Jessamyn Moxie

Introduction: Alt-sex (i.e., BDSM, kink, leather, polyamory and open relationships) practitioners are marginalized. They face violations of their consent, including but not limited to sexual consent. Although consent violations can lead to negative outcomes, resilience describes mobilizing resources and assets to mitigate these effects. Resilience related to consent violations among alt-sex practitioners is under-researched. Methods: We conducted an international electronic survey focused on experiences with consent violations from 2019 to 2020. We analyzed open-ended survey responses related to resilience from 1711 alt-sex practitioners. Results: We find evidence of individual and interpersonal strategies supporting resilience, and community aspects that challenge resilience in relation to consent violations. The intrapersonal level included mindfulness, coping and self-care, and calculated risk-taking. At the interpersonal level, participants described communication, social support, and development of trust. The community level included climate and authorities. The development of trust and social support, both at the interpersonal level, are linked to the community level, such as community climate. Conclusions: Alt-sex practitioners may benefit from resilience-strengthening interventions, and alt-sex practitioners’ approaches to consent violations may be applicable to the broader population in building resilience. Policy Implications: While legal and health policies exclude or stigmatize alt-sex practitioners, our findings support the importance of alternative recommendations or guidelines (e.g., the Model Penal Code related to sexual assault, clinical practice guidelines related to alt-sex).

Background: An essential component of new relationship development is sexual communication between partners. The rise of technology has allowed couples to use text messaging to facilitate these conversations. The current study examines how emerging adults (18–25 years) in new relationships communicate about sex through text messages. Methods: We conducted inductive thematic analyses of text messages between different-gender couples in the first six months of their relationship (20 couples, N = 40) in which the women were between 18 and 25 years of age. We used the Dedoose qualitative analysis software and a coding team of 16 coders. Reliability was established through the “test” function of Dedoose, with codes of Kappas less than 0.70 discussed and refined in the codebook. Results: Primary themes of how couples communicate about sex emerged, which included the use of humor, discussing previous sexual experiences and partners, and sharing interests around future sexual encounters. During thematic analyses, secondary themes of motivations for sexual communication emerged, including learning, bonding, and enhancement. Conclusions: Addressing the varied motivations emerging adult couples may use in text messages can be leveraged for improving sexual health. Theories related to relationship development may not fully capture how couples discuss sex, particularly via text messages.