Seeing How Far I've Come: The Impact of the Digital Sexual Life History Calendar on Young Adult Research Participants

The Digital Sexual Life History Calendar (d/SLHC) is a Web-based platform for collecting young adults' sexual histories. In addition to collecting diverse data, the d/SLHC was designed to benefit participants by enabling reflection on their sexual and relationship experiences in the context of other life events and circumstances. 

In a pilot study of the d/SLHC, survey data were collected to test whether creating a d/SLHC timeline had any impact on sexual well-being. A sample of 18- to 25-year-old participants recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) completed an online survey about sexuality and relationships. Of those, 113 also completed d/SLHC timelines and 262 served as a comparison group. Six months later, participants from both groups were invited to complete a follow-up survey (total N = 249). 

Repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated that participants who completed d/SLHC timelines exhibited higher sexual esteem immediately following d/SLHC completion and at follow-up. No changes in sexual esteem were observed in the comparison group, and there were no differences between the groups with regard to sexual health behaviors and outcomes. 

These findings suggest that sexuality studies may have the potential to yield not only rich data for researchers but also rich experiences for participants.

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By:  Bay-Cheng LY1.

• 1 School of Social Work, University at Buffalo.
• J Sex Res. 2016 Mar 3:1-12. 

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Positive Perceptions of Genital Appearance and Feeling Sexually Attractive: Is It a Matter of Sexual Esteem?

The present study examined the relationship between perceptions of genital appearance and self-perceived sexual attractiveness. The study sample included men and women (aged 18-45 years, M = 23.7, SD = 4.98) who identified as heterosexual (n = 1017), gay or lesbian (n = 1225), or bisexual (n = 651). 

Participants responded to an online survey assessing their self-perceived sexual attractiveness, genital self-image, genital self-consciousness during sexual activity, and sexual esteem. Based on previous findings, we hypothesized a positive link between genital self-perceptions and self-perceived sexual attractiveness, with sexual esteem acting as a mediator. We tested this hypothesis using structural equation modeling. 

Analyses revealed a significant association between both genital self-image and genital self-consciousness and self-perceived sexual attractiveness. However, these relationships were at least partially mediated by sexual esteem, across both gender and sexual orientation. The findings suggest that, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, individuals who maintain a positive genital self-image or lack genital self-consciousness, are more likely to experience greater sexual esteem, and in turn, feel more sexually attractive. 

The findings have implications for the importance of genital appearance perceptions and improving individuals' sexual esteem and self-perceived sexual attractiveness.

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By:  Amos N1, McCabe M2.

• 1School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood, VIC, 3125, Australia.
• 2Institute for Health and Ageing, Australian Catholic University, Level 6, 215 Spring Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3000, Australia. marita.mccabe@acu.edu.au. 
• Arch Sex Behav. 2016 Feb 8.

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