Untangling the complexities of female sexuality: a mixed approach

Abstract

Human sexuality is fascinating. Though it is such an integral part of our everyday lives, our understanding is lacking (to say the least)--especially when it comes to female sexuality. "Human" sexuality has been studied for nearly a hundred years, but the findings were usually in regard to males (as was most psychological research at the time). Because of this unbalance, this research attempts to answer questions solely surrounding female sexuality. In order to truly piece apart female sexuality, one hundred and forty five females at a small college in the Northeast were given three sexuality scales: (The Sexual Self-Efficacy Scale for Female Functioning (SSES) (Bailes et al., 1998), The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) (Rosen et al., 2000) and The Sexual Self-Schema Scale (SSSS) (Andersen & Cyranowski, 1994)). Additionally, to ascertain what variables play key roles in female sexuality, they were also given the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEI-Que) (Schutte et al., 1998), The High-K scale (Giosan, 2006), The Mating Intelligence Scale (slightly revised) (MI) (Geher & Kaufman, 2007), and The Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale (PSRS) (Schlotz, Yim, Zoccola, Jansen & Schulz, 2011). Statistical analyses show that Emotional Intelligence and Life History Strategy are strongly positively correlated with higher levels of sexuality.