Sexual partners are people who engage in sexual activity together. The sexual partners may be in a

committed relationship A committed relationship is an interpersonal relationship based upon agreed-upon commitment to one another involving love, trust, honesty, openness, or some other behavior. Forms of committed relationships include close friendship, long-term rel ...

, either on an exclusive basis or not, or engage in the sexual activity on a casual basis. They may be on intimate terms (in which case they are often referred to as "lovers") or

anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anony ...

,Anonymous Sex – The Body
/ref> as in the case of sex with a stranger, a one-night stand, or a

prostitute Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...

. A person can be another person's sexual partner even if the sexual activity is illegal, socially taboo, or otherwise in breach of a trust or commitment. A person may have more than one sexual partner at any one time, either as

polyamory Polyamory () is the practice of, or desire for, romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all partners involved. People who identify as polyamorous may believe in open relationships wi ...

polygamy Crimes Polygamy (from Late Greek (') "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, sociologists call this polygyny. When a woman is marr ...

or in contravention of convention. As such, the term ''sexual partner'' can be applied to both consenting and non-consenting sexual relationships. Some people who maintain logs of their sexual activity have adopted the practice of listing partners they both did and did not consent to sex with, but with the non-consenting partners annotated differently in some way to note the act of

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

. A sexual partner may or may not have equal power during a sexual activity; such sexual "roles" (which can sometimes be determined by

personality type In psychology, personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tende ...

but can also be determined by a conscious choice by the individual to "assume" a particular "role") typically fall under various dominance/submission (D/s) categories.

Terminology

Generally, a sexual partner is one with whom one engages in a sexual activity on a regular or ongoing basis. An ex-sexual partner is a person with whom the other partner does not intend to engage in any further sexual activity, while a prospective sexual partner is one with whom the person has not previously engaged in any sexual activity, but desires to do so.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sexual Partner Sexuality and society