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

Measures

Relationship status and sexual experience. Participants indicated their current relationship status using six categories: not dating anyone currently, casually dating one or more people, dating one person exclusively, living with romantic partner, engaged or planning to marry, and married. With regard to sexual experience, each respondent was asked to indicate whether she had ever experienced "sexual intercourse with a male (penis in vagina)" and "oral stimulation of your genitals by a male," and whether she had "ever orally stimulated a male's genitals." Respondents were also asked to provide a write-in response to the question, "With how many different males have you had sexual intercourse?" The accuracy of the number respondents generate for such a question is dubious (see Wiederman, 1997, for discussion of this issue). However, in the current study, lifetime number of sexual intercourse partners was used as a potential correlate of scores on measures of body size, attractiveness, and body image. Thus, the absolute number of partners was unimportant for the current purposes, making inclusion of this variable less problematic (Brecher & Brecher, 1986).

Sexual esteem. Sexual esteem, or the tendency to evaluate oneself positively as a sexual partner, was measured with the short form (Wiederman & Allgeier, 1993) of the sexual esteem scale from Snell and Papini (1989). A sample item from the scale is "I think of myself as a good sexual partner." Respondents indicated their degree of disagreement or agreement with each of the five statements using a 5-point scale (ranging from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree). After one item is reverse-scored, an overall score is generated by summing across items, with higher scores indicating relatively greater sexual esteem. Wiederman and Allgeier (1993) reported a relatively high correlation between the short form and full scale among women in their sample, and scores on the short form were moderately correlated to a measure of general self-esteem. In the current study, the internal consistency coefficient (Chronbach's alpha) was .92.

Sexual attitudes. Respondents completed the brief form of the Sexual Opinion Survey (SOS; Fisher, Byrne, White, & Kelly, 1988) as a measure of their affective orientation toward erotic stimuli. A sample item is "The thought of engaging in unusual sex practices is highly arousing. Respondents indicated their degree of agreement or disagreement with each of 5 statements using a 7-point scale (ranging from 1 = Strongly Agree to 7 = Strongly Disagree). Scoring consists of summing the ratings given to the two negatively worded items, adding the value 19, and subtracting the ratings given to the remaining three items (see Fisher et al., 1988). Thus, higher scores indicate relatively high attitudinal and affective acceptance of erotic stimuli (i.e., erotophilia). In the current study, the internal consistency coefficient (Chronbach's alpha) was .57.

As a measure of attitudinal acceptance of casual sex, respondents also completed the three attitudinal items from the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI; Simpson & Gangestad, 1991): "Sex without love is O.K."; "I can imagine myself comfortable and enjoying "casual' sex with different partners"; and "I would have to be closely attached to someone (both emotionally and psychologically) before I could feel comfortable and fully enjoy having sex with him/her." Respondents indicated their degree of disagreement or agreement with each statement using 9point scales (ranging from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 9 = Strongly Agree). In line with the original scoring of the instrument, the last item was reverse-scored and the mean response across the three items was taken as an indicator of attitude toward casual (noncommitted) sex, with higher scores indicative of greater acceptance. In the current study, the internal consistency coefficient (Chronbach's alpha) was .70.