Responsiveness in the Face of Sexual Challenges: The Role of Sexual Growth and Destiny Beliefs.

Implicit--or lay--sexual beliefs have been associated with how people respond to sexual challenges in romantic relationships. People who endorse s view a satisfying sex life as the result of finding the right partner and report poorer sexual, relationship, and personal well-being when there are sexual challenges. In comparison, people who endorse view satisfying sexual relationships as requiring hard work and effort to maintain and tend to report high sexual, relationship, and personal well-being even when facing sexual challenges. High sexual responsiveness - being motivated to meet a partner's sexual needs - is associated with maintaining high sexual satisfaction, even when couples face sexual challenges in a relationship. In the current research, we tested whether sexual growth and destiny beliefs are associated with general and sexual responsiveness and whether the associations are moderated by the presence of sexual challenges. Across three (clinical and non-clinical) samples (= 820) facing different types of sexual challenges (Study 1 ( = 31.64,  = 8.53), clinically low sexual desire; Studies 2 (= 32.63, = 10.19) and 3 ( = 32.40,  = 9.31), unmet sexual ideals; Study 3, changes in sex since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic), we found that sexual growth beliefs were associated with higher sexual responsiveness and perceived partner sexual and general responsiveness, even when couples were coping with sexual challenges, whereas sexual destiny beliefs were not associated with responsiveness, and at times were associated with lower sexual responsiveness and perceived partner sexual and general responsiveness. This research provides initial evidence about how implicit sexual beliefs are associated with sexual and general responsiveness when couples are coping with sexual challenges in a romantic relationship.