Sexual self-concept and sexual awareness in divorce, infidelity and control group

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare sexual self-concept and sexual awareness among divorced, infidelity, and normal women.Methods: The method of this study was causal-comparative, which was conducted to compare sexual self-concept and sexual awareness among three groups of women. The statistical population was all the women who were referred to Pooyan Sexual Disorders Clinic between 2016 and 2017. 55 divorced women, 42 unfaithful women, and 50 normal women were selected from volunteers as a sample. They responded to the sexual self-concept questionnaires of Fisher, Davis, and Yarber (2013) and sexual awareness of Snell, Fisher, and Miller (1991) in accordance with ethical principles.Results: The findings showed that the mean age and the mean years of marital life of women who cheated before were higher than that of divorced women and control group (p<0.05). Moreover, these women had seen more pornography before marriage than divorced women and control group, and also had more masturbation (p<0.05). Results showed that sexual anxiety, sexual self-efficacy, sexual consciousness, avoidance of risky sex, chance sexual control, sexual preoccupation, sexual optimism, sexual self-esteem, sexual satisfaction, power-other sexual control, sexual self-schemata, fear of sex, sexual depression, and internal-sexual-control among the three groups had significant differences (p<0.05). However, sexual assertiveness, sexual problem self-blame, sexual motivation, and sexual problem management were not significantly different among the three groups.Conclusions: With the increase in life expectancy, the frequency of sexual activity decreases, possibly due to reduced sexual attractiveness by partner, age, occupation, and child care.