Perceived Partner Responsiveness Moderates the Associations Between Sexual Talk and Sexual and Relationship Well-Being in Individuals in Long-Term Relationships

Abstract

Sexual communication promotes sexual and relationship well-being. Previous research has frequently neglected couples’ communication that occurs exclusively during sexual activity, and that is specific to that sexual interaction (i.e., sexual talk). We examined associations between individualistic and mutualistic (i.e., self- and other-focused) sexual talk and sexual and relationship well-being, and the potential moderating role of perceived partner responsiveness to sexual talk (PPR). An MTurk community sample of 303 individuals (171 female) in committed relationships completed online measures assessing sexual satisfaction, sexual functioning, sexual distress, relationship satisfaction, sexual talk, and PPR. Greater mutualistic talk was associated with higher female sexual functioning, whereas greater individualistic talk was associated with lower relationship satisfaction. At higher levels of PPR, using more mutualistic talk was associated with less sexual distress and more individualistic talk was associated with greater sexual satisfaction. At lower levels of PPR, more mutualistic talk was associated with more sexual distress and more individualistic talk was linked to poorer sexual satisfaction. PPR may help buffer against the negative associations between self-focused (i.e., individualistic) sexual talk and sexual and relationship well-being, whereas other-focused (i.e., mutualistic) sexual talk may be beneficial for sexual and relationship well-being, unless a partner is perceived as very unresponsive.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Gillian Boudreau, Nicole Snowball, Dr. Sarah Vannier, Dr. Amy Muise, and Dr. Sean MacKinnon for their assistance, as well as all the individuals who participated in this research project.

Notes

¹ While a 3-factor model would have excellent fit, it was not used because the parallel analysis results showed that the eigenvalue for the real data (.1138) was smaller than that from the randomly generated data set (95th percentile = .1581). Sakaluk and Short (2017) encouraged researchers to retain the number of factors that have eigenvalues from their real data that are larger than those from the randomly generated data set. The rationale is that factors should be retained only if they account for more meaningful variance than random statistical noise (Sakaluk & Short, 2017). Additionally, the third factor would only have 1 item in it (item 4: submissive), and a factor with fewer than 3 items is generally weak and unstable (Costello & Osborne, 2005).

² Data file is password protected and to be used for research purposes only. Please contact the corresponding author for access.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a Joseph-Armand Bombardier—Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) awarded to K. E. Merwin, and by operating grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the SSHRC, awarded to N. O. Rosen.