Sexual Attitudes, Religious Commitment, and Sexual Risk Behaviours among College-Aged Women

ABSTRACT

Sexual double standards tend to marginalize women and restrict their sexual expression in comparison to men. Sexual attitudes can heavily influence women’s propensity to engage in sexual risk behaviours. One’s sexual attitudes, whether more conservative or liberal have been shown to influence differing experiences of power and assertiveness in sexual relationships. Religiosity is often linked to an individual’s sexual decision-making and practices. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine if sexual attitudes meditated the relationship between women’s religious commitment and their sexual risk behaviours while in college. The study consisted of 155 college-aged women (ages 18–25) who completed an online survey. The results suggested that religious commitment was significantly related to sexual risk behaviours. Additionally, sexual attitudes did not mediate the relationship between religious commitment and sexual risk behaviours. These findings provide researchers with relevant information about women’s sexual attitudes and their corresponding behaviours. This study adds to the literature by focusing on the relationship between college-aged women’s sexual practices and their religiosity.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex attitudes
• Sexual risk behaviours
• College Women
• Religion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joslyn Armstrong

Joslyn Armstrong, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy program at Lewis and Clark College. Her research examines intersectionality of identities in race, gender, sexuality, and religion for women. Joslyn plans to examine the intersectionality of religion and sexuality for Black women.

Shemeka Thorpe

Shemeka Thorpe, MS is a doctoral candidate in Community Health Education at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Her research utilizes a sex-positive framework to investigate Black women’s sexuality. Shemeka hopes to create asset-based, pleasure-inclusive sexual health interventions and sexuality education curricula for Black women.

Denise Williams

Dr. Denise Williams is an assistant professor of Counseling at Indiana Wesleyan University. She earned her Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Texas Tech University. Her research interests include: marital issues, couples’ sexual intimacy concerns, the influence of addiction in the family and underrepresented groups such undocumented and international students.