Correlates of Sexual Satisfaction in Marriage
Journal article by Michael Young, Raffy Luquis, George Denny, Tamera Young; The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, Vol. 7, 1998
Journal Article Excerpt
Correlates of sexual satisfaction in marriage. by Michael Young , Raffy Luquis , George Denny , Tamera Young Key words: Sexual satisfaction Marital satisfaction Relationship satisfaction Religiosity Spouse-partner orgasm consistency INTRODUCTION A person's satisfaction with his/her marriage or primary relationship tends to be a pivotal factor in his/her overall happiness. Sexual satisfaction is an important aspect of marital satisfaction (Farley & Davis, 1980; Gebhard, 1966; Hurlbert, Apt, & Rabehl, 1993; Przybyla & Byrne, 1981). Given the high rate of divorce and the marital and sexual dissatisfaction experienced by many couples who do not divorce (Frank, Anderson & Rubenstein, 1979), a number of researchers have sought to identify the factors that have a positive or negative impact on sexual satisfaction among married persons. Such studies have investigated the relationship of sexual satisfaction to physical aspects of sexual experience (e.g., orgasm consistency, frequency or timing of orgasm) (Darling, Davidson & Cox, 1991; Darling, Davidson, & Jennings, 1991; Waterman & Chiauzzi, 1982) and to psychological factors within individuals and couples (Farley & Davis, 1980). In addition, religiosity (Davidson, Darling, & Norton, 1995; Paxton & Turner, 1976), gender-role perception or adaptation (Jobes, 1986; Rosenzweig & Dailey, 1989), cultural variables (Ah Song, Bergen, & Schumm, 1995), and a host of other factors (Hatfield, Greenberger, Traupmann & Lambert, 1982; Hurlbert et al., 1993; Schiavi, Mandell & Schreiner-Engel, 1994) have been studied to determine their relationship, if any, to sexual satisfaction. The broad goal of the present study was to test a number of hypotheses on the relationship between the self-reported sexual satisfaction of married women and men and selected sexual and non-sexual aspects of their marital relationships. This included an examination of the relationship of religiosity and religious belief to sexual behaviour and sexual satisfaction in marriage. THE CONCEPT AND MEASUREMENT OF SEXUAL SATISFACTION At first glance, the concept of sexual satisfaction would appear to be straightforward; a person either is or is not satisfied with his or her sexual relationship (Derogatis & Melisaratos, 1979). It quickly becomes apparent, however, that there are various degrees of and components to sexual satisfaction. People may be more satisfied with some aspects of their sexual lives than with others. How then does one define, conceptualize and measure sexual satisfaction? Renaud, Byers and Pan (1997) highlighted the difficulty that researchers have had in defining sexual satisfaction by pointing out that it has sometimes been conceptualized as the absence of dissatisfaction. Lawrance and Byers (1995) described sexual satisfaction as "an affective response arising from one's subjective evaluation of the positive and negative dimensions associated with one's sexual relationship". The measurement of this "affective response" is not necessarily a simple task. Some researchers have attempted to measure overall sexual satisfaction using one or two questionnaire items. For example, Zhou (1993) measured sexual satisfaction by asking subjects a single question about their satisfaction with coitus. Several other researchers have sought to measure sexual satisfaction with one or two Likert-type items (Farley & Davis, 1980; Davidson & Hoffman, 1986; Ah Song et al., 1995), others have used single items to measure psychological and physiological components of satisfaction or have been unclear as to how they measured sexual satisfaction (Morokoff & Gillilland, 1993). Renaud et al. (1997) noted that researchers have sometimes used orgasmic consistency as an index of sexual satisfaction. They acknowledged that there was a relationship between orgasmic consistency and sexual satisfaction, but also made clear that there was a conceptual difference between these two constructs. Other researchers have used various multi-item scales to measure sexual satisfaction (Derogatis & Melisaratos, 1979; Hudson, Harrison & Croscup, 1981; Lawrance & Byers, 1995; LoPiccolo & Steger, 1974). The use of such scales allows the researcher to consider various components or dimensions of a sexual relationship. This approach may provide a more accurate reflection of a person's overall satisfaction with his or her sexual relationship than would approaches that used only one or two items. The present study employed an 11-item scale to assess several dimensions of sexual satisfaction (e.g., pleasure, attraction, intensity, fulfilment) among currently married women and men. The themes and hypotheses under investigation are described below. RELIGIOSITY AND SEXUAL SATISFACTIONDavidson et al. (1995) observed that "our societal views about sexuality continue to be dominated by the religious view that sexual desires are to be restrained and sexual pleasures to be avoided" (p. 235). We therefore ask here if and how sexual satisfaction is affected by the level of a person's religious commitment and/or by the person's "perception of how God views sexuality". Within ... |
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