Conceptualizing Sexual Pleasure at Home as a Work-Related Stress Recovery Activity

ABSTRACT

Job stress is pervasive in today’s workforce and has negative implications for employees’ mental and physical well-being and job performance. Recovery activities outside of work can reduce strain and improve work outcomes; however, little is known about pleasurable intimate recovery experiences and their influence on work outcomes, even though these experiences are important parts of most people’s lives outside of work. The present study examined sexual activity that is shared either with a relationship partner or oneself (masturbation) and how pleasure specifically predicts well-being and work outcomes to induce recovery. Results suggest that pleasurable sexual activity, with a partner or alone, is related to perceived recovery from work stress, job satisfaction, work engagement, and life satisfaction. Moreover, perceived recovery from work mediated the relationship between pleasurable sex and work outcomes. Gender moderated this relationship such that pleasurable sex was a stronger predictor of recovery for women (compared to men) in the context of sex within committed relationship partners (but not masturbation). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ A small portion (n = 60) of our sample reported being in a non-heterosexual relationships. We examined our hypotheses including and excluding these participants and found no difference in the pattern of results. However, the low statistical power inherent in these analyses preclude us from reporting them with confidence, so they have been omitted here.

Additional information

Funding

Portions of this research were supported by the Grant #T03OH008435 awarded to Portland State University, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIOSH, CDC or HHS. Portions of this research were presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality’s 2021 annual conference. Upon publication, all data will be publicly available via PDXScholar, Portland State’s open access data repository.