Sexual problems among a representative sample of Australian men who have experienced physical and emotional intimate partner abuse.

Abstract

Background: The experiences of being emotionally and physically abused by a romantic partner are associated with several deleterious outcomes including poor mental health, being sexually assaulted, and partner homicide.

Aim: To explore the roles of emotional and physical abuse in relation to men's sexual functioning.

Methods: The sample comprised 5642 Australian men (Mage = 45.87 years, SD = 12.36) who completed Wave 4 (2022) of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health: Ten to Men (T2M). As part of the T2M survey, participants completed questions relating to physical and emotional intimate partner abuse, and the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles - Sexual Function subscale (Natsal-SF). Hierarchical binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to explore whether experiences of abuse in romantic relationships predicted the likelihood of sexual dysfunction in Australian men.

Outcomes: The variance in sexual dysfunction explained by men's experiences of physical and emotional abuse over and above the variance explained by relevant covariates.

Results: The analyses showed that, after controlling for several covariates, physical abuse was not associated with any physio-psychological aspects of sexual dysfunction. However, emotional abuse was significantly associated with all aspects of physio-psychological functioning except for reaching climax more quickly than the man would have liked and experiencing pain as a result of sex.

Clinical implications: The results have important implications for relationship therapy and intimacy counselling, with greater awareness of how emotional abuse impacts sexual functioning providing valuable insight for men and their partners.

Strengths and limitations: The study used data from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health, which sourced data from a nationally representative sample of Australian men. A potential limitation is that individual Natsal-SF items were used in lieu of the total score, and thus the same variance may be explained in multiple analyses.

Conclusion: The results suggest that emotional abuse is more damaging to male sexual functioning than physical abuse.