Giving: how 229,355 couples answered
Each couple falls into exactly one of six outcomes, ordered from strongest agreement (left) to mutual decline (right).
Give n = 229,355 couples. Cell percentages are rounded to one decimal and may not sum to exactly 100%.
Receiving: how 238,698 couples answered
A separate question answered by a separate set of couples. The two samples are never merged.
Receive n = 238,698 couples. Cell percentages are rounded to one decimal and may not sum to exactly 100%.
Side by side
| Outcome | Give | Receive |
|---|---|---|
| Both yes | 47.1% | 50.1% |
| One yes, one maybe | 19.8% | 21.5% |
| Both maybe | 3.8% | 3.6% |
| One yes, one no | 18.4% | 16.6% |
| One maybe, one no | 6.1% | 5.0% |
| Both no | 5.0% | 3.2% |
| No explicit no | 70.7% | 75.2% |
At the couple level the two sides look similar — mutual yes near half, receiving edging giving by 3.0 points, and a bit more refusal around the giving question. Each grouping below is summed from its displayed cells, so the figures reconcile by addition.
- No explicit no — 70.7% giving, 75.2% receiving. Pairings where neither partner refused. These are the lowest no-explicit-no figures in our series so far. A maybe indicates openness or uncertainty, not consent — and with restraints in particular, openness is a starting point for a conversation, not a green light.
- Disagreement involving a no — 24.5% giving, 21.6% receiving. One partner open, the other declining. Higher than in our gentler questions; restraints divide couples more.
- Mutual no — 5.0% giving, 3.2% receiving. Both partners declined.
The gender flip: who wants which role
The couple matrices hide the real story, which only appears when you split by gender. Men's and women's preferences reverse cleanly between the two questions.
Said yes, by respondent group and side
Give: men n = 312,474, women n = 267,202. Receive: men n = 319,608, women n = 278,568. The direction of the gender gap reverses between the two questions — men +21.8 points on giving, women +12.3 points on receiving — and the underlying score averages confirm it (giving leans male, receiving leans female). Respondents who did not state a gender (about 27% of answers on each side) said yes at 64.5% on giving and 68.3% on receiving; they are counted in the couple and overall totals but excluded from the men-versus-women comparison.
In mixed-gender couples these marginals are suggestive of a natural fit — the role many men lean toward is the one many women lean toward receiving, and vice versa. But this is an inference from population averages, not a measured within-couple match. Spicer records each question's couple agreement separately and does not join one partner's giving answer to the other's receiving answer, so we can describe the overall rates, not who paired with whom. Same-gender couples and individual exceptions sit inside these averages, not outside them.
Each gender's strongest yes lands on the opposite role — a near-mirror, not a clash.
What the finding suggests
This is the clearest division of preference we have published, and it is about role rather than appetite: interest in restraint play is broad, but who wants to hold the restraint and who wants to be held differs sharply by gender on average. The 19.8% of couples who landed one-yes-one-maybe on giving, and the 21.5% on receiving, are the couples for whom this is an open question rather than a settled one — and restraints are exactly the kind of thing where the open question deserves a real conversation.
In context
Erotic interest in control and surrender is a long-recognized theme in writing on desire, where giving up or taking control can be a source of charge precisely because it is negotiated rather than assumed.[2] The data here is consistent with that: a widely shared interest, organized around who takes which role.
What this suggests couples can do
Agree on the specifics before anything starts
Restraint play depends more than most things on an explicit, shared agreement: what is on the table, what is not, and a simple, pre-arranged way for either partner to stop at any point. Treating that conversation as part of the experience rather than a hurdle is the practical version of the communication that research links to feeling closer and more satisfied.[1] A maybe is a reason to talk, not a reason to proceed.
Let the roles follow desire, not assumption
Because preferences here split by role, who restrains and who is restrained is worth naming openly rather than assuming from gender or anything else — the averages describe a population, not your particular couple. And where one partner says no, that is a complete and final answer; the honest move is to set this idea down, not to relitigate it.[2]
How the counts fit together
Giving: of 799,451 individual answers, 686,125 came from users with a linked partner; the other 113,326 sit outside the couple analysis. The give figures rest on 229,355 couples (458,710 partner responses), so 66.9% of linked users had a partner who also answered. Receiving: of 818,934 answers, 706,306 came from linked users and 112,628 did not; the receive figures rest on 238,698 couples (477,396 partner responses), a 67.6% pairing rate. On each side, roughly 27% of respondents did not state a gender and are excluded from the men-versus-women comparison but kept in the couple and overall totals.
References
- Nagoski, E. (2015). Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. Simon & Schuster.
- Perel, E. (2006). Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. HarperCollins.