A Developmentally Relevant Approach to Classifying Nonconsensual Sexual Experiences in the Study of Women’s Sexual Well-Being

Abstract

In this article we propose a sexual developmental approach to classifying the onset of nonconsensual sexual experiences (NSEs) that differs from the traditional age cutoff approach. Online measures of sexual self-schemas, sexual response, and sexual functioning were administered to 797 women with and without NSE histories. Women were grouped based on when their NSEs first occurred in reference to their age of menarche and age of their first consensual sexual experience (i.e., premenarche onset, postmenarche preconsensual onset, postconsensual onset, and no NSEs). Between-group analyses assessed differences in sexual well-being and structural equation modeling (SEM) assessed measurement invariance across the four groups. Women with NSE onset postmenarche but before their first consensual sexual experience reported significantly more conservative-embarrassed sexual self-schemas than did women with no NSEs. Women with NSE onset postmenarche and post–first consensual sex had significantly less sexual satisfaction than did women with no NSE histories. The other groups did not significantly differ from each other. The model demonstrated partial indicator-level metric noninvariance, suggesting that the various indicators of sexuality contributed differentially to the overall sexual well-being across these groups of women. The results support the use of the developmentally informed approach to classifying NSEs when assessing female sexual well-being.