Sexual Communication

The notion that relational partners can talk their way to better sex is a common theme in the print media of U.S. society. Even a cursory review of the article titles in popular women's and men's magazines reveals an array of communication "do's and don'ts" for sex talk in the bedroom. For example, consider the following titles:

• "Pillow-talk Taboos" (Cosmopolitan, January 2001).
• "6 Things He's Scared to Tell You" (Cosmopolitan, January 2001).
• "Dirty Talk 101" (Redbook, September 2000).
• "Blab Your Way to Better Sex" (Cosmopolitan, August 2000).
• "Sex Signals: Give Him a Clue" (Cosmopolitan, July 1998).
• "Sex Talk Made Easy" (Mademoiselle, September 1997).
• "The Sexiest Things You Can Say in Bed" (Redbook, September 1996).
• "Let's Talk About Sex, Baby" (Muscle and Fitness, June 1996).
• "Talking Dirty" (Glamour, April 1996).
• "How to Really Talk to a Man About Sex" (Glamour, October 1995).
• "How to Ask for a Blow Job" (Playboy, January 1999).

The assumption that communicating to one's partner about sex can facilitate more mutually satisfying sexual activity is a reasonable assumption. Ironically, the need to address this issue is necessitated to some degree by the idealized depictions of sexual episodes in film and print fiction. In most depictions, when two people are in love (or at least sexually attracted to each other), they simply fall into each other's arms and with words unspoken achieve unparalleled sexual fulfillment. In reality, however, the needs of two people may not be in perfect harmony and the respective visions of what counts as satisfying sexual activity may be quite different. Hence, the advice offered in popular magazines for how to talk about sex seems to offer some degree of guidance for couples who might feel the need to improve their sexual communication. In the view of some social scientists (e.g., Simon and Gagnon 1986, 1987; Metts and Spitzberg 1996), when the sexual script portrayed in a culture's messages and images does not provide sufficient detail about how to enact a sexual episode at the interpersonal level, people will seek ways to fill in the missing information.

Unfortunately, the advice given in magazines, in self-help books, and on talk shows is largely simplistic and formulaic. It does not account for the full scope of what the term sexual communication includes, the complexity of how effective sexual communication might be accomplished, and how it affects, or is affected by, other relationship elements (e.g., overall satisfaction in the relationship). The purpose of this entry is to present an overview of the research conducted by social scientists and clinicians who carefully and systematically study the processes and consequences of sexual communication.