Date of Award

6-15-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

First Advisor

Galena Rhoades

Second Advisor

E. Paige Lloyd

Third Advisor

Howard Markman

Fourth Advisor

Heidi Vuletich

Fifth Advisor

Nicholas Perry

Keywords

Pornography, Romantic relationships, Sex education, Sexual minority men

Abstract

Individuals with sexual minority identities experience a variety of poorer mental and physical health outcomes, including those related to sexual and romantic quality, relative to heterosexual individuals (Beaulieu et al., 2017; CDC, 2021). These poorer romantic, sexual, and psychological outcomes may be attributable in part to lacking access to affirmative and relevant modeling of sexual minority experiences, such as through sex education (Gillespie et al., 2022; Keiser et al., 2019). This study aimed to understand how sexual minority men learn – in ways potentially both helpful and unhelpful – about romantic relationships and sexual activity, and how these experiences are related to their romantic and sexual behaviors. Three hundred and ten cisgender sexual minority men ages 18 to 75 were surveyed regarding their experiences learning about sex and romantic relationships, as well as their current functioning in sexual and romantic contexts and their explicit and implicit biases regarding sexual orientation. Partial support was found for the general hypothesis that current pornography viewing behaviors, as well as affirming and helpful experiences learning about sex and romantic relationships, would be associated with sexual and romantic outcomes. Pornography viewing and quality of one’s learning experiences were positively and negatively associated with different types of sexual consent behaviors, involvement in sexual violence, and relationship satisfaction. Finally, implicit and explicit bias were negatively associated with relationship satisfaction, but not quality of learning experiences.

Copyright Date

6-2024

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Charlie Huntington

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

123 pgs

File Size

710 KB



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