The relation between perceived partner responsiveness and sexual communication in romantic relationships

Sexual communication can be challenging to initiate. Nevertheless, people with a responsive romantic partner may feel more comfortable with sexual communication. Thus, we examined whether there is an association between partner responsiveness and greater sexual communication, and whether greater sexual communication may potentially mediate associations between responsiveness and positive relationship outcomes (i.e. intimacy types, sexual satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction). We recruited participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 119) and a sample of undergraduate students (N = 89) to complete online measures. As hypothesized, partner responsiveness was associated with greater sexual communication. Results from structural equation modeling showed that sexual communication mediated associations between responsiveness and intimacy types, and the association between responsiveness and sexual satisfaction in both samples. Interestingly, sexual communication only mediated the association between responsiveness and relationship satisfaction in the sample of undergraduate students. Other notable differences between the samples are discussed, such as differences in age, relationship length, and sexual satisfaction. These results show the importance of sexual communication for romantic relationships, and that even non-sexual partner characteristics may impact a sexual relationship. Perceiving a romantic partner as caring, understanding, and validating may make sexual communication easier to initiate. Even non-sexual partner characteristics are important for sexual satisfaction, as well as to a sense of romantic closeness. In addition, sexual communication may help maintain the stability of a romantic relationship.