Recent research has identified four distinct types of romantic lovers, with one group engaging in sexual activity up to 20 times a week. Published in Personality and Individual Differences, the study categorizes lovers as mild romantic, moderate romantic, intense romantic, and libidinous romantic. Australian National University’s PhD candidate Adam Bode, the lead author, defines romantic love as a motivational state focused on long-term mating with a specific individual, which evolved during the recent evolutionary history of humans. The study, based on the Romantic Love Survey 2022, involved 1,556 participants from 33 countries, aged 18 to 25. The categories include:
– Mild lovers, characterized by the lowest intensity of romantic feelings and sexual frequency.
– Moderate lovers, described as fairly standard, with relatively low intensity of romantic feelings and moderate sexual frequency.
– Intense lovers, who exhibit the highest intensity of romantic feelings, obsessive thinking, commitment, and a relatively high frequency of sex.
– Libidinous lovers, who have the highest frequency of sex (averaging 10 times a week, with some reaching up to 20 times), and are more likely to be male.
The study used the Passionate Love Scale to measure participants’ romantic intensity, obsessive thinking, commitment, and sexual frequency. It suggests that further research should explore the impact of romantic love on mood, its effects on relationships over time, and variations in romantic love due to sex, gender, sexual orientation, culture, and gender inequality. The study also acknowledges its limitation of focusing on young, English-speaking adults from WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) countries. Bode emphasizes the importance of romantic love in family and romantic relationship formation and culture, suggesting that humans may still be evolving in how they express romantic love.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/mar/01/sex-20-times-a-week-new-study-identifies-four-types-of-romantic-lover