Sexual Communication & Technology Use in Understudied Relationships: A Qualitative Communicative Interdependence Perspective Study

ABSTRACT

This study investigated how relational distance relates to sexual communication modality for individuals (n = 415) in primarily LGBTQ, BDSM, or polyamorous relationships; and how they utilized technology to communicate about sex. Findings suggest that most people did not solely rely on a specific communication modality to communicate about sex, and 71.5% of the participants reported that they did use technology to communicate with a partner about sex. Those who did utilize technology, used it to have more difficult conversations, sexting and flirting, exploration, planning, and sharing, when distance necessitated technology use, and specific websites or mobile platforms. Implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual communication
• relational diversity
• communicative interdependence perspective
• sexting

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

Data in this manuscript is not associated with a data set. Data is available from first author via email upon reasonable request.

Notes

1. The data in this study comes from the first author’s dissertation. Although none of the data considered in this essay has been previously published, data from elsewhere in the study has been published elsewhere [(Rubinsky, 2020b, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2022; Rubinsky & Ambrus, 2023)].

2. Given the plethora of identities considered under the “gay” and “queer” umbrellas (e.g. androsexual, gynesexual), we collapsed all LGBQ identities listed only once or twice into this umbrella category.