Sexual awareness: Contraception, sexual behaviors and sexual attitudes

Abstract

Abstract An investigation was conducted to provide additional evidence for the validity of the Sexual Awareness Questionnaire (SAQ), designed to measure four personality tendencies associated with sexual awareness and sexual assertiveness: sexual consciousness (attention to internal private sexual cues), sexual—monitoring (sensitivity to others' evaluations of one's sexuality), sexual assertiveness (self-reliance in sexual decision making) and sexiness consciousness (awareness of one's own public sexiness). The results revealed that sexual assertiveness in both males and females was predictive of greater contraceptive use, but only among males was sexual consciousness and sexual monitoring found to predict more favorable attitudes toward condom use. In addition, for both females and males, sexual consciousness, sexual monitoring, and sexual assertiveness were found to be positively associated with a greater variety and a more extensive history of sexual experiences. Therapy and research applications are discussed