Personality

The SIECUS definition states in part: "Human sexuality encompasses the sexual knowledge, beliefs, attitudes values and behaviours of individuals."

Our personality has a lot to do with these same areas. It encompasses our sense of humour, whether we prefer to spend most of our time with other people or need a lot of time alone, how we prefer to approach situations, how outgoing we are, and so on.

Some people have what is known as a "risk taking personality," and that often applies to their sexual behaviour as well, with the unhappy consequences.

It's also likely that a person who is self-centred and uncaring in other aspects of life will bring those same attitudes to sex.

However, we need to be careful about making assumptions about how a person's personality affects his or her sexuality.

For example, the reflective, "thinking" type may think through all the implications of their sexual behaviour and enter situations with a high degree of awareness and preparation.

On the other hand, sex may be the one area where they escape from their normal mode by being especially reckless, taking risks they would never think of taking in other areas of life. Or they may combine a surprising degree of passion with a high degree of preparedness.

The "life of the party" - the person who is fun-loving and energetic-might be shy or just exhausted in bed and just want to go to sleep! Or they might be just as fun-loving there as anywhere.

It's not something you can predict accurately.

How does your personality affect your sexuality? Are there things that people would be surprised to learn about your sexual feelings and preferences?