The results of three studies are discussed in this thesis. In the first study, possible relationships between jealousy, aggression, sexual desire and post-conflict sex were investigated in a sample of 128 students and professionals from the East Midlands area. A model was proposed which predicted that jealousy will affect aggression; aggression will affect sexual desire and sexual desire will affect the possibility of post-conflict sex. Correlational analysis revealed that jealousy was significantly correlated to aggression and sexual desire; also, a strong significant relationship was found between aggression and post-conflict sex. Correlations were also discovered between aggression and sexual desire and between sexual desire and post-conflict sex. Further analysis using Structural Equation Modelling tested and supported a model which showed that jealousy influenced aggression and sexual desire, which in turn may influence post-conflict sex. The second study explored partners' possible conciliatory acts in post-conflict situations. The aim was to gain insight in the peace-making process and identify the ways in which . partners attempt to reach closure over an argument and return to how they were before the argument occurred. Interviews with 13 males and females were conducted. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using Thematic Networks Analysis. The results revealed that participants reached 'Perceived Closure' through four possible pathways a) Avoiding further conflict, b) Gaining control of the situation, c) Providing/receiving assurances, and d) Achieving normality. The exact processes involved in these pathways were found to be defined by clusters of basic themes. The themes that emerged showed that participants used affection, sex, distancing, apology and humour in order to return to normality and reach closure. This process was shown to be gradual as participants reported adopting a step-by-step approach that involves trying to gain control of their feelings and the situation, avoiding further arguments, reinstating feelings of security and safety and attempting to reinstate a sense of normality. The third study was designed to explore post-conflict conciliatory acts and investigate possible correlations with relationship satisfaction and positive and negative conflict outcomes patterns. The sample consisted of 139 partiCipants from the East Midlands area. The main findings were that participants who adopt constructive conflict styles (as shown from positive conflict outcomes) tend experience higher relationship satisfaction. Use of post-conflict conciliatory strategies was also predictive of higher relationship satisfaction.

Thesis (M.A. (Health Social Science))--Mahidol University, 2006. / LICL has E-Thesis 0012 ; please contact computer services.

Denna studie har en fenomenologisk ingång och undersöker transpersoners förutsättningar, strategier och förhållningssätt för att uppnå sexuell hälsa, samt hur de använt dessa för att hantera könsinkongruens och könsdysfori, genom olika faser av social och medicinsk transition. Studien placerar sig inom aktionsforskning och undersöker handlingsstrategier i en grupp transpersoner som trivs med sin sexualitet. Studien bygger på 10 informanters deltagande, varav sju intervjuer och tre texter. Alla informanter upplevde ökad kroppsdysfori och social dysfori under varseblivandet av könsidentiteten och i väntan på utredning och behandling. I resultatet framkom det att acceptera den egna identiteten, att bli respekterad utifrån denna samt få önskad medicinsk behandling var avgörande för sexuell hälsa. Onani och fantasi hjälpte flera informanter att lära känna den nya kroppen och uppnå kroppsacceptans samt hantera könsdysfori och social dysfori. Onani hjälpte informanterna att hitta nya erogena zoner och integrera fler delar av kroppen i sin sexualitet. Att fantisera om kroppskongruens hade också en positiv effekt i relation till egen sexualitet och sexualitet med partner. Vidare så ger transidentitet anledning till verbal kommunikation om sexualitet, lust och gränser med partner, vilket gynnade njutning. Fler informanter uttryckte en frihetskänsla av att bryta normer och att de var mer sexuellt nöjda i deras nya identitet och sexuella praktiker. Slutligen diskuteras att cis-personer också anstränger sig för att passa in i kulturens genusnormer och sexuella normer, och att den största skillnaden mellan trans- och cis-personer, kan vara att transpersoner har en medvetenhet om denna möda. Således kan de handlingsstrategier som denna studie inringat vara värdefulla för transpersoner såväl som cis-personer för att uppnå sexuell hälsa. / This study has a phenomenological approach and examines transgender peoples’ prospects, strategies and approaches to handle gender incongruence and gender dysphoria, and their ability to experience sexual desire and sexual health in the process of social and medical transition. The study employs an action research methodology and aims to explore coping strategies in a sex positive sample. The work is based on teen self-reports, comprising seven interviews and three written texts. All participants reported significantly higher body dysphoria and social dysphoria both during the coming out process and while waiting for assessment and medical transitioning. It was found that acknowledging oneself and one’s transgender identity, as well as access to medical treatment, was vital for sexual health. To cope with gender dysphoria and social dysphoria the participants used masturbation and fantasy to get to know their new body, experience sexual desire and encourage body acceptance. Masturbation helped participants discover new erogenous zones, communicate bodily boundaries, and establish likes and dislikes with partners. Fantasizing about body congruence also had a positive effect in relation to one's own sexuality and sexuality with partners. Furthermore, the findings suggest that trans-identity gives rise to verbal communication about sexuality, desire and boundaries with partners, which encouraged an acceptance of sexuality. Several informants expressed a sense of freedom from breaking norms and that they were more sexually satisfied in their new identity and sexual practices. Lastly, the study revealed that cis-gender people also are struggling to find their place in the gender roles and cultural norms of sexuality, and that the main difference between this group and transgender people is that the former may be more aware of these roles and norms. Therefore, the findings of this study can provide valuable insights for both trans and cis-gender people to achieve sexual health.

abstract: Maintaining sexual desire as the marriage endures is a challenge, especially as it involves the interplay of seemingly opposing tensions of novelty, autonomy, and closeness. Difficulties can arise when autonomy, which requires spousal distancing, is perceived as a martial threat and therefore suppressed. This dissertation investigates whether prosocial marital distancing can nurture autonomy and promote sexual desire. Torah-observant Jewish married couples practice family purity, a Jewish law forbidding sexual relations during menstruation and shortly thereafter. During this time couples often avoid sleeping in the same bed, physical touch, and behaviors that can instigate a sexual encounter. These distancing restrictions are lifted when the wife immerses in a ritual bath. The process repeats at the next menstruation. This research examined the effects of family purity’s marital distancing through two studies. The first involved qualitative interviews of family purity wives (N = 10) guided by relational dialectics theory (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996). Study one findings suggest that family purity wives navigate the three tensions of integration, expression, and certainty. Study one also revealed a new tension, the dialect of restraint. The dialectic of restraint appears to enhance marital communication, heighten the appreciation for the mundane, and help sustain sexual desire. Study two, the quantitative phase of the research, applied self-expansion theory (Aron & Aron, 1986) to investigate differences between family purity and non-family purity couples. A sample of 90 married Jewish dyads (N = 180) participated in a cross-sectional online questionnaire. Findings suggest that while non-practicing couples report greater self-expansion, family purity couples report greater sexual closeness. Family purity couples also report the same closeness and sexual closeness ideals, whereas non-practicing couples reported divergent ideals. Non-practicing family purity husbands had the greatest reported discrepancy between ideal and actual sexual closeness. The combined findings suggest that sanctioned prosocial distancing as practiced by family purity couples enables the integration of cognitive growth and mitigates the threat of autonomy. Prosocial distancing within the family purity marriage appears to provide the wife space for autonomy that in turn provokes novelty and sexual desire. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical contributions, study limitations, and future directions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication Studies 2020

No description available.

Pornography has increasingly become a hot topic of discussion in the United States, likely due to its increasing rate of consumption. Recent scholarship has indicated the need to account for factors such as masturbation and sexual desire discrepancy when conducting pornography research. The current study isolated the influence pornography use had on those in heterosexual romantic relationships (N=713 couples) by parsing out the effects of sexual desire discrepancy and masturbation. This was done by using a series of nested actor-partner interdependence models (APIM) to see how the relationships between pornography use and sexual satisfaction changed in each model. Masturbation and sexual desire discrepancy were also investigated as potential moderators for the APIMs to explore the effects the levels of these variables had on that relationship. Results from these analyses demonstrated that the best-fitting model included measures of masturbation, sexual desire discrepancy, and sexual engagement (i.e., controls for the values making up sexual desire discrepancy), and that adding each of these variables to the model significantly changed pornography use's actor and partner effects. Masturbation and sexual desire discrepancy were not found to moderate these relationships. A discussion of the research implications of these findings, the limitations of this study, future directions for research, and clinical implications of this study are also presented.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between women's sexual desire and their reported level of sexual satisfaction. This study evaluated biological, psychological, and social factors of desire that might influence satisfaction. The sample for this study consisted of 77 Caucasian individuals, 45 women and 32 men, in their first marriage, who had been married on average 2 years. Results indicated that sexual desire was positively and significantly correlated with sexual satisfaction and that psychological and social factors most strongly explain women's sexual satisfaction. Further, women's perceptions of their own sexual desire, psychological and social, were more strongly associated with sexual satisfaction than their husband's perception of their desire, biological, psychological, or social.

Love and sex change over the course of a relationship. The current research investigates the factors that contribute to sexual desire and sexual satisfaction in long-term couples. In two studies, the association between motivational goals for sex, interdependence, and sexual outcomes were explored. Study 1 was a cross-sectional survey. The results of Study 1 revealed that participants who engaged in sex more often for approach goals reported higher levels of desire, whereas participants who engaged in sex more often for avoidance goals reported lower levels of desire. Study 2 was a 21-day daily experience study involving a subset of the participants from Study 1. The results of Study 2 indicated that on days when participants reported engaging in sex more for approach goals they reported greater sexual desire, whereas on days when participants reported engaging in sex more for avoidance goals they reported lower levels of sexual desire. Partner-focused, as opposed to self-focused sexual goals, were primarily responsible for these associations. In both studies, relationship satisfaction was also associated with higher desire, and this was mediated by the tendency of people who are more satisfied to engage in sex more often for approach goals. In Study 2, approach goals moderated the impact of avoidance goals on sexual desire, and this association differed by gender. Stronger approach goals buffered against declines in sexual desire associated with avoidance goals for women, but not for men. The findings support the utility of applying a motivational framework to the study of sexuality in established couples and the greater relevance of partner-focused sexual goals in long-term relationships.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-18T21:31:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Kassem Mahamad Ghandour1.pdf: 1891083 bytes, checksum: 28f2f645612a43b29d732b8548187138 (MD5) Kassem Mahamad Ghandour2.pdf: 2380827 bytes, checksum: 00acc6ecfeb9d8220bfb49ca7b73e8bf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-08-08 / The proposal of this study is to analyze the formation of a homoerotic masculine look that had being built since the XIX century (time when the terms heterosexual and homosexual ) were forged, having as a temporal cut the period from 1969 to 1984. The perspective is to identify the changes happened in the construction of this look from 1969, a year marked by the conflicts happened at the bar Stonewall Inn, in New York, resulting in a change of attitude concerning the gay segment, that brought to the surface an entire way of being built in the secrecy of the ghetto, until the year of 1984. A relationship is set up with the fashion as a social phenomenon that points out these transformations, especially with the work of the French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultie. This creator incorporates the universe of the masculine gay desire and the camp aesthetics, getting, this way, to streamline the rigid conventions of the masculine dressing, through the contributions of this homoerotic look. / A proposta deste estudo é analisar a formação de um olhar homoerótico masculino que foi sendo construído desde o século XIX (época em que foram forjados os termos heterossexual e homossexual ), tendo como recorte temporal o período de 1969 a 1984. A perspectiva é identificar as mudanças ocorridas na construção deste olhar a partir de 1969, ano marcado pelos conflitos ocorridos no bar Stonewall Inn, em Nova York, resultando numa mudança de atitude do segmento gay, que trouxe à tona todo um modo de ser construído na clandestinidade do gueto, até o ano de 1984. Estabelece-se uma relação com a moda como fenômeno social que aponta estas transformações, especialmente com o trabalho do costureiro francês Jean-Paul Gaultier. Este criador incorpora o universo do desejo gay masculino e a estética camp, conseguindo, desse modo, flexibilizar as rígidas convenções da indumentária masculina, por meio das contribuições deste olhar homoerótico.

Since the late 1990s, researchers have reported a high degree of sexual dysfunction among American women that is associated with significant negative consequences (e.g., reduced quality of life and sexual satisfaction). In addition, sexual satisfaction is a primary factor in marital stability. Because of the widespread impact on both individual well-being and marital relationships, female sexual dysfunction is a significant public health problem. Most research has supported the predominance of psychocultural factors in women's sexual issues. Authenticity, defined by Kernis and Goldman as acting in accord with one's natural inclinations, is associated with increased well-being, but researchers have often overlooked it in the literature on female sexual dysfunction. This study, guided by Kernis and Goldman's authenticity theory, argued that gender culture impairs the ability of women to be authentic in the sexual realm, and, thereby, increases the risk of sexual problems. The purpose of this research study was to examine the relationship between authenticity, as measured by The Authenticity Inventory, Version 3, and female sexual dysfunction, as measured by The Female Sexual Function Index and The Female Sexual Distress Scale, Revised, in a group of 55 women attending an online university. The hypothesis was that women with higher rates of dysfunction and/or distress would score lower on authenticity. The results from a regression analysis did not reach significance and failed to confirm the hypothesis; however, there was an association between distress and dysfunction. This study contributes to social change by examining an association between authenticity and female sexual dysfunction that is of help to researchers and therapists working with women in the area of sexual health.