Exploring the Components and Consequences of Enjoyment of Sexualization for Black Women

Abstract

The omnipresence of sexualized imagery of women in our society has raised questions about its potential impact on young women, primarily concerned with whether these representations are dehumanizing or empowering. Because most of these studies and their accompanying scales have tested predominantly white samples, researchers cannot assume that current findings and assumptions about sexualization operate similarly across participants occupying different social locations. Due to the proliferation of hypersexualized stereotypes in society, Black women are confronted with harmful narratives about their beauty and sexuality which render enjoyment of sexualization a complex issue to navigate. Though past qualitative work demonstrates that interpersonal sexualization is a concern for Black women and a few quantitative studies have explored this construct, none have used a psychometric approach to examine the correlates and consequences of Black women’s enjoyment of sexualization. To shed light on this issue, the current study explored the psychometric properties of the Enjoyment of Sexualization Scale (Liss et al., 2011) among a national sample of 493 heterosexual and bisexual Black women aged 18-40 (Mage = 28.39; SD = 6.49). Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses first revealed that participants’ responses reflected two correlated yet unique factors: Male-motivated enjoyment of sexualization and self-motivated enjoyment of sexualization. Measurement invariance testing revealed that this two-factor solution adequately represented both younger (18-29) and older (30-40) women’s experiences, but that older women endorsed some items to a greater extent than younger women. Towards understanding intragroup heterogeneity in Black women’s enjoyment of sexualization, I next conducted descriptive analyses to determine how these novel facets of enjoyment of sexualization were correlated with specific demographic variables. I also explored how enjoyment of sexualization was linked to traditional or egalitarian gender and body beliefs, including both mainstream and culturally relevant measures. Age, marital status, and religiosity emerged as significant demographic correlates of enjoyment of sexualization, and both facets were moderately positively correlated with traditional gender ideologies and body beliefs. Interestingly, the only differences that emerged between these two facets of enjoyment of sexualization were in the case of racial identity and body appreciation, which correlated with self- but not male-motivated enjoyment of sexualization. Finally, I explored the mental health and self-esteem consequences of these two forms of enjoyment of sexualization using multigroup structural equation modeling. Analyses demonstrated that male-motivated enjoyment of sexualization was associated with more symptoms of anxiety, depression, and hostility, and lower self-esteem. In contrast, self-motivated enjoyment of sexualization was unrelated with symptoms of anxiety, depression, or hostility, but predicted greater self-esteem. Though these associations looked different for women of different ages, these models provided statistically equivalent fit when the paths were forced to be equal. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications and contribute to the ongoing debate concerning empowerment and sexualization. My findings seem to suggest that Black women’s motivations for self-sexualizing meaningfully differentiate the outcomes they experience. This study demonstrated the value of psychometrics to interrogate whether pre-existing measures developed with predominantly white samples accurately reflect the reality of those with different lived experiences. Furthermore, they underscore the need to develop safe spaces intended for Black women to reclaim bodily autonomy while also addressing larger systemic inequalities stemming from the predatory, patriarchal male gaze that make enjoyment of sexualization potentially harmful.