Testing a Trust-Based Model of Sexual Self-Disclosure in Romantic Relationships

Abstract

Being able to talk comfortably about sexual topics enhances romantic relationships; however, revealing private sexual information entails trusting a partner with the disclosure. Based on the disclosure decision-making model, this study tested a sexual disclosure model identifying mechanisms linking perceived disclosure trust with willingness and likelihood to disclose private sexual information to partners. Survey responses from 595 individuals indicated that when deciding to reveal private sexual information, people consider their level of trust disclosing to a partner, the outcomes that they anticipate will incur if they reveal the information to the partner, and their ability to manage such a revelation. The sexual disclosure model provides a useful framework for understanding decisions to reveal private sexual information to romantic partners.

Keywords:

• anticipated outcomes
• disclosure efficacy
• disclosure trust
• sexual self-disclosure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Although not directly related to the primary purpose of this study, additional reasons for comfort with sexual communication and disclosing sexual topics with a partner include desire to enhance the sexual experience and increase pleasure, the length of the relationship, relationship satisfaction and closeness, and sexual self-esteem (Babin, 2013; Byers & Demmons, 1999; Faulkner & Lannutti, 2010; Menard & Offman, 2009; Séguin, 2022).

2. We also ran separate mediation models for willingness and likelihood, and the results were nearly identical between models.

3. Before conducting analyses, possible patterns of missingness by survey item were identified using the MICE package in R, which indicated the data was missing at random (MAR). To address the MAR data, MICE imputation was used.