Take a general scan of culture over the past 50 years and it’s pretty easy to see that female sexual objectification is largely looked down upon. Yet, according to a new study from Florida State University, women are ok with being sexually under certain conditions.
Published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, the study found that women’s satisfaction with being sexually objectified by a partner depends highly on how committed the partner seems in the relationship. This adds significant clarity to previous research, which either found that women reacted negatively to sexual attention from strange men or acquaintances (no surprise), or that women enhanced their physical attributes to sexually attract men. The key to reconciling these two sides, the authors claim, is considering the commitment level of the men doing the sexual valuing.
Evolutionarily this makes sense
Due to the amount of investment required to have and raise children (called the “parental investment theory”), women tend to avoid short-term sexual encounters, preferring instead long-term relationships. This, in turn, explains why sexual advances from strange men or acquaintances might be perceived negatively, as the chance for long-term bonding is still uncertain, and having sex/reproducing with the individual could be risky.
On the flip-side, from a reproductive standpoint, it would make sense that women respond positively to sexual objectification from committed partners, as there may need to be frequent sexual encounters to achieve reproductive success.
It’s also important to note here a specific difference between sexual and physical objectification.
“Whereas sexual valuation involves valuing a partner for sex itself, physical valuation involves valuing a partner for their physical characteristics, such as their body,” said lead study author Andrea Meltzer.
In this study, the authors primarily focused on sexual objectification, or the valuing of a woman for her sexuality. Though, in a previous study, the authors did find a positive correlation between how much a committed male partner valued a woman’s physical attributes and how satisfied the woman was with the relationship. Her satisfaction, however, was highly dependent on how much the man also valued her non-physical attributes and how committed she perceived him to be.
Two studies
The researchers performed two separate studies for the paper. The first looked at 113 first-marriage, newlywed, heterosexual couples, and had each partner fill out an online questionnaire without the other in the room. The husbands were given measures regarding sexual valuation, physical valuation, non-physical valuation, and marriage satisfaction. For example, one of the questions read, “Sex is important to many romantic relationships. On a scale of 0-100, where 0=our relationship is completely non-sexual and 100=our relationship is nothing but sexual, what number would you give it?”
Wives, on the other hand, were given measures regarding perceived partner commitment and marriage satisfaction.
What they found was that, essentially, wives liked being sexually objectified in relationships where they perceived their husbands to be committed. Conversely, they weren’t too thrilled about it when it seemed the husband wasn’t as committed.
The second study looked to build upon this, more closely examining the sex lives of 108 newlywed, heterosexual couples. This time, on top of questions regarding partner commitment and marriage satisfaction, they asked couples how many times they have sex in a four month period as a more tangible way to measure sexual objectification. Again, they found a positive association between sexual activity and wives’ marriage satisfaction when they perceived their husbands to be committed. Conversely, they found a negative association between sexual activity and marriage satisfaction when husbands were perceived to be less committed.
All in all, it confirmed the researchers’ hypothesis that the results from the studies would reconcile the differences in previous research.
“These findings demonstrate that interpersonal processes do not have universally positive or negative implications for relationships,” said Meltzer. “That is, what may be good in one context, is not necessarily good in another context. In this case, sexual valuation only benefitted women who perceived their husbands to be highly committed, likely, because that sexual valuation would have been adaptive throughout evolutionary history.”
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