The goal of this research was to extend prior work on adult attachment and sexuality, which has tended to focus on samples of adolescents and undergraduate students. A Canadian sample of 116 married couples aged 21–75 years completed self-report measures of adult attachment, marital, and sexual satisfaction. Results revealed that participants with higher levels of anxiety and avoidance reported lower levels of sexual satisfaction at the individual level. Individuals with more avoidant spouses also reported lower levels of sexual satisfaction. Furthermore, the relationship between sexual and marital satisfaction was stronger for more anxiously attached individuals and those with more anxiously attached spouses. These results suggest that attachment is linked in theoretically predictable ways to marital and sexual satisfaction.

Adult attachment, sexual satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction: A study of married couples

The authors explored the contribution of individual differences in attachment orientations to the experience of sexual intercourse and its association with relationship quality. In Study 1, 500 participants completed self-report scales of attachment orientations and sexual experience. The findings indicated that whereas attachment anxiety was associated with an ambivalent construal of sexual experience, attachment avoidance was associated with more aversive sexual feelings and cognitions. In Study 2, 41 couples reported on their attachment orientations and provided daily diary measures of sexual experiences and relationship interactions for a period of 42 days. Results showed that attachment anxiety amplified the effects of positive and negative sexual experiences on relationship interactions. In contrast, attachment avoidance inhibited the positive relational effect of having sex and the detrimental relational effects of negative sexual interactions. The authors discuss the possibility that attachment orientations are associated with different sex-related strategies and goals within romantic relationships.

When sex is more than just sex: attachment orientations, sexual experience, and relationship quality.

The goal of this research was to extend the previously documented associations between attachment style and sexual experiences in samples of adolescents and college students to adult couples in committed romantic relationships. A sample of 273 French-Canadian heterosexual couples aged 18–35 years completed measures of attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, sexual coercion, and sexual experiences in their relationships. Avoidant attachment was related to two strategies for limiting intimacy in sexual relationships: avoidance of sexual encounters and avoidance of sexual fantasies about one’s partner (the latter for women only). Anxious attachment appeared to interfere with comfortable intimacy, especially among men, who viewed their partner as avoiding sex and who applied more insistent pressure to have sex.

Attachment, sexual experience, and sexual pressure in romantic relationships: A dyadic approach

Across three studies, we demonstrate that pursuing sex for approach goals, such as to enhance intimacy, fuels satisfaction and pursuing sex for avoidance goals, such as to avoid disappointing a partner, detracts from satisfaction. In Study 1, we use hypothetical scenarios to provide experimental support for the associations between sexual goals and sexual and relationship satisfaction. In Study 2, a dyadic daily experience study of dating couples, we demonstrate that daily sexual goals are associated with both partners' daily relationship and sexual satisfaction. In Study 3, a dyadic daily experience study, we replicate the daily associations between sexual goals and satisfaction in a sample of long-term couples, and demonstrate that sexual goals impact partner's relationship and sexual quality 4 months later. In all studies, the associations between sexual goals and enhanced satisfaction as reported by both partners were mediated by sexual desire. Implications for research on sexual motivation and close relationships are discussed.

Getting It On Versus Getting It Over With: Sexual Motivation, Desire, and Satisfaction in Intimate Bonds

Although the link between sex and attachment was made decades ago (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), theories on sexual and attachment functioning have been developed in relative isolation. Recent efforts to ...

Different Perspectives on the Sex-Attachment Link: Towards an Emotion-Motivational Account

Attachment Styles, Sex Motives, and Sexual Behavior: Evidence for Gender-Specific Expressions of Attachment Dynamics.

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Attachment Styles, Sex Motives, and Sexual Behavior: Evidence for Gender-Specific Expressions of Attachment Dynamics.