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Dating abuse research on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) populations tends to aggregate LGB participants for comparisons with heterosexuals and often excludes nonassaultive dating abuse and abuse that takes place on online dating applications. In the present study, we used the Pew Research Center's 2019 American Trends Panel Wave 56 data set (n  = 4712) to compare ever experiencing several types of nonassaultive on- and offline dating abuse between bisexual women (n  = 402), lesbian women (n  = 207), heterosexual women (n  = 1802), bisexual men (n  = 225), gay men (n  = 575), and heterosexual men (n  = 1501). We found that gay men and bisexual women generally had the greatest odds of experiencing online dating abuse. Bisexual and heterosexual women had the greatest odds of experiencing some offline abuse (eg, being touched in an uncomfortable way), but gay men, bisexual women, and bisexual men had the greatest odds of experiencing other offline abuse (eg, having their contact information or a sexual image of them shared nonconsensually). Findings highlight how assessments of nonassaultive dating abuse in on- and offline contexts via analyses of more specified gender/sex and sexual identity groups can broaden understandings of dating abuse victimization, especially among sexual minority populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orgasm is considered by many to be an essential part of women's ideal sexual experiences. As a result, sexual liberation narratives have often advocated for the prioritization of women's orgasms – particularly during heterosex – framing them as a central indicator of "good," healthy, liberated sex. However, scholars have increasingly critiqued these narratives, arguing that they result in an orgasm imperative that has negatively impacted women's sexual lives. Perspectives that promote the prioritization of women's orgasm and those that warn against the negative repercussions strive for the same thing – to draw attention to women's sexuality in ways that will lead to more pleasurable, enjoyable, and equitable sex for women overall. Yet, together, they offer contradictory messages about the role that women's orgasms can or should play in women's sexual liberation. For example, one could argue that it perhaps makes sense to prioritize women's orgasms given that they often are highly pleasurable for women, center a unique form of embodied pleasure, and offer a supposedly clear objective for women and their men partners. On the other hand, such narratives frame women's orgasm absence as abnormal, concede to men's sexuality in problematic ways, and constrain more comprehensive possibilities for women's sexual pleasure. In this critical feminist review, I offer a summative outline of these and other contradictions, focusing on how narratives prioritizing women's orgasms can have simultaneous benefits and negative repercussions when it comes to (1) women's sexual pleasure, (2) the medicalization/pathologization of women's orgasms, and (3) heterosex norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) often use GPS-enabled dating apps and websites to facilitate in-person sexual encounters. Many of these encounters are positive and enjoyable. However, there is limited research on GBMSM's negative experiences with partners from hookup and dating apps/websites, especially those characterized by threats to GBMSM's sexual, physical, and/or psychological safety. In this report, we investigated this matter. We analyzed data from interviews with GBMSM (N = 60) and identified four categories of negative sexual experiences, each of which were comprised by sub-categories: 1) sexual violence (physical sexual assault, verbal sexual coercion, intoxicated assault/coercion), 2) sexual health risk behaviors (condom use resistance and coercion, deception related to HIV/STI status), 3) non-negotiated behaviors (undiscussed/unexpected sex acts, rough sex, sexualized racism, undesired substance use by the partner), and 4) threats to physical safety beyond sexual violence (being blocked from leaving, stalked, robbed, drugged). These results can inform future research and interventions that aim to promote safety on dating apps/websites within the GBMSM community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that women's orgasms function as a masculinity achievement for men. Less clear is whether men's orgasms function as a gendered achievement for women. In the present study, we explored this question via an experimental design by randomly assigning 440 women (M age = 32.29, SD age = 11.91) to read a vignette in which they imagined that an attractive man either did or did not orgasm during a sexual encounter with them. The women then rated their feelings of achievement, failure, femininity, and masculinity in response to the scenario along with how much they would attribute the situation to themselves or to the man partner. Results showed that women experienced men's orgasm presence as a femininity achievement and men's orgasm absence as a femininity failure. There were lesser impacts on women's feelings of masculinity. Feelings of achievement and failure were stronger for women who attributed the scenario more strongly to themselves. Further, greater sexual assertiveness in general predicted stronger feelings of achievement in response to men's orgasm presence and greater feminine gender role stress predicted stronger feelings of failure in response to men's orgasm absence. Together, findings highlight that men's orgasm seems to function as an achievement for women; however, the connection to femininity (which is less valued and prescribed differently compared to masculinity) denotes that men's orgasms for women are a different gendered experience with different stakes compared to women's orgasms for men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we sought to better understand how MSM make decisions about HIV disclosure when using hook-up apps/websites and how these decisions relate to condom use during app/website-facilitated sexual encounters. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 60 MSM (30% living with HIV) who had used hook-up apps and websites to meet sexual partners within the past three months. Results demonstrated a variety of approaches to HIV status disclosure. Some men reported usually discussing HIV status, but others discussed HIV status selectively (e.g., only when asked, when a relationship became more serious). Some men reported that listing one's status in a profile precluded the need to discuss it further. Others noted that leaving an HIV status blank "hinted" at their own or others' HIV positive or negative status. These approaches were closely linked to decisions about condom use. Many men reported serosorting based on inferences or assumptions about partners' HIV status. Together, results highlighted potential gaps in communication that can lead to faulty assumptions about HIV status and subsequent serodiscordant condomless sex and suggest that interventions that promote HIV status disclosure address these potential faulty assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orgasm coercion occurs when someone pressures a partner to orgasm by implying that not orgasming will have negative consequences. But what happens when the coerced partner refuses to go along with orgasm coercion? And how do perpetrators of orgasm coercion react? In the current study, we analysed 100 participants' (cisgender women, n = 66; cisgender men, n = 24; gender/sex minorities, n = 10) descriptions of refusing orgasm coercion during their most recent orgasm coercion encounter. We assessed how participants expressed refusals, perpetrators reacted to these refusals, and perpetrator reactions connected to relationship and psychological outcomes. Results showed that participants used a variety of refusal strategies that were positively- or negatively-valenced. Some perpetrators (31%) reacted in positive, understanding ways. However, most perpetrators (61%) reacted negatively or with more coercion when confronted. Of note, results suggested that whether perpetrators responded in positive vs. negative ways did not depend on participants' refusal strategies. We also found that positive perpetrator reactions were associated with positive relationship outcomes, but participants reported high negative psychological outcomes regardless of perpetrators' reactions. Findings support that perpetrators of orgasm coercion are not necessarily invested in partners' positive experiences and that orgasm coercion cannot be resolved through better communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological sexual coercion is known to negatively impact those who experience it, yet sexual encounters where orgasm is present are often presumed to be positive and absent of coercion. In the present study, we conducted an online survey with women (n = 179) and men (n = 251) to test associations between sexually coercive experiences that include orgasm and negative psychological, sexual, and relationship outcomes. To do so, we focused on three experiences: having an orgasm during coerced sex (CS), having a coerced orgasm during desired sex (CO), and having a coerced orgasm during coerced sex (COS). Using structural equation modeling, we found that ever having any of these coercion-plus-orgasm experiences with a current partner predicted significantly higher avoidance motivations (i.e., engaging in sex to avoid conflict with one's partner), which in turn predicted significantly worse psychological distress, sexual satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, and sexual functioning (but not dyadic sexual desire). We also found that CS, CO, and COS predicted negative outcomes to a similar degree. However, testing gender/sex as a moderator clarified that CS predicted significantly lower sexual satisfaction, sexual functioning, and sexual desire for women but not men. Furthermore, CO predicted faking orgasms in women, but COS predicted faking orgasms in men. Together, results demonstrate that experiencing psychological sexual coercion and/or orgasm coercion is significantly associated with negative outcomes even if the coerced person's orgasm occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orgasm coercion involves pressuring a partner to orgasm by implying that not orgasming will have negative consequences. In the present study, we used mixed methods to explore (1) how various individual and contextual factors—i.e., frequency of orgasm coercion, orgasm frequency, gender/sex, sexual identity, the orgasm coercion tactics used, and perceptions of the perpetrator's intention—affect relationship and psychological outcomes associated with orgasm coercion, and (2) how different individuals characterize these outcomes. Cisgender women, cisgender men, and gender/sex minority participants (N = 308, M age = 30.44 years, SD = 8.16) described the most recent encounter in which they experienced orgasm coercion and then rated and described the positive and negative relationship and psychological outcomes associated with the incident. Quantitative results showed that the following predicted significantly higher negative relationship and psychological outcomes: a higher frequency of experiencing orgasm coercion, lower frequency of orgasming with partners in general, and experiencing orgasm coercion via physical or emotional threats. Believing that the perpetrator was motivated by altruism or social pressures mitigated these effects. And, experiencing orgasm coercion via implied fault predicted significantly higher negative relationship outcomes only for cisgender women. Additionally, being a sexual minority predicted higher negative relationship (but not psychological) outcomes, whereas being a gender/sex minority predicted higher negative psychological (but not relationship) outcomes. Qualitative results showed that relationship and psychological outcomes varied; for example, participants discussed making a partner happy, disappointment with their partner's behaviors, ending the relationship, and lasting feelings of anxiety, guilt, and abuse. Together, findings offer new insights into how orgasm coercion affects those who experience it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trying to ensure that a partner orgasms during sex is generally seen as positive, but research has yet to assess how this might involve pressuring partners to orgasm in coercive ways. In the present study, we tested whether pressuring a partner to orgasm is a coercive behavior by assessing how this behavior overlaps with sexual coercion (i.e., pressuring someone into having sex). Participants of diverse gender/sex and sexual identities (N = 912, M age = 31.31 years, SD = 9.41) completed an online survey that asked them whether they had ever felt pressured by a partner to orgasm, to describe what partners have said or done to pressure them, and to answer a series of questions about the most recent incident in which this occurred. Mixed quantitative and qualitative results showed that orgasm pressure tactics were analogous to sexual coercion tactics and that being pressured to orgasm was associated with experiencing sexual coercion, faking orgasms, and negative psychological and relationship outcomes. Together, findings challenge the assumption that trying to ensure a partner's orgasm occurrence is necessarily positive and demonstrate that orgasm coercion exists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low sexual desire in women partnered with men is typically presumed to be a problem—one that exists in women and encourages a research agenda on causation and treatment targeting women. In this paper, we present a distinct way forward for research on low sexual desire in women partnered with men that attends to a more structural explanation: heteronormativity. A heteronormative worldview assumes that relationships and structures are heterosexual, gender (usually conflated with sex) is binary and complementary, and gender roles fit within narrow bounds including nurturant labor for women. We propose the heteronormativity theory of low sexual desire in women partnered with men, arguing that heteronormative gender inequities are contributing factors. We outline four hypotheses and their predictions related to: inequitable divisions of household labor, blurring of partner and mother roles, objectification of women, and gender norms surrounding sexual initiation. We discuss some mechanisms—social, physiological, and otherwise—for the heteronormativity theory, especially related to stress, objectification, and nurturance. We close by noting some limitations of our paper and the ways that the heteronormativity theory of low sexual desire in women partnered with men provides a rigorous, generative, and empirical way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orgasms during consensual sex are often assumed to be wholly positive experiences. This assumption overshadows the possibility that orgasm experiences during consensual sex could be "bad" (i.e., negative and/or non-positive). In the present study, we employed an online survey to explore the possibility that orgasm experiences could be "bad" during consensual sex by asking participants of diverse gender and sexual identities (N = 726, M age = 28.42 years, SD = 7.85) about a subset of potential bad orgasm experiences. Specifically, we asked participants whether they have ever had an orgasm during coerced sex, compliant sex, and/or when they felt pressured to have an orgasm (i.e., orgasm pressure). We also asked participants who had such an experience to describe it, resulting in qualitative descriptions from 289 participants. Using mixed quantitative and qualitative analyses, we found compelling evidence that orgasm experiences can be "bad" during consensual sex. Specifically, many participants described their experiences in negative and/or non-positive ways despite orgasm occurrence, reported that their orgasms were less pleasurable compared to other experiences, and suggested that their orgasm experiences had negative impacts on their relationships, sexuality, and/or psychological health. Participants also suggested that social location shaped their bad orgasm experiences, citing gender and sexual identity, gender identity conflict, race/ethnicity, and religion as important to their perceptions of and responses to their experiences. Results directly challenge the assumption that orgasms during consensual sex are always and/or unilaterally positive experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on feminist identification in men has often focused on men who identify as feminist or who assert agreement with feminist goals. For some men, however, choices surrounding feminist self-identification may be uncertain in ways that are meaningful indicators of their beliefs and values. We hypothesized that men who were uncertain about their feminist identity held beliefs that fell between their feminist and non-feminist peers, representing a unique ideological position. We tested this possibility by comparing feminist, "unsure", and non-feminist U. S. college (n = 533) and community (n = 277) men's masculinity stress and conformity, gender role values, and approaches to sexual relationships. Results showed that unsure men's gender role values fell between feminist and non-feminist men, but unsure men were more like feminists for some components of masculinity and more like non-feminists for others; on some constructs, feminist, unsure, and non-feminist men were similar. For sexual relationships, all men were equally invested in a sexual partner's pleasure, but unsure men and feminist men were less concerned with receiving sexual favors in exchange compared to non-feminists. We discuss how acknowledgement of men's uncertainty about their feminist identity may be useful for how researchers assess men's relationship to feminism, how instructors teach men about feminism in classroom settings, and how activists involve men in the feminist movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual desire and testosterone are widely assumed to be directly and positively linked to each other despite the lack of supporting empirical evidence. The literature that does exist is mixed, which may result from a conflation of solitary and dyadic desire, and the exclusion of contextual variables, like stress, known to be relevant. Here, we use the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds as a framework for examining how testosterone, solitary and partnered desire, and stress are linked over time. To do so, we collected saliva samples (for testosterone and cortisol) and measured desire as well as other variables via questionnaires over nine monthly sessions in 78 women and 79 men. Linear mixed models showed that testosterone negatively predicted partnered desire in women but not men. Stress moderated associations between testosterone and solitary desire in both women and men, but differently: At lower levels of stress, higher average testosterone corresponded to higher average solitary desire for men, but lower solitary desire on average for women. Similarly, for partnered desire, higher perceived stress predicted lower desire for women, but higher desire for men. We conclude by discussing the ways that these results both counter presumptions about testosterone and desire but fit with the existing literature and theory, and highlight the empirical importance of stress and gender norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women often expect to encounter negative, problematic content when they consume pornography, yet many women use and enjoy pornography anyway. Some research has centered content type (e.g., sexist/violent vs. nonsexist/women-focused) as a key determinant of women's pornography experiences, but this precludes the notion that women are active, engaged consumers of pornography and minimizes women's role in shaping their own experiences. In the present study, we explored how a sample of sexually diverse women in the U.S. (aged 18-64; N = 73) worked toward positive experiences with pornography via active negotiation with negative content, using a secondary analysis of focus group data on women's sexual pleasure. We found that, although women often experienced pornography as risky, many women used it anyway and actively employed strategies to increase the likelihood of having a positive experience. Women's strategies were similar across sexual identity and age groups, but the heteronormative, youth-oriented portrayals of sexuality in mainstream pornography presented unique concerns for heterosexual, queer, and older women. Results have implications for how women can be conceptualized as active, rather than passive, consumers of pornography as well as for how women's agency might influence women's arousal responses to sexually explicit stimuli in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual desire is typically measured as a unitary erotic phenomenon and is often assumed by biological and biomedical researchers, as well as the lay public, to be directly connected to physiological parameters like testosterone (T). In the present study, we empirically examined how conceptualizing sexual desire as multifaceted might clarify associations with T and contextual variables. To do so, we used the Sexual Desire Questionnaire (DESQ), which assesses multifaceted dyadic sexual desire, to explore how contextual variables such as social location, relationship status, and desire target (e.g., partner vs. stranger) might be meaningful for reports of sexual desire and associated hormonal correlations. We focused on women (N = 198), because sexual desire and testosterone are generally unlinked in healthy men. Participants imagined a partner or stranger while answering the 65 DESQ items and provided a saliva sample for hormone assay. Analyses showed that the DESQ factored differently for the current sample than in previous research, highlighting how sexual desire can be constructed differently across different populations. We also found that, for the Intimacy, Eroticism, and Partner Focus factors, mean scores were higher when the desire target was a partner relative to a stranger for participants in a relationship, but equally high between partner versus stranger target for single participants. DESQ items resolved into meaningful hormonal desire components, such that high endorsement of Fantasy Experience was linked to higher T, and higher cortisol was linked with lower endorsement of the Intimacy factor. We argue that conceptualizing desire as multifaceted and contextualized when assessing hormonal links-or questions in general about desire-can clarify some of its complexities and lead to new research avenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual desire is increasingly understood to be multifaceted and not solely erotically oriented, but measures are still generally unitary and eroticism-focused. Our goals in this article were to explore the multifaceted nature of sexual desire and develop a measure to do so, and to determine how multifaceted sexual desire might be related to gender/sex and sexual orientation/identity. In the development phase, we generated items to form the 65-item Sexual Desire Questionnaire (DESQ). Next, the DESQ was administered to 609 women, 705 men, and 39 non-binary identified participants. Results showed that the DESQ demonstrated high reliability and validity, and that sexual desire was neither unitary nor entirely erotic, but instead was remarkably multifaceted. We also found that multifaceted sexual desire was in part related to social location variables such as gender/sex and sexual orientation/identity. We propose the DESQ as a measure of multifaceted sexual desire that can be used to compare factor themes, total scores, and scores across individual items in diverse groups that take social context into account. Results are discussed in light of how social location variables should be considered when making generalizations about sexual desire, and how conceptualizations of desire as multifaceted may provide important insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orgasms have been promoted as symbols of sexual fulfillment for women, and have perhaps become the symbol of a woman's healthy sex life. However, some research has suggested that this focus on women's orgasms, though ostensibly for women, may actually serve men; but the mechanisms of this are unclear. In the present experiment, we hypothesized that women's orgasms specifically function as a masculinity achievement for men. To test this, we randomly assigned 810 men (M age = 25.44, SD = 8.31) to read a vignette where they imagined that an attractive woman either did or did not orgasm during a sexual encounter with them. Participants then rated their sexual esteem and the extent to which they would feel masculine after experiencing the given situation. Our results showed that men felt more masculine and reported higher sexual esteem when they imagined that a woman orgasmed during sexual encounters with them, and that this effect was exacerbated for men with high masculine gender role stress. These results suggest that women's orgasms do function--at least in part--as a masculinity achievement for men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]