Emotional Intimacy Power Predicts Different Sexual Experiences for Men and Women

Abstract

Those who are more emotionally invested in relationships have less power than their partners. Furthermore, less powerful individuals may attempt to equalize power imbalances by offering rewards to their partner and using sex and condom use as exchange resources. Australian young adults reported their condom use and pressured sex experiences in both romantic (n = 708) and casual (n = 118) relationships. Results showed that greater power (lower relative emotional investment) predicted more condom use among those wanting to use condoms. In casual relationships, an interaction with gender showed that women in particular used condoms more when they had more power. Power also interacted with gender for pressured sex and, unexpectedly, men who had more power experienced more pressured sex. The possibility that condom use and pressured sex have different meanings for men and women is explored.

Notes

Note. Casual and romantic relationships are presented on the upper and lower diagonals respectively.

^a Nonuse = 0; Use = 1.

^b Male = 0; Female = 1. (Correlations with condom use include only those who wanted to use condoms at least half of the time.)

*p < .05. **p < .01.

^a Male = 0; Female = 1.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

^a Birth control use: Nonuse = 0; Use = 1.

^b Gender: Male = 0; Female = 1.

*p < .05. **p < .01.