The Influence of Relationship and Fantasy Characteristics on Sexual Fantasy Disclosure Likelihood.

Research (e.g., Leitenberg & Henning, 1995) suggests that most people experience sexual fantasies at some point in their lives. What’s more, investment in sexual fantasies is high (Lehmiller, 2018), and the majority report desires to enact at least some of their sexual fantasies (Lehmiller, 2018;2020). However, less than a third of participants in Lehmiller’s (2018) research reported enactment, despite disclosure largely being positive experiences (Lehmiller, 2020). The disclosure of sexual fantasies can provide several benefits to the relationship, such as higher sexual satisfaction (Anderson, 2011; Frederick et al., 2017) and higher sexual novelty (Frederick et al., 2017). Both factors have been highlighted as positive predictors of relationship satisfaction (Rosa et al., 2019), which is important for relationship maintenance (Weisler & Weigel, 2016). Engagement with sexual fantasies that involved one’s current partner provided benefits in the form of higher sexual desire for partners (Birnbaum et al., 2019; Langeslag & Davis, 2022) and greater engagement in relationship promoting behaviours (Birnbaum et al., 2019). Therefore, understanding the factors which may influence whether sexual fantasies are disclosed may provide benefits to relationship maintenance, including in sex and relationship therapy.

The focus of this thesis was to identify factors which influence whether individuals disclose sexual fantasies or not. Due to the absence of current research on sexual fantasy disclosure, a systematic review (Chapter 2/ Appendix 1) was first completed to identify factors which influence other forms of self-disclosure, which may be of relevance to the disclosure of sexual fantasies. In Chapter 3, participants were asked to describe their reasons for either disclosing or not disclosing a sexual fantasy and five categories were generated: sexual gratification, relationship-motivated, partner traits or characteristics, communication patterns, and specific fantasy content. Chapters 4 and 6 then examined whether relationship characteristics (which were highlighted as a prominent motivator in Chapter 3) could be used to predict sexual fantasy disclosure and disclosure likelihood. Several characteristics were significant predictors, including: relationship duration, intimacy, passion, commitment, sexual idealisation, sexual novelty, need prioritisation, relationship satisfaction, orgasmic satisfaction and orgasmic consistency. These chapters highlighted the influence that an individual’s relationship can have over disclosure behaviour. In Chapter 5, the influence of fantasy specific characteristics was examined in relation to their ability to predict disclosure behaviour through scenarios. This Chapter highlighted the influence that the specific fantasy can have over whether sexual fantasies are disclosed or not.

Overall, the findings of this thesis highlight several characteristics at a relational and fantasy level, which can influence sexual fantasy disclosure and highlights several directions for future research. Communication privacy management theory (Petronio, 2002) suggests that many components of an individual’s life are considered when determining the potential costs and rewards of disclosure.