Courtship in the personals : how relationship goals affect signaling patterns

The following study utilized a content-analysis of 407 personal advertisements by gay men to distinguish between signals used in search of long term versus purely sexual relationships of gay men in the personals. The data were obtained from four randomly selected issues of the gay magazine Unzipped. A comparison was made to a study conducted 20 years ago by Laner and Kamel (1978). The results indicate that in 1998 gay men were more interested in a long term/intimate relationship as opposed to a purely sexual one. Whereas in 1978 the reverse was true, gay men were more interested in sexual relationships. I then examined the contemporary personals in more detail to determine whether relationship goals had an impact on the signaling patterns. In this study signaling patterns are reflected in the descriptive words used by the men placing the ads. In spite of the fact that the relationships found to be significant were weak, they suggest that in comparison to 1978, contemporary gay men desire a long term versus a purely sexual relationship. In addition, the results of this study suggest to some extent that relationship goal influences signaling patterns