Communicating new sexual desires and the factors that influence message directness.

When fantasies and desires go unfulfilled, people may become bored with their sexual relationship. To help prevent this potential infidelity provoking issue, the current study examined patterns of communication to introduce new sexual behaviors to established sexual relationships. Study 1 identified and categorized communication message strategies used by participants’ responses to an open-ended question (N= 102). We found that although participants used indirect language most, a significant number of individuals were direct with their initiation strategies. Study 2 examined the associations between relational and sexual factors (intimacy, uncertainty, number of sexual partners, biological sex, and sexual communication) and message directness (N= 213). Survey results show that sex, uncertainty, and intimacy were correlated with level of directness for introducing a new sexual behavior (p< .05). Results are consistent with the relational turbulence model showing that at moderate levels of intimacy and high uncertainty, people use indirect communication. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]