Female sexuality after women's liberation: Negotiating repression and performance norms.

Abstract

The two studies of this dissertation examined social norms about female sexuality, specifically the norms of repression (i.e., messages directed at women to deny or restrict sexuality), and performance (i.e., messages that encourage women to engage in sex because they must or should, rather than because they want to) in women's sexual lives. This project was framed within several discourses, including feminist theory, historical analyses of sexuality, psychoanalysis, empirical literatures, and clinical treatment/diagnostic issues. Study 1 utilized secondary analysis of a subsample of 1,921 women from the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) to examine the way in which sexual activity and sexual satisfaction are at times mismatched. Using factor analysis and cluster analysis, I examined demographic variables, attitude variables, and sexual variables that predicted four groups of women defined by being high or low on satisfaction and on activity. Results showed that low satisfaction/high activity women most closely represented the norm of performance, while low satisfaction/low activity women represented the norm of repression. Also, low status groups reported lower sexual satisfaction, but were particularly represented in the group of women reporting low satisfaction and high activity. This suggests that social norms influence sexual satisfaction and sexual activity, and that some women report a mismatched relationship between satisfaction and activity. In order to situate the findings of study 1 in an institutional and cultural context, study 2 utilized qualitative interviews with 20 women from a variety of racial/ethnic, age, socioeconomic, and sexual identity backgrounds. This study examined the qualitative ways in which women experienced the social norms of repression and performance. Women frequently linked the norm of repression to messages from family and peer groups, while the norm of performance was most closely linked to relationships with sexual partners and constructs presented in the media. Both studies point toward a strong relationship between competing social norms of repression and performance, and suggest that traditional notions of sexual function and dysfunction do not properly account for the norm of performance. In addition, clinical discussions of women's sexuality need to better understand and explore models of female sexuality that extend beyond the historical legacy of repression.