Re-Considering Female Sexual Desire: Internalized Representations Of Parental Relationships And Sexual Self-Concept In Women With Inhibited And Heightened Sexual Desire

RE-CONSIDERING FEMALE SEXUAL DESIRE: INTERNALIZED REPRESENTATIONS OF PARENTAL RELATIONSHIPS AND SEXUAL SELF-CONCEPT IN WOMEN WITH INHIBITED AND HEIGHTENED SEXUAL DESIRE by Eugenia Cherkasskaya Adviser: Margaret Rosario, Ph.D. Background: Psychoanalytic and sociocultural thinkers and researchers suggest that the etiology of low female sexual desire, the most prevalent sexual complaint in women, is multi-determined, implicating biological and psychological factors, including women’s early relational experiences and sexual self-concept that stem from gender dynamics of a patriarchal culture. Further, recent studies indicate that highly sexual women exhibit heightened sexual desire, and high levels of sexual agency and sexual esteem. The study evaluated a model that hypothesized that sexual self-concept (sexual subjectivity, self-objectification, genital self-image) explains (i.e., mediates) the relations between internalized representations of parental relationships (attachment, separation/individuation, parental identification) and sexual desire in heterosexual women. Methods: Six hundred participants completed self-report questionnaires, assessing the abovementioned variables. Subsequently, 20 women (10 with inhibited desire, 10 with heightened desire) were individually interviewed about their experiences of sexual desire to examine the differences in the phenomenology of female sexual desire between highly sexual and sexually inhibited women. Results: The results partially supported the hypotheses: internalized