{"title":"The Intimate and Sexual Costs of Emotional Labor: The Development of the Women's Sexual Emotional Labor Assessment.","authors":"Tanja Oschatz, Jennifer L Piemonte, Verena Klein","doi":"10.1007/s10508-024-03061-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emotional labor, the act of suppressing or altering one's feelings to enhance another person's well-being, is predominantly performed by women, especially within intimate relationships. Despite its impact on well-being, research on its role in sexuality remains limited. We developed the Women's Sexual Emotional Labor Assessment (WOSELA), a 12-item scale based on themes identified by past qualitative studies. To ensure its reliability and validity, we conducted three studies with women partnered with men, as well as heterosexual single women from the UK and the USA (N = 831). Drawing on exploratory factor analysis in Study 1, four subscales were identified: faking orgasm, performing desire, tolerating discomfort or pain, and partner-referenced sexual satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analyses in Study 2 (pre-registered) provided support for the WOSELA in its current form. In Study 3 (pre-registered), we demonstrated the validity of the WOSELA by establishing significant negative correlations with sexual agency, sexual communication, and sexual pleasure. Our results further show that the WOSELA was not significantly related to positive-partner-oriented sexual responsiveness. The WOSELA offers a unique tool to explore the role of emotional labor in sustaining the pleasure gap, as well as in broader power dynamics within intimate relationships and its impact on women's well-being.</p>","PeriodicalId":8327,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Sexual Behavior","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Archives of Sexual Behavior","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-024-03061-7","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, CLINICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Emotional labor, the act of suppressing or altering one's feelings to enhance another person's well-being, is predominantly performed by women, especially within intimate relationships. Despite its impact on well-being, research on its role in sexuality remains limited. We developed the Women's Sexual Emotional Labor Assessment (WOSELA), a 12-item scale based on themes identified by past qualitative studies. To ensure its reliability and validity, we conducted three studies with women partnered with men, as well as heterosexual single women from the UK and the USA (N = 831). Drawing on exploratory factor analysis in Study 1, four subscales were identified: faking orgasm, performing desire, tolerating discomfort or pain, and partner-referenced sexual satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analyses in Study 2 (pre-registered) provided support for the WOSELA in its current form. In Study 3 (pre-registered), we demonstrated the validity of the WOSELA by establishing significant negative correlations with sexual agency, sexual communication, and sexual pleasure. Our results further show that the WOSELA was not significantly related to positive-partner-oriented sexual responsiveness. The WOSELA offers a unique tool to explore the role of emotional labor in sustaining the pleasure gap, as well as in broader power dynamics within intimate relationships and its impact on women's well-being.
期刊介绍:
The official publication of the International Academy of Sex Research, the journal is dedicated to the dissemination of information in the field of sexual science, broadly defined. Contributions consist of empirical research (both quantitative and qualitative), theoretical reviews and essays, clinical case reports, letters to the editor, and book reviews.