“Attributions of Low Sexual Desire in Women Partnered with Men”:
Process and Summary
The following is a summary of the contents and process of “Causal Attributions of Low Sexual Desire in Women Partnered with Men,” a study that began in September of 2020 and was submitted for publication in December 2022. Beginning as my Undergraduate Honours Thesis, the study has since transformed into a collaboration involving seven researchers and two phases of data collection.
Watch my presentation on the Study at the 2022 Sex Research Forum!
The use of qualitative research methods to gain insights on women’s subjective experiences required me to drastically reshape my conceptions of the scientific method. Taking a recursive approach to data analyses went against my quantitative background, but allowed for new concepts to emerge that allowed for a more comprehensive picture of participants’ experiences.
My experience working with qualitative methods also heightened my admiration and understanding of design thinking. The process of trying to empathize with others in order to better represent their struggles so a solution can be found is a mission shared by scientists and designers alike.
Research and Planning
Notes from a meeting with Dr van Anders and Dr. Harris regarding developing categories for attribution and social location factors following data collection.
Timeline of the project, updated throughout the study process.
A screenshot of the project’s Zotero folder, a research software used to track references and create bibliographies. Over 66 scholarly articles were used as sources.
The Study Abstract
Low sexual desire in women as both a construct and a diagnosis has been the subject of controversy and reconceptualization over the past several decades. Despite an abundance of discussion surrounding the causes of low desire within clinical and academic circles, there is a gap surrounding research on what women themselves attribute to be the cause of their low desire, and the potential consequences of these attributions.
The current study helps address this gap by investigating women’s causal attributions for low desire in non-clinical populations. We assess the relationship between these attributions and subsequent feelings of responsibility and emotions surrounding one’s low desire, and the relationship between attributions and perceived loci of one’s low desire (e.g., “inside” oneself, “outside” oneself, or within one’s interactions with others). We also investigate the perceived role of social location in women’s low desire.
Through qualitative analysis, our results indicate that participants who attribute the cause of their low desire to sociocultural or sexual orientation/identity-related causes express lesser feelings of responsibility and endorse fewer negative emotions surrounding their experience of low sexual desire than women who attribute the cause of their low desire to psychological, biological, and relational causes. This study provides support for the heteronormativity theory of low desire in women partnered with men (van Anders et al., under review), which emphasizes the role of heteronormative gender roles in women’s low desire, and the tendency for mainstream discourse to frame low desire as a problem that exists within the minds and bodies of women.
Read the full paper here.
Future Directions
After completing my thesis, the Study Team began a second round of data collection, expanding recruitment and bringing the total number of participants to 143. The paper summarizing the study expansion results is currently being reviewed for publication.