Emotions During Sexual Activity: Differences Between Sexually Functional and Dysfunctional Men and Women
Open accessAbstract
The present study investigated the differences in emotional response to automatic thoughts presented during sexual activity between sexually functional and dysfunctional men and women. A total of 376 participants (160 women and 120 men without sexual problems and 47 women and 49 men with a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of sexual dysfunction) completed the Sexual Modes Questionnaire (SMQ male and female versions; P. J. Nobre & J. Pinto-Gouveia, 2000) and measures of sexual functioning: The International Index of Sexual Function (IIEF; R. C. Rosen et al., 1997), and The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI; R. C. Rosen et al., 2000). The SMQ is a combined measure constituted by three interdependent subscales: Automatic Thought subscale (AT), Emotional Response subscale (ER), and Sexual Response subscale (SR). Emotions were assessed by the ER subscale, where participants endorsed emotional reactions (worry, sadness, disillusion, fear, guilt, shame, anger, hurt, pleasure, satisfaction) to a list of automatic thoughts (AT subscale) that may occur during sexual activity. Results showed that both men and women with sexual dysfunction had significantly less positive emotional reactions to automatic thoughts during sexual activity. Sexually dysfunctional men had significantly more emotions of sadness, disillusion, and fear, and less pleasure and satisfaction, compared to men without sexual problems. Women with sexual dysfunction had significantly less pleasure and satisfaction, and more sadness,…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Negative automatic thoughts and macho-beliefs that involve unrealistic, unattainable expectations of male sexual performance may predispose men to get trapped into a vicious circle of ED.
“In addition to cognitive distraction, negative automatic thoughts (eg, I am a failure, I need to perform, my erection is not firm enough) and macho-beliefs that involve unrealistic, unattainable expectations of male sexual performance (eg, penile erection is essential for a woman's sexual satisfaction, failing to get an erection may result in the woman leaving me) may predispose men to get trapped”
From A Psychosocial Approach to Erectile Dysfunction: Position Statements from the European Society of Sexual Medicine (ESSM) (2021) · cites this paper as [25]
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 39 · Cited by 194
- Authors
- Nobre, P. J., & Pinto-Gouveia, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (PT)
- Corresponding author
- Nobre, Pedro J.
- ORCID
- Nobre, Pedro J.
- Venue
- Archives of Sexual Behavior
- Published
- 2006-08
- Volume
- 35
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 491-499
- ISSN
- 0004-0002 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-2800
- OpenAlex
- W2006559948
- Cited by
- 194
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 4.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- other-oa
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Archives of Sexual Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Universidade de Coimbra
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Sexual function and dysfunction studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- sexual dysfunction, sexual activity, emotions, automatic thoughts, emotional responses, sexual pleasure, sexual satisfaction, sadness, disillusionment, guilt, anxiety, depressive affect, gender differences
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Aged, Anger, Anxiety, Coitus, Emotions, Fear, Female, Guilt, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Love, Male, Middle Aged, Orgasm, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sexual Dysfunction, Physiological, Sex Factors, Sexual Partners, Multivariate Analysis, Sexual Dysfunctions, Psychological
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
