Body size, physical attractiveness, and body image among young adult women: relationships to sexual experience and sexual esteem

Journal of Sex Research, August, 1998 by Michael W. Wiederman, Shannon R. Hurst

Body image, however, is a multifaceted phenomenon, and we sought to investigate possible links between women's sexuality and other aspects of their experience related to physical appearance. For example, although women invest relatively more in their physical appearance compared to men (Siever, 1994; Sullivan & Hamish, 1990), there are individual differences among women with regard to the degree of effort devoted to enhancing their physical appearance (Brown, Cash, & Mikulka, 1990). Women who place more emphasis on their appearance, or demonstrate a higher degree of appearance orientation, may have incorporated to a greater degree the cultural objectification of women's bodies (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997). As a result, women high in appearance orientation may be more prone to experiencing self-consciousness regarding how their body appears to others, particularly men, and therefore may avoid sexual interactions. At minimum, women high in appearance orientation may view themselves as less desirable as a sexual partner (i.e., demonstrate low sexual esteem) due to greater self-consciousness over their physical appearance (and hence sexual appeal).

Just as women vary in degree of appearance orientation, they also vary with regard to degree of general social avoidance due to concern over physical appearance (Rosen, Srebnik, Saltzberg, & Wendt, 1991). Accordingly, we assessed the degree to which women avoid social settings because of negative body image. Women who avoid settings in which they believe they might be scrutinized by men may have less opportunity for heterosexual involvement, and hence may have relatively less sexual experience and lower sexual esteem.

In summary, we sought to investigate potential relationships between women's heterosexual dating and sexual experience, sexual esteem, physical attractiveness, body size, and subjective body image. Specifically, we hypothesized that relatively greater sexual experience and increased sexual esteem among young adult women would be related to (1) greater actual facial attractiveness; (2) relatively lower body weight; (3) relatively lower body dissatisfaction and higher self-ratings of attractiveness; (4) lower appearance orientation; and (5) less avoidance of social situations due to concern over physical appearance.

Assuming that we found the hypothesized relationships, it would be unclear whether relationships between attractiveness and sexual experience were the result of decreased opportunity (i.e., less interest shown by potential partners) or differences in sexual attitudes (with more attractive women possibly holding more positive attitudes toward sex). To ascertain whether any relationships were mediated by sexual attitudes, we also measured respondents' affective orientation toward sexual stimuli (erotophobia/erotophilia) and attitudes regarding comfort with casual sex.

METHOD

Participants

Research participants were initially 232 women recruited from introductory psychology classes at Ball State University who received research credit toward partial completion of their psychology course. Two women were excluded from analyses because they were pregnant. Because the focus of the current study was heterosexual experience, five women who identified themselves as exclusively or primarily lesbian were excluded from further analyses. To ensure a rather homogeneous sample with regard to age (body size is positively related to age; Andres, 1995), we also excluded women ages 22 or older (n = 26) from further analyses. Because the existence of eating disorders is apparently related to women's sexuality in idiosyncratic ways (Wiederman, 1996), seven women with an exceptionally low body mass index ([is less than] 19), which may be indicative of a history of disordered eating, were excluded from analyses. The final sample comprised 192 young women aged 18 to 21 (M = 18.91, SD = .90). Most of the women (89.6%) were White; 7.8% were Black, and 2.6% were Latina.