Open to research

Surprisingly little is known about what couples want, where partners overlap, and where they don't. Mutual Desires collects anonymous answers from people who choose to share them, and we're glad to make that data available for academic research to the best of our ability.

How people opt in

When someone finishes the quiz, they're asked once whether to add their answers to research. Nothing is sent unless they say yes. They can take their answers back out at any time from the quiz, using a random receipt that stays on their phone. Each partner decides separately: a partner's answers are only included if that partner says yes on their own screen.

What's collected, with a yes

Their own answer to each card (Want, Curious, For you, Fantasy or Won't), across a deck of 30 to 304 cards.
Round-two ratings: how curious they are about shared Curious answers, from 1 to 5.
Six optional questions, each skippable: age, gender, orientation, relationship, together for, relationship style.
The month they answered, and their country (larger countries only; the rest are grouped as "other").
An anonymous couple ID, when both partners say yes, so their answers can be studied as a pair.

What's never collected

Names, answer codes or deck codes.
IP addresses, device details or exact times.
A partner's answers without that partner's own yes.

How it's kept anonymous

The receipt on the phone is random. We store only a scrambled version of it, so it can't be traced back.
Couple IDs are scrambled with a secret key, so knowing a deck code doesn't reveal a couple's record.
We publish totals only, and never a figure based on fewer than 50 people.
We don't try to re-identify anyone, and anyone we share data with has to agree not to either.

Working with us

If you're an academic researcher, we're happy to share anonymized data, as summary tables or row-level records depending on what your study needs. We ask for:

A short data use agreement: no attempts to re-identify anyone, no passing the data on, and storage limited to your research team.
Ethics approval or an exemption from your institution's review board.
Credit to Mutual Desires as the data source, and a copy of anything you publish.

Get in touch at the contact address on this page (coming soon). Tell us about your study and the questions you're trying to answer.

Things to know about the data

It's a self-selected sample: adults who chose to take a sex quiz with a partner and chose to share. It isn't representative of the general population.
Small decks draw from the most common cards first, so niche cards have fewer answers.
Some cards come back later in different words to reduce wording bias. Each is recorded as its own answer.

Codebook

Answers: 5 Want, 4 Curious, 3 For you, 2 Fantasy, 1 Won't. Paired cards have one key for each side, ending in :g (doing it) and :r (receiving it). Reworded cards start with chk:.

Age: 0 18–24, 1 25–34, 2 35–44, 3 45–54, 4 55–64, 5 65 or older
Gender: 0 Woman, 1 Man, 2 Non-binary, 3 Another identity
Orientation: 0 Straight, 1 Gay or lesbian, 2 Bisexual or pansexual, 3 Queer or another orientation
Relationship: 0 Married, 1 Living together, 2 Dating
Together for: 0 Under 1 year, 1 1–3 years, 2 3–10 years, 3 10 years or more
Relationship style: 0 Monogamous, 1 Open or poly, 2 Figuring it out