Body Image in Dyadic and Solitary Sexual Desire: The Role of Encoding Style and Distracting Thoughts

Abstract

This study explored the link between body image and desire to engage in sexual activity (dyadic and solitary desire) in adult women living in a long-term couple relationship. Moreover, it considered two psychological factors that may underlie such a link: the occurrence of body-related distracting thoughts during sexual activity and encoding style (i.e., the tendency to rely on preexisting internal schemata versus external information at encoding). A total of 53 women (29 to 47 years old) in heterosexual relationships completed questionnaires assessing sexual desire (dyadic, solitary), body image, body-related distracting thoughts during sexual activity, and encoding style. Results showed that poor body image was associated with low dyadic and solitary sexual desire. Body-related distracting thoughts during sexual activity mediated the link between body image and solitary (but not dyadic) sexual desire. Finally, the mediation of body-related distracting thoughts between body image and solitary sexual desire was moderated by encoding style. A negative body image promoted the occurrence of body-related distracting thoughts during sexual activity, especially in internal encoders. Our study highlights the importance of body image, distracting thoughts, and encoding style in women’s solitary sexuality and suggests possible factors that may reduce the impact of those body-related factors in dyadic sexual desire.

Acknowledgments

We thank Tiffany Baer and Eva Barabas for their help with the data collection.

Funding

This research was part of the project “Sexual Desire: An Interdisciplinary Approach,” funded by the Maurice Chalumeau Fund from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Notes

¹ A total of 242 women (81%) had indicated a willingness to be contacted for the second phase of the study. Although these women did not differ from those who were not interested in pursuing the study on different sociodemographic and sexual variables (e.g., the length of couple relationship, number of children, frequency of sexual activity, dyadic sexual desire, sexual satisfaction), they nevertheless were younger (though the difference was marginal), showed more positive attitudes toward sexuality, and indicated higher solitary sexual desire. These differences are consistent with previous findings showing that people who volunteer for sex research hold more liberal and positive sexual attitudes than people who do not (e.g., Wolchik, Braver, & Jensen, 1985). Such sexual attitudes may be associated, at least in women of Western societies, with being young (because of progressive liberalization of sexual behavior) and with a high solitary sexual desire (Dosch, Belayachi, & Van der Linden, 2015).

² This macro is freely available on Hayes’ webpage: http://www.afhayes.com/spss-sas-and-mplus-macros-and-code.html.

³ The PROCESS macro is freely available on http://www.processmacro.org/download.html.

⁴ All templates for PROCESS are freely available on the website http://www.afhayes.com/public/templates.pdf. See Greenaway, Wright, Willingham, Reynolds, and Haslam (2015) for an example of use of the model number 7. In the present study, five participants were included at the 10th percentile, six at the 25th percentile, 14 at the 50th percentile, 11 at the 75th percentile, 12 at the 90th percentile, and finally, five at the 100th percentile.

⁵ Post hoc power analyses indicated a high power for both path a (0.989) and path b (1.00).

Additional information

Funding

This research was part of the project “Sexual Desire: An Interdisciplinary Approach,” funded by the Maurice Chalumeau Fund from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.