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Full mediation model with standardized coefficients. For clarity, error terms and covariances are not shown. Each coercion-plus-orgasm experience was coded as 0 = Never had the experience or 1 = Ever had the experience. *Benjamini–Hochberg p < .05; **Benjamini–Hochberg p < .01.
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Psychological sexual coercion is known to negatively impact those who experience it, yet sexual encounters where orgasm is present are often presumed to be positive and absent of coercion. In the present study, we conducted an online survey with women (n = 179) and men (n = 251) to test associations between sexually coercive experiences that includ...
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... Psychological accounts provide evidence that low desire may be a symptom of nondesire related mental issues (e.g., depression), poor selfimage, fatigue, previous traumatic experiences, and stress (Atlantis & Sullivan, 2012;Hamilton & Meston, 2013;Pujols et al., 2010;Sims & Meana, 2010;Spurgas, 2014). Similarly, relationship accounts provide evidence that low desire can reflect lack of attraction to one's partner, lack of intimacy or closeness, unenjoyable sex, relationship conflicts, or experiences of coercion (Birnbaum et al., 2016;Both et al., 2007;Chadwick et al., 2022;Harris et al., 2022;Hendrickx et al., 2016;Murray & Milhausen, 2012). Yet, even with relational approaches, the "fixes" are often aimed at individual women (e.g., how to fix the relationship, or how to improve partnered sex). ...
Low sexual desire in women partnered with men has been the subject of controversy and research over the past decades, including both as construct and diagnosis. Despite discussion surrounding the causes of low desire, there is a gap in research about how women themselves understand the causes of their low desire and the potential consequences of these causal attributions. In the current study, we investigated this by asking 130 women who had low desire and were partnered with men about their attributions for low desire. Through content analysis, we identified five attribution categories: psychological/individual, relational, biological, sociocultural, and/or sexual orientation/identity/status. Many participants chose more than one category, indicating a multifaceted nature of women’s causes of low desire. We then quantitatively assessed women’s feelings of responsibility for, and emotions surrounding, their low desire. Our findings indicate that the majority—but not all—of women have negative feelings about their low desire. However, the specific emotions they experience are related to their attribution patterns. This underscores the significance of investigating various facets of women’s attributions regarding low desire in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their emotional experiences and desire overall.
... Sexual assault often has disruptive effects on sexual functioning and pleasure (Maseroli et al., 2018;Weaver, 2009). Women who have experienced sexual assault frequently report a loss of interest in sex (O'Callaghan et al., 2019), decreased sexual desire (Chadwick et al., 2022;Turchik & Hassija, 2014), difficulty achieving orgasm (Turchik & Hassija, 2014), and lower sexual satisfaction (Chadwick et al., 2022). These sexual difficulties could reflect cognitive and physiological changes that are common after sexual assault, including self-blame and shame, anhedonia, and anxiety around or avoidance of sexual situations (O'Callaghan et al., 2019;van Berlo & Ensink, 2000). ...
... Sexual assault often has disruptive effects on sexual functioning and pleasure (Maseroli et al., 2018;Weaver, 2009). Women who have experienced sexual assault frequently report a loss of interest in sex (O'Callaghan et al., 2019), decreased sexual desire (Chadwick et al., 2022;Turchik & Hassija, 2014), difficulty achieving orgasm (Turchik & Hassija, 2014), and lower sexual satisfaction (Chadwick et al., 2022). These sexual difficulties could reflect cognitive and physiological changes that are common after sexual assault, including self-blame and shame, anhedonia, and anxiety around or avoidance of sexual situations (O'Callaghan et al., 2019;van Berlo & Ensink, 2000). ...
Substantial research documents the psychosocial benefits of sexual activity, including heightened positive affect and lowered negative affect following sexual encounters. However, it is important to examine whether affective benefits of consensual sexual activity are present among individuals who have also experienced non-consensual sexual activity (i.e. sexual assault), given that sexual assault may have harmful consequences for sexual functioning and pleasure during consensual encounters. This study tested consensual sexual activity and satisfaction as predictors of next-day positive and negative affect among 82 women sexual assault survivors. Participants completed ecological momentary assessment measures for three weeks, including measures of past-day dyadic (i.e. partnered) sexual activity and satisfaction in the morning and current affect in the afternoon. As hypothesized, dyadic sexual activity and greater than usual sexual satisfaction predicted increased next-day positive affect after controlling for past-day positive affect. In contrast, and partially supporting hypotheses, sexual satisfaction, but not activity alone, predicted lowered next-day negative affect after controlling for past-day negative affect. At the between person level, greater sexual satisfaction (but not overall frequency of dyadic sexual activity) was associated with greater positive and lower negative affect on average after controlling for several covariates. Findings indicate that satisfying dyadic sexual encounters lead to relatively long-lasting positive affect changes in women who have experienced sexual assault.
There has been an extensive search for efficient pharmacological treatment of female sexual interest/arousal disorder and other sexual dysfunctions. However, available treatments have met limited success, except for the drugs used for treating erectile deficiency. A possible reason for this may be that both the preclinical and clinical evaluation of treatment effects have been inadequate. The present literature review shows that the intensity of sexual approach behaviors in non-human animals appears to be predictive of clinical effect whereas the traditional studies of copulatory behaviors and associated motor patterns have questionable predictive power regarding effects on human sexual desire. In clinical studies, it is essential to include the unconscious components of sexual motivation in any approach to its quantification. This basic fact is incompatible with the use of self-reports for evaluating treatment effects on motivation. Genital responses to sexual incentives are automatic and therefore outside of volitional control and can, therefore, provide unbiased estimates of the intensity of sexual motivation. These responses may be objectively quantified. Tests for implicit sexual motivation must also be used for capturing unconscious mental components. Including the unconscious components of sexual motivation as well as of objective measures of genital responses in clinical studies may improve evaluations of the effectiveness of drug treatment of low sexual interest/arousal disorder. In preclinical studies, predictive validity can be improved by quantifying sexual approach behaviors rather than copulatory behavior. The paradigm shift suggested here may finally allow for the discovery of efficient treatments for some sexual dysfunctions.
Process-based consent conceives of sexual consent as a process whereby individuals are continuously considering and have concern for their sexual partner’s willingness to continue engaging in sexual behavior without coercion. The current study used cross-sectional survey data and hierarchical linear regression to examine the independent and interactive effects of sex-related alcohol use attitudes, hostility toward women, and peer support for abuse on college men’s process-based consent (N = 463; M age = 19; 93% heterosexual; 64% White, non-Hispanic). Findings revealed significant main effects of all three primary study variables on process-based consent beliefs and behaviors while controlling for fraternity membership, relationship status, and sexual history. A significant three-way interaction indicated that permissive sex-related alcohol use attitudes may inhibit process-based consent among college men with higher levels of hostility toward women who also believe their peers hold rape-supportive attitudes. These findings indicate that education around consent is necessary but may not be sufficient for preventing sexual violence. Interventions developed with and delivered by peer leaders that challenge harmful peer group norms about sex-related alcohol use and the mistreatment of women may create a social environment with more favorable conditions for changing individual college men’s beliefs and behaviors.
Orgasm is considered by many to be an essential part of women's ideal sexual experiences. As a result, sexual liberation narratives have often advocated for the prioritization of women's orgasms - particularly during heterosex - framing them as a central indicator of "good," healthy, liberated sex. However, scholars have increasingly critiqued these narratives, arguing that they result in an orgasm imperative that has negatively impacted women's sexual lives. Perspectives that promote the prioritization of women's orgasm and those that warn against the negative repercussions strive for the same thing - to draw attention to women's sexuality in ways that will lead to more pleasurable, enjoyable, and equitable sex for women overall. Yet, together, they offer contradictory messages about the role that women's orgasms can or should play in women's sexual liberation. For example, one could argue that it perhaps makes sense to prioritize women's orgasms given that they often are highly pleasurable for women, center a unique form of embodied pleasure, and offer a supposedly clear objective for women and their men partners. On the other hand, such narratives frame women's orgasm absence as abnormal, concede to men's sexuality in problematic ways, and constrain more comprehensive possibilities for women's sexual pleasure. In this critical feminist review, I offer a summative outline of these and other contradictions, focusing on how narratives prioritizing women's orgasms can have simultaneous benefits and negative repercussions when it comes to (1) women's sexual pleasure, (2) the medicalization/pathologization of women's orgasms, and (3) heterosex norms.
Previous research has shown that women’s orgasms function as a masculinity achievement for men. Less clear is whether men’s orgasms function as a gendered achievement for women. In the present study, we explored this question via an experimental design by randomly assigning 440 women (M age = 32.29, SD age = 11.91) to read a vignette in which they imagined that an attractive man either did or did not orgasm during a sexual encounter with them. The women then rated their feelings of achievement, failure, femininity, and masculinity in response to the scenario along with how much they would attribute the situation to themselves or to the man partner. Results showed that women experienced men’s orgasm presence as a femininity achievement and men’s orgasm absence as a femininity failure. There were lesser impacts on women’s feelings of masculinity. Feelings of achievement and failure were stronger for women who attributed the scenario more strongly to themselves. Further, greater sexual assertiveness in general predicted stronger feelings of achievement in response to men’s orgasm presence and greater feminine gender role stress predicted stronger feelings of failure in response to men’s orgasm absence. Together, findings highlight that men’s orgasm seems to function as an achievement for women; however, the connection to femininity (which is less valued and prescribed differently compared to masculinity) denotes that men’s orgasms for women are a different gendered experience with different stakes compared to women’s orgasms for men.
The generalized social concern with sexual harassment and nonconsensual sex makes it imperative to incorporate notions of consent in any analysis of human sexual interactions. Such interactions follow an ordered sequence of events, starting with the perception of a sexual incentive, followed by an approach to it, genital interaction, and eventually orgasm. Consent from the partner is needed at every stage. At some points in this chain of events, the individuals involved make cognitive evaluations of the context and predictions of the likelihood for obtaining consent for proceeding to the next phase. Processes such as communication of consent or lack thereof, sexual decision making, and interpretation of cues emitted by the partner are decisive. Increased sexual motivation may influence these processes. However, available data make it possible to ascertain that enhanced motivation has no, or at most minor, effects, thereby invalidating the old assumption that heightened sexual motivation leads to impaired control.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 75 is January 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Feminist/queer science offers exciting possibilities for psychology and other fields. In this article, we review a set of dynamic principles for feminist/queer science, based in research with gender, sex, and sexuality (gender/sex/uality). There are potentially surprising ways that queer and science overlap for a queer science, and we focus on four: construction, openness, challenge, and multiplicities. There are also meeting points between feminism and science that support a feminist science, and we again focus on four: bias, truth, objectivity, and empiricism. Yet there are a number of challenges to feminist/queer science, including those that are epistemological, empirical, and methodological. We detail these, articulating how feminist/queer science also provides ways to address, sidestep, and move beyond them. Throughout, we articulate how feminist/queer science provides a dynamic and rigorous way forward for psychological science as well as other fields, and we conclude by articulating how it can lead to more empirical, accurate, and just knowledge.
Orgasm coercion occurs when someone pressures a partner to orgasm by implying that not orgasming will have negative consequences. But what happens when the coerced partner refuses to go along with orgasm coercion? And how do perpetrators of orgasm coercion react? In the current study, we analysed 100 participants’ (cisgender women, n = 66; cisgender men, n = 24; gender/sex minorities, n = 10) descriptions of refusing orgasm coercion during their most recent orgasm coercion encounter. We assessed how participants expressed refusals, perpetrators reacted to these refusals, and perpetrator reactions connected to relationship and psychological outcomes. Results showed that participants used a variety of refusal strategies that were positively- or negatively-valenced. Some perpetrators (31%) reacted in positive, understanding ways. However, most perpetrators (61%) reacted negatively or with more coercion when confronted. Of note, results suggested that whether perpetrators responded in positive vs. negative ways did not depend on participants’ refusal strategies. We also found that positive perpetrator reactions were associated with positive relationship outcomes, but participants reported high negative psychological outcomes regardless of perpetrators’ reactions. Findings support that perpetrators of orgasm coercion are not necessarily invested in partners’ positive experiences and that orgasm coercion cannot be resolved through better communication.
