title: Sexual submissiveness in women: costs for sexual autonomy and arousal.
abstract: Women are bombarded with images of women's sexual submission and subservience to male partners. The authors argue that women internalize this submissive role, namely, they associate sex implicitly with submission. The authors propose that this association leads to submissive sexual behavior, thereby reducing sexual autonomy and arousal. Study 1 found that women implicitly associated sex with submission. Study 2 showed that women's implicit association of sex with submission predicted greater personal adoption of a submissive sexual role. Study 3 found that men did not implicitly associate sex with submission. Study 4 demonstrated that women's adoption of a submissive sexual role predicted lower reported arousal and greater reported difficulty becoming sexually aroused; sexual autonomy mediated these effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. disanche@rci.rutgers.edu
authors.forename: Diana T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Sanchez
authors.forename: Amy K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Kiefer
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ybarra
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D012930:Social Dominance; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires