Just talking about sex is not enough, you have to enjoy it. Researchers have found that the more comfortable you are talking about sex, the more satisfactory your sex life will be. However, the research doesn’t fully explain why the sexually chatty are happier with their erotic lives.
“Even a little bit of anxiety — about the communication — affected whether they are communicating or not. It also directly affected their satisfaction,” says study researcher Elizabeth Babin who’s also health communication expert at Cleveland State University in Ohio, US.
The anxiety “might be kind of taking them out of the moment, thus reducing the overall satisfaction they experience during their encounters,” she says. How people talk about sex is an important issue for public health
researchers.
After all, people who are uncomfortable asking their partners to wear a condom may be at a higher risk of having unprotected sex and exposing themselves to sexually transmitted infections.
In her study, Babin recruited 207 people, 88 from undergraduate classes and 119 from online sites, to complete surveys about their apprehension about sexual communication, their sexual satisfaction and the amount of nonverbal and verbal communication they felt they enacted during sex. For example, participants were asked how much they agreed with statements such as, “I feel nervous when I think about talking with my partner about the sexual aspects of our relationship,” and “I feel anxious when I think about telling my partner what I dislike during sex.” The participants, whose average age was 29, also responded to questions about their sexual self-esteem. For example, how good a partner they felt they were and how confident they were in their sexual skills.
The surveys revealed that apprehension in talking about sex can spoil one’s sexual enjoyment, with that anxiety linked both to less communication in bed and less satisfaction overall. Unsurprisingly, less sexual communication apprehension and higher sexual selfesteem were both associated with more communication during sex. Communication during sex, in turn, was linked to more sexual satisfaction. Non-verbal communication was more closely linked to satisfaction than verbal communication, Babin reports.
Non-verbal cues may seem safer, she says. “It could be perceived as being less threatening. So, it might be easier to moan or move in a certain way, to communicate that ‘I’m enjoying the sexual encounter’. That’s better than saying, ‘Hey, this feels really good, I like that’. That might seem too direct to some people,” Babin says.
Babin next plans to research couples to get both sides of the story and to find out how couples’ communication styles mess with their sexual satisfaction. The end goal, she says, is to give therapists and sex educators tools to help them teach people how to talk about sex more openly with their partners.
“Even a little bit of anxiety — about the communication — affected whether they are communicating or not. It also directly affected their satisfaction,” says study researcher Elizabeth Babin who’s also health communication expert at Cleveland State University in Ohio, US.
The anxiety “might be kind of taking them out of the moment, thus reducing the overall satisfaction they experience during their encounters,” she says. How people talk about sex is an important issue for public health
researchers.
After all, people who are uncomfortable asking their partners to wear a condom may be at a higher risk of having unprotected sex and exposing themselves to sexually transmitted infections.
In her study, Babin recruited 207 people, 88 from undergraduate classes and 119 from online sites, to complete surveys about their apprehension about sexual communication, their sexual satisfaction and the amount of nonverbal and verbal communication they felt they enacted during sex. For example, participants were asked how much they agreed with statements such as, “I feel nervous when I think about talking with my partner about the sexual aspects of our relationship,” and “I feel anxious when I think about telling my partner what I dislike during sex.” The participants, whose average age was 29, also responded to questions about their sexual self-esteem. For example, how good a partner they felt they were and how confident they were in their sexual skills.
The surveys revealed that apprehension in talking about sex can spoil one’s sexual enjoyment, with that anxiety linked both to less communication in bed and less satisfaction overall. Unsurprisingly, less sexual communication apprehension and higher sexual selfesteem were both associated with more communication during sex. Communication during sex, in turn, was linked to more sexual satisfaction. Non-verbal communication was more closely linked to satisfaction than verbal communication, Babin reports.
Non-verbal cues may seem safer, she says. “It could be perceived as being less threatening. So, it might be easier to moan or move in a certain way, to communicate that ‘I’m enjoying the sexual encounter’. That’s better than saying, ‘Hey, this feels really good, I like that’. That might seem too direct to some people,” Babin says.
Babin next plans to research couples to get both sides of the story and to find out how couples’ communication styles mess with their sexual satisfaction. The end goal, she says, is to give therapists and sex educators tools to help them teach people how to talk about sex more openly with their partners.
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