In the present study, an investment model framework was applied to identify associations between partner verbal sexual coercion and dating relationship outcomes, including relationship commitment and maintenance. Undergraduate women (N= 180) provided self‐report data on investment model variables and verbal sexual coercion within their current relationships and returned 6 to 8 weeks later to report on their relationship status. About 28% of the participants endorsed partner verbal sexual coercion. Women in sexually coercive relationships reported greater investment but did not differ from other women in satisfaction, commitment, or later relationship maintenance. Results revealed indirect effects of partner sexual coercion on relationship commitment through greater perceived investment. Sustaining verbal sexual coercion in ongoing dating relationships may represent a type of relationship investment that indirectly promotes subjective commitment. Additional studies of verbal sexual coercion in committed romantic relationships are needed.

The present study examined the effects of depressive mood symptoms and experimentally adopted sexual schemas on women's sexual arousal and affect. Women's vaginal response, subjective sexual arousal, and affect were measured in response to sexually explicit visual material in a laboratory setting. At baseline on a self-report measure, women with depressive mood symptoms (n = 28) reported significantly lower sexual desire than women with normal mood (n=28), but no significant differences in arousal, orgasm, satisfaction, or pain. Participants were asked to adopt both a positive and negative sexual self-schema prior to viewing erotic stimuli. Women in both mood groups demonstrated significantly greater subjective sexual arousal, vaginal response, and positive affect in the positive schema condition than in the negative schema condition when controlling for anxiety. There were no main effects for mood symptoms. These findings support an information processing conceptualization of sexual arousal and suggest that an acute dose of cognitive sexual schemas can significantly impact subsequent sexual and affective responses. Implications of findings for the assessment and treatment of sexual dysfunction are noted.

The present study evaluated and compared the effects of experimentally adopted sexual schemas on vaginal response, subjective sexual arousal, and affect in 17 women with Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD) and 17 sexually healthy women. Positive and negative cognitive schemas were presented to participants before viewing sexually explicit video segments. They were asked to temporarily adopt both schemas, and vaginal response, subjective sexual arousal, and affect were measured in each schema condition. Participants in both groups had significantly greater vaginal response and reported more subjective sexual arousal in the positive schema condition than in the negative schema condition. Sexually healthy women demonstrated significantly higher subjective sexual arousal than women with FSAD, but there were no significant group differences in vaginal response. Moreover, participants in both groups reported higher levels of Positive Affect and Vigor in the positive schema condition than in the negative schema condition but higher levels of Negative Affect, Tension-Anxiety, and Anger-Hostility in the negative schema condition than in the positive schema condition. These findings demonstrate the impact of cognitions on sexual arousal, which has important implications for addressing cognitions in the treatment of FSAD. Moreover, these findings have implications for the conceptualization of FSAD, which may be best characterized as a complex, heterogeneous cluster of symptoms.