(058) HAVING SEX OUT OF A SENSE OF DUTY: THE INFLUENCE OF NONCONSENSUAL SEXUAL EXPERIENCES AND SEXUAL FUNCTIONING

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Pleasure and emotional bonding are two motives for why women have sex that are commonly discussed in the literature. Less commonly reported, but frequently endorsed by women, is the motive “duty sex,” in which an individual engages in sex out of a sense of obligation to maintain a relationship or their partner’s feelings towards them, to ensure their partner will not leave them, or to avoid conflict. Engaging in duty sex can yield negative outcomes such as emotional discomfort and lower relationship satisfaction, although there have been some reports of positive outcomes, including feelings of closeness (O’Sullivan & Allgeier, 1998). Women with a history of nonconsensual sexual experiences (NSEs) show high rates of sexual dysfunction (Pulverman et al., 2018), and sexual dysfunction in women has been linked to a higher tendency to engage in duty sex (Meston & Stanton, 2017). Objective This study aimed to investigate the potential connections between sexual dysfunction and the frequency of duty sex in women with NSE histories. Methods Women (N = 820; mean age = 35.36, SD = 11.32) completed the Nonconsensual Sexual Experiences Inventory (NSEI; Kilimnik & Meston, 2017), the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI; Rosen et al., 2000), items indicative of duty sex from the Sexual Motivations Scale (Cooper et al., 1998), as well as other measures not reported here. Results Women were categorized as either having NSE history (n = 465) or not (n = 355) based on the NSEI. FSFI total scores predicted duty sex such that women with lower sexual functioning reported engaging in more duty sex, R2 = .18, F(1, 654) = 147.30, p < .01, and higher levels of duty sex predicted lower sexual satisfaction, R2 = .057, F(1, 807) = 50.13, p < .01. Results from a multiple linear regression revealed that NSE history significantly predicted engagement in duty sex after controlling for sexual function, R2 = .19, F(2, 653) = 77.06, p < .01. Conclusions The results suggest that women with NSE histories endorse a higher frequency of duty sex motives compared to women without NSE histories that cannot be explained by variability in sexual functioning. That is, women with NSE histories were more likely to engage in sex out of fear that their partner would love them less, be angry with them, or leave them if they refused to engage in sex, and this effect was over and above the relationship of these motives with sexual dysfunction. As engaging in these duty sex motives was linked to overall sexual dissatisfaction, future research that examines the cognitive mechanisms by which having a history of NSE leads women to feel obligated to have sex out of a sense of duty would help enhance the sex lives of women with NSE histories. Disclosure No.