Sexual leisure and profiles of coping with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on sex life: Using cluster analysis approach

Abstract

Understanding sexual leisure and coping in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic is essential for effective education and praxis during and after the crisis. This study aimed to identify the clusters of copers based on their use of the coping mechanisms during the pandemic and profile them using the sexual, lifestyle, and socio-demographic characteristics. The data were collected using an online survey (N = 675) and analyzed utilizing cluster analysis, MANOVA, and chi-square tests. The results point to the existence of three coping clusters—i.e., Diverse Copers, Relational Copers, and Non-Copers—based on the relational, innovation and experimentation, goal-setting, creativity and pleasure, caution and logistical, and diversion leisure coping mechanisms. These clusters’ profiles varied significantly in terms of the pandemic’s impacts on sex life, lifestyle changes, and socio-demographics. These results help identify personalized factors and tailored strategies to help people navigate their sex lives during the public health crises.

Keywords:

• sex as leisure
• COVID-19 pandemic
• coping
• quality of sex life
• cluster analysis

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to express her appreciation to the students Damien Cavanaugh, Brooklyn L. Clough, Brianna Silveira, and Jessie Li for their help with recruitment and data collection.

Ethics statement

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign IRB has approved this study (protocol number: 21574). All the participants were provided with informed consent form explaining the research procedures.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).