Relationships between condoms, hormonal methods, and sexual pleasure and satisfaction: an exploratory analysis from the Women’s Well-Being and Sexuality Study
Jenny A. Higgins A G , Susie Hoffman B C , Cynthia A. Graham D and Stephanie A. Sanders E FA Office of Population Research, 218 Wallace Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
B HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.
C Department of Epidemiology, Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.
D Oxford Doctoral Course in Clinical Psychology, Warneford Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 7JX, England, UK.
E The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
F Department of Gender Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
G Corresponding author. Email: jennyh@princeton.edu
Sexual Health 5(4) 321-330 https://doi.org/10.1071/SH08021
Submitted: 14 March 2008 Accepted: 5 June 2008 Published: 18 November 2008
Abstract
Background: Little is known about how condoms and other contraceptives influence women’s sexual enjoyment, which could shape use patterns. Methods: Data from an online study of women’s sexual health and functioning were used to examine how three categories of contraceptive use – hormonal method only, condoms primarily, and dual use – could help predict decreased sexual pleasure associated with contraceptive method and overall sexual satisfaction in the past 4 weeks. Results: In analyses controlling for age, relationship length, and other variables, male condoms were most strongly associated with decreased pleasure, whether used alone or in conjunction with hormonal methods. Women who used hormonal methods alone were least likely to report decreased pleasure, but they also had significantly lower overall scores of sexual satisfaction compared with the other two groups. Dual users, or women who used both condoms and a hormonal method, reported the highest sexual satisfaction scores. Conclusions: Because male condoms were viewed by many of these women as decreasing sexual pleasure, sexual risk practices are likely to be affected. Although hormonal only users were highly unlikely to report decreased pleasure, they reported lower sexual satisfaction compared with the other two groups. Dual users, who had the highest sexual satisfaction scores, may have been the most sexually satisfied because they felt more fully protected against unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmissible infections – consistent with previous qualitative documentation of ‘eroticising safety.’ This exploratory study suggests that different contraceptives affect sexuality in various ways, warranting further research into these sexual dimensions and how they influence contraceptive practices.
Additional keywords: contraception, hormonal methods, male condoms, sexual pleasure, sexual satisfaction.
Acknowledgements
During manuscript preparation, Jenny Higgins was supported by a NIMH training grant (T32 MH19139) to the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioural Studies (P30 MH43240), as well as a fellowship from Princeton University’s Office of Population Research. We would like to thank John Bancroft and James Trussell for their feedback and insights on earlier drafts of this article.
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* *The last question of the survey asked, ‘Sometimes people fill out questionnaires but do not take them seriously and just fill in answers that may not be accurate. We do not want to use these in the study.’ Only those respondents who answered ‘I took the survey seriously – use my information in the study’ were included in the analyses.
dagger †Respondents were asked if they had used the female condom in the past 4 weeks. However, none of the women who met our inclusion criteria had done so, so our analysis pertains to male condoms only.
‡ ‡In multivariate models, number of children in the household, even though not associated with sexual satisfaction score in univariate analyses, was added to the final model because it altered the association between contraceptive method and sexual satisfaction score.
