How attachment styles can affect your sex life

By Lydia Patrick via SWNS

A relationship expert revealed how attachment styles could affect your sex life - with avoidant attachers having more casual sex and anxious attachers seeking to create bonds through intimacy.

Stina Sanders, 31, shared how each attachment style can influence bedroom habits.

She explained attachment styles are formed in our childhood and affect how we approach relationships with others.

There are four types of attachment - anxious, avoidant, secure and disorganized.

According to the psychotherapist, anxious attachers use sex for approval and validation, whereas avoidant attachers fear intimacy and have lots of casual sex.

Disorganized attachers are the least common and swing between anxious and avoidant tendencies, whereas secure attachers have good self-esteem and seek long-term commitment.

Stina, from London, UK, said: "All attachment styles are born in childhood and are shaped by how our parents treated us.

"People with anxious attachment probably felt a lack of love and security in their childhood.

"Anxious attachers use sex to get approval and validation from their partner.

"Sexual behaviors of anxious adults are driven by their attempts to make up for their lack of love and security they feel within themselves.

"They can use sex to manipulate their partner into getting what they want and use sex to create a bond.

"As a rule of thumb, they fall in love easily and rush into having sex with partners.

"They can become very dependent and clingy since they're set on having security and stability and fear abandonment and rejection."

According to the expert, avoidant attachers are more likely to engage in casual sex than "close, intimate relationships."

"Parents of avoidant attachers were around but potentially didn't fulfill all their needs, they may have felt like a burden to their caregiver," Stina said.

"Avoidants fear intimacy and sex and intimacy can make an avoidant attacher very uncomfortable.

"Avoidant attachers have fewer long-term relationships and prefer casual sex or will abstain from sex entirely.

"Avoidants can use porn and fantasy as a substitute for intimacy.

"Their intimate behaviors tend to be driven by their ego or to fulfill a need to manipulate or control their partner.

"They're more likely to use sex to reduce their stress."

According to Stina, avoidants often keep their partner at arm's length and are less likely to fall in love.

Disorganized attachment, also known as 'fearful avoidant,' is the least common of the four styles.

Stina explained: "Disorganised is a combination of anxious and avoidant - these attachers think they are unworthy of love.

"They can have passionate and fiery relationships but might freak out the minute things get intimate.

"Like anxious attachers, they have difficulty trusting and relying on lovers.

"They have a higher likelihood of developing a sex addiction and often end up in submissive roles if they are to get in a stable relationship."

Secure attachers have low levels of anxiety and good levels of self-esteem explained Stina.

"They don't rely on other people and once they engage in a relationship, feel positive about their partners.

"They don't use sex to feed their ego, rather to express affection for their partner.

"They're more likely to be spontaneous and experimental in the bedroom because they don't feel judged or pressured.

"They love long-term commitment and closeness."

To find out your attachment style, there are online quizzes and resources available.

Stina said: "It's worth everybody finding out their attachment style, you can change your attachment style and it can be affected by the person you date.

"It's worth going to therapy to help unlearn negative behaviors and patterns and to establish better boundaries."

1. Avoidant attachers fear intimacy and closeness and tend to have more casual sex.
They are less likely to get into long-term relationships
2. Anxious attachers yearn for stability and security so fall in love easily and seek sex for closeness
They can become dependent and clingy and may use sex to manipulate their partners
3. Disorganised attachers swing between avoidant and anxious tendencies and may get into fiery relationships but have difficulty trusting others.
They use sex to fulfill their ego
4. Secure attachers are self-sufficient and have high self-esteem seeking long-term commitment
They tend to be more spontaneous and experimental in the bedroom