Dimensions of sexual experiences reflected through adjective selection: findings from a US nationally representative survey
Jessie V. Ford
A * , Devon Hensel B C , Sarah McKetta A , Allison Carter D E F and Debby Herbenick G
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Columbia University, New York, NY 10027-6902, USA.
B Indiana University School of Medicine, Pediatrics/Adolescent Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA.
C Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, Sociology, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
D Faculty of Medicine, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia.
E Faculty of Law, Australian Human Rights Institute, UNSW Sydney, Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia.
F Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada.
G Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Sexual Health 19(5) 427-438 https://doi.org/10.1071/SH22043
Submitted: 11 March 2022 Accepted: 2 June 2022 Published: 1 August 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing
Abstract
Background: A growing body of research focuses on the quality of sexual experiences, such as the importance of sexual pleasure, comfort, and intimacy for overall health. Building upon this work, this study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the dimensions of sexual experiences using data from 2897 adult participants from the 2018 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (NSSHB; 1314 men, 1583 women).
Methods: We conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the extent to which 20 adjectives describing adults’ most recent sexual experience (e.g. boring, playful, romantic, etc.) formed a coherent factor or several factors. Next, we explored how different scores on each factor were associated with sexual outcomes for women and men.
Results: Our EFA generated two explanatory factors that mapped onto two underlying components: sexual pleasure and sexual danger. These two factors were correlated with sexual health outcomes including sexual wantedness, orgasm, self-rated sexual health, meaningfulness of sex and pain during sex.
Conclusions: We found that the innovative list of adjectives used in the 2018 NSSHB provided important and reliable insight into latent dimensions of sex. Specifically, we found that the pleasure dimension was important for both genders, and especially for women, in experiences where the sex was wanted, orgasmic, meaningful, healthy, and without pain. Implications for sexual experiences and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Keywords: factor analysis, sexual experience, sexual danger, sexual health, sexual pleasure, sexual practices, sexual subjectivity, sexual wellbeing.
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