Many women in the US hardly discuss sex with close friends, although overall they would like to talk about it more often and consider such conversations useful. The study was published in The Journal of Sex Research.
The authors surveyed women who communicate with at least one friend weekly. Participants rated how often they discuss various sex-related topics and how often they would like to do so. The average frequency of conversations was noticeably lower than desired for each of the topics.
Most often women talked about how often they have sex, about contraception and about good sex. Least often discussed were anal sex, pornography, masturbation and sexually transmitted infections. At the same time, for all topics the desire to discuss them was higher than the actual frequency. Women especially would like to talk more often about contraception, condoms, infections, sexual problems and low sexual desire.
Most participants expected at least one negative reaction from a friend if they raised a forbidden topic. The most common fear was that the friend would feel awkward. Next came fears that she would be judged, considered strange or disgusting.
The researchers also analyzed the open-ended responses of women who expected a negative reaction. They identified several main reasons: taboo, disgust and the notion of impropriety, privacy boundaries, fear of judgment, internal shame and religious-cultural attitudes. Many explained the prohibition circularly: it is simply not done to discuss it. At the same time, not a single participant said that she had actually been judged for such conversations: the question concerned expectations, not past experience.
The authors emphasize: the link between internal shame and the expectation of judgment was moderate. This may mean that women who are strict with themselves assume the same strictness from others, or that people with high shame more often think about negative reactions. Age had almost no effect on the frequency and desire for such conversations. Higher religiosity was weakly associated both with the desire to talk about sex more often and with support for normalization, but at the same time with greater agreement with reasons for judgment.
The researchers warn: since the data were collected at a single point in time, it cannot be asserted that shame causes the expectation of judgment or vice versa. In addition, participants spoke about the presumed reactions of friends, not about actual conversations. The sample is limited to women from the US who communicate with friends often and does not take into account communication with men or non-binary people.
Lead author Catherine Pariera explained: women mostly want to speak more freely with friends about sex but fear judgment or awkwardness. One can start by discussing why sex is a taboo for women. Such a meta-conversation will help to understand what you and your friends are ready to discuss.