Developing Content-Specific Multidimensional Sexual Communication Scales: Sexual Preferences and Safer Sex Communication

Sexual communication is a robust predictor of relationship and sexual satisfaction and a key mechanism through which people achieve those relationship outcomes (Cherkasskaya & Rosario, 2019). For example, when individuals are able to communicate sexual likes and dislikes to a partner, they are more likely to get more of what they like, less of what they dislike, and build more pleasurable sexual scripts with their partners (MacNeil & Byers, 2009). Like other forms of interpersonal communication, sexual communication is difficult to capture using self-report methods. Indeed, most self-reports of sexual communication tend to only measure the outcome of communication (e.g., satisfaction with communication), rather than the process of how the communication occurs. As a result, we know relatively little about the process of sexual communication and whether that process varies depending on the sexual topic being discussed. In preliminary work conducted by Wasson and Rehman (2023, in prep), the only existing multiple dimension scale of sexual communication (Sexual Disclosure Scales; Brown & Weigel, 2018) was adapted and reliably and validly captures three process dimensions of sexual communication: (1) the degree to which the topic was deemed important, (2) the perceived consequences to the relationship from disclosing that topic, and (3) the actual disclosure for various sexual topics. However, the construct validity of the original scale items was an area with opportunity for improvement. As such, this study aims to create two new multidimensional scales of sexual communication that explore the perceived relationship consequences, perceived importance, and actual depth of disclosure of content-specific items related to 1) communication of sexual preferences and 2) safer sex communication. These constructs have also not been adequately explored in gender and sexuality minorities and we hope to compare results between and across these groups. We expect that both new scales will contribute unique variance to sexual and relationship satisfaction, above and beyond the effect of other dimensions of the process and context of sexual communication (i.e., satisfaction with sexual communication and sexual assertiveness). We also anticipate differences between different genders and sexualities, which will be conducted on an exploratory basis due to limited and inconsistent extant literature about the variation in sexual communication between and across these groups.