Communal motivation in couples coping with vulvodynia: Sexual distress mediates associations with pain, depression, and anxiety

Sexual communal motivation in couples coping with low sexual interest/arousal: Associations with sexual well-being and sexual goals

“…The current findings are consistent with past research on the positive associations of SCS with sexual well-being for both community [19,21] and clinical [20,37] samples of couples. Past research has found that people higher in SCS are more likely to maintain desire over time, even in a sample of long-term couples where desire tends to decline [16].…”

“…We also found preliminary evidence that when women with FSIAD report higher SCS, they also report higher sexual desire and their partner report higher approach sexual goals, and when partners reported higher in SCS, they report lower distress and higher approach goals. However, although consistent with theory and prior research with community samples [16] and other populations of couples coping with sexual problems [20,37], these effects were not retained with the multiple comparison correction, suggesting that there is a greater chance of these effects being false positives and more evidence is needed.…”

“…Unmitigated sexual communion: To measure the extent to which participants focus on their partner’s sexual needs to the exclusion of themselves, six items were previously adapted from a validated measure of unmitigated communion [20,37,44]. For additional information about the reliability and validity of this measure, see S1 File.…”

“…We expected that when women or their partners were higher in SCS, both partners would report greater sexual well-being and stronger approach goals for sex, but that when women and partners were higher in USC both partners would report lower sexual well-being and stronger avoidance goals for sex. Previous research testing links between sexual communal motivation and well-being has been conducted with community couples who engaged in sex once a week or more, on average (e.g., [16]) or specifically on days when couples engaged in sex (e.g., [20, 36, 37]). In fact, people higher in SCS are more likely to engage in sex even when their desire is low [18], and sexual frequency is associated with relationship and sexual satisfaction [38,39].…”

Giving in the bedroom: The costs and benefits of responding to a partner’s sexual needs in daily life

“…Recently, theories of unmitigated communion have been extended to the domain of sexuality, and work in this area has shown that whereas people who are high in sexual communal strength and their partners report higher sexual and relationship satisfaction, people high in unmitigated sexual communion and their partners do not reap these sexual or relationship benefits and, in some cases, report more negative experiences. More specifically, in a sample of couples in which the woman was diagnosed with provoked vestibulodynia (PVD), a chronic sexual pain condition, on days when women reported higher unmitigated sexual communion, they experienced greater sexual pain and both partners reported lower satisfaction, more depressive symptoms, and poorer sexual functioning (Muise, Bergeron, Impett, Delisle, & Rosen, 2018; Muise, Bergeron, Impett, & Rosen, 2017). These findings are in contrast to the positive effects of sexual communal strength found in this sample; more specifically, on days when women and their partners reported higher sexual communal strength, both partners reported greater sexual and relationship satisfaction and better sexual functioning (Muise et al, 2017).…”