Abstract
Evidence supports sexual experience as normative and health-promoting for many, but this picture is less clear for people with histories of adversity. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) was used to garner data from a sample of 362 young adults (aged 18–25) wherein 44.5% (n = 161) identified as women. We assessed longitudinal associations between child maltreatment and sexual self-concept, as mediated by sexual behaviors and sexual partners, and whether resilient coping moderated these associations using structural equation modeling. Although both child maltreatment and resilient coping were directly associated with aspects of sexual experience, only resilient coping was directly associated with sexual self-concept. In addition, we found support for sexual experience as a mediator between child maltreatment/resilient coping and sexual self-concept. Specifically, cumulative maltreatment was associated with more sexual partners, which was associated with higher sexual self-monitoring. Resilient coping was associated with more sexual partners and more sexual behaviors, which was associated with higher sexual self-monitoring and higher sexual self-consciousness, sexual assertiveness, sexual self-esteem, and sexual motivation, respectively. Thus, sexual behaviors and sexual partners operated independently. Findings contrast messaging that sexual experience is universally risky regardless of maltreatment history. Rather, sexual experience may foster positive sexual self-concept for some. Sexual health advocates must attend to differences between sexual behaviors and sexual partners in relation to sexual well-being, and support resilience in the sexual domain.
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Notes
Despite no hypotheses about the main effect of resilient coping on outcomes, the main effect was included to correctly estimate the interaction (Cohen et al., 2003).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. Matthew Valente (College of Public Health, University of South Florida) for his valuable statistical consultation.
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Author NMF gratefully acknowledges use of the services and facilities supported in part by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number NIMHD (U54MD012393), Florida International University Research Center in Minority Institutions. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
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Study conception and design were led by Nicole M. Fava, with input from co-authors. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Laina Y. Bay-Cheng. Data analysis was performed by Stefany J. Coxe. The first draft of the Introduction and Discussion were written by Nicole M. Fava and Laina Y. Bay-Cheng. Nicole M. Fava wrote the first draft of the Method. Stefany J. Coxe wrote the first draft of the Results. J. Dennis Fortenberry made significant contributions to an updated draft of the Introduction and Discussion. All authors commented on iterations of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Fava, N.M., Coxe, S.J., Fortenberry, J.D. et al. Sexual Self-Concept After Child Maltreatment: The Role of Resilient Coping and Sexual Experience Among U.S. Young Adults. Arch Sex Behav 53, 359–373 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02706-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02706-3