which booty calls differ from other casual sexual relationships, such as one-night stands or hookups. In addition, whereas men tend to favor the sexual aspects of booty calls, women tend to favor other, more long-term oriented considerations. These findings are consistent with our overall hypothesis that the booty call may represent a compromise between the short-term, sexual nature of men's ideal relationships and the long-term, commitment ideally favored by women.

The authors offer, in the form of the following graph, a taxonomy of sexual relationships, from faithful marriage to the one-night stand:

Other nuggets from the article, which was written by Peter K. Jonason, a psychologist at New Mexico State University, and Norman P. Li and Margaret J. Cason, of the University of Texas, also academic psychologists:

The second most important reason for acceptance and rejection [of a booty solicitation] was the timing of the booty call request. Friendship was a important factor in accepting, but not in rejecting, booty calls.… Those who pursued booty calls that were accepted for reasons relating to sexual desire reported more booty calls.

The most likely reasons for why a booty call relationship did not transition to a long-term relationship centered on the sexual nature of the booty call relationship.