TY - JOUR
T1 - The year’s best
T2 - Interpersonal elements of bisexual women’s most satisfying sexual experiences in the past year
AU - Chatterji, Sangeeta
AU - Bay-Cheng, Laina Y.
AU - Schick, Vanessa
AU - Dodge, Brian
AU - Baldwin, Aleta
AU - Van Der Pol, Barbara
AU - Fortenberry, J. Dennis
PY - 2016/8/5
Y1 - 2016/8/5
N2 - Sexual satisfaction is commonly defined and discussed in physiological terms of arousal and orgasm. Yet this narrow discourse does not accommodate the complex, multidimensional, and interpersonal aspects of sexual experience. To broaden and deepen our understanding of sexual satisfaction, we employed McClelland’s (2014) holistic four-factor framework of sexual satisfaction in a theoretical thematic analysis of 39 behaviorally bisexual women’s descriptions of their “best” partnered sexual experiences from the past year. We found women’s accounts mapped on to four elements: emotional attunement, emotional gratification, partner gratification, and sensory gratification. Relational and emotional dynamics, including emotional security, quality of interpersonal interaction during and after a sexual encounter, mutuality, intimacy, partner skill, novelty, and communication, were key to participants’ best sex experiences. Our findings support a multifaceted model of women’s sexual satisfaction that accounts for emotional, relational, and embodied experiences and the diverse relationships and behaviors these might involve.
AB - Sexual satisfaction is commonly defined and discussed in physiological terms of arousal and orgasm. Yet this narrow discourse does not accommodate the complex, multidimensional, and interpersonal aspects of sexual experience. To broaden and deepen our understanding of sexual satisfaction, we employed McClelland’s (2014) holistic four-factor framework of sexual satisfaction in a theoretical thematic analysis of 39 behaviorally bisexual women’s descriptions of their “best” partnered sexual experiences from the past year. We found women’s accounts mapped on to four elements: emotional attunement, emotional gratification, partner gratification, and sensory gratification. Relational and emotional dynamics, including emotional security, quality of interpersonal interaction during and after a sexual encounter, mutuality, intimacy, partner skill, novelty, and communication, were key to participants’ best sex experiences. Our findings support a multifaceted model of women’s sexual satisfaction that accounts for emotional, relational, and embodied experiences and the diverse relationships and behaviors these might involve.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84982812593&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00224499.2016.1207056
DO - 10.1080/00224499.2016.1207056
M3 - Article
C2 - 27494034
AN - SCOPUS:84982812593
SN - 0022-4499
VL - 54
SP - 887
EP - 898
JO - Journal of Sex Research
JF - Journal of Sex Research
IS - 7
ER -