Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 21, No. 4, 1992

The Relationship of Sexual Daydreaming to Sexual Activity, Sexual Drive, and Sexual Attitudes for Women Across the Life-Span Frances E. Purifoy, Ph.D., t,3 Alicia Grodsky, Ph.D 2 and Leonard M. Giambra, Ph.D. 2

The association among sexual daydreaming and sexual attitudes and activity was examined in a cross-sectional life-span sample of women (N = 117, 26 to 78 years). Sexual daydreaming was measured using the Imaginal Processes Inventory (IP1) while sexual history measures of sexual activity, sexual drive, and sexual attitudes were derived from a comprehensive personal intelview. A factor analysis and varimax rotation of the sexual history variables; age, and the Sexual Daydream Scale of the IP1 revealed three primary factors representing dimensions of sexual activity and drive, attitudes toward sexual activity, and sexual satisfaction. Age was associated with less sexual daydreaming, less sexual drive, less sexual activity, and more negative sexual attitudes. Sexual daydreaming varied directly with sexual drive and sexual activity and with a positive sexual attitude. KEY WORDS: female sexuality; aging; sexual daydreams; sex drive; sexual attitudes.

INTRODUCTION Several authors have suggested that the occurrence of sexual daydreams reflects the current interests or concerns of the individual (Giambra and Martin, 1977; Giambra, 1983; Klinger, 1971). Sexual daydreaming, which involves sexual thoughts that occur spontaneously and are unrelated to the task at hand, can be distinguished from sexual fantasies, which may 1Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. 2Gerontology Research Center, National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, Maryland 21224. 3To whom correspondence should be addressed. 369

0004-0002/92/0800-0369506.50/0© 1992PlenumPublishingCorporation

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occur as daydreams or as deliberate, consciously manipulated thoughts. The content of sexual daydreams may be either fantastic or realistic, whereas the content of sexual fantasies is always fantastic or unreal. Though sometimes considered suspect by both laypersons and professionals alike, sexual daydreaming and fantasy are emerging as important, widespread aspects of normal human experience (Pope et aI., 1984). Sexual daydreaming frequency has been found to vary in relation to sexual vigor in men, as inferred from self-reported data pertaining to sexual performance (Giambra and Martin, 1977). Men aged 24 to 64 years with more coital partners and/or greater customary coital frequency in the first 2 years of marriage reported higher levels of sexual daydreaming at time of report. In addition, men 45 to 64 years of age who reported greater overall levels of sexual activity from age 20 to 40 years also reported more sexual daydreaming. Giambra (1979-1980) found age-related differences in the frequency of sexual daydreaming for both men and women from their late teens to their early nineties. Women were less likely to report daydreams of a sexual nature, and the observed sex difference increased at older age levels. For women, sexual daydreaming levels remained unchanged within the age intervals 17-34, 35-49, and 50-59 but exhibited relatively large drops between these intervals. Since the 45-49 year span coincides with the advent of menopause and the 50-54 year span with its termination, it was suggested that decreases in sexual daydreaming between these intervals might be related to these physiological changes. In a subsequent study limited to 40 to 60-year-old women, Giambra (1983) concluded that middle-aged women who were more interested in sexual relations than their partners, who masturbated more frequently, and who regularly felt "tense," "wound up," or "irritable" exhibited higher levels of sexual daydreaming than women who were less interested in sex, masturbated less frequently, and who did not experience these symptoms. Menopause, however, was not a moderating variable. Daydreaming thus seemed to reflect these women's current midlife concerns and served as an expression of sexual interest as well as a means to increase self-stimulation during masturbation. Similarly, Hariton and Singer (1974) found sexual daydreaming among urban housewives to be associated with the enhancement of desire and pleasure, and Zimmer et al. (1983) concluded that sexual fantasy represented a positive index of a satisfying sex life, especially for younger women, although fantasy was also used by some subjects to compensate for sexual frustration. A critical problem in cross-sectional studies attempting to investigate age and sexuality is the confounding influence of biological aging, birth cohort, and life-stage (George and Weiler, 1981; Laws, 1980). For

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example, both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies report decreased sexual interest and activity in older as compared to younger women (Kinsey et aL, 1953; Pfeiffer and Davis, 1972; Pfeiffer et al., 1968; Verwoerdt et al., 1969). Reported declines may be related to such biological, psychological, or sociocultural factors as reduced sex steroid production, illness, medications, stress, anxieties about aging, life-stage adjustments, or relationship problems (Woody, 1989; Hallstrom, 1973, 1977; Leiblum et al., 1983). Due to socialization influences, women born into different cohorts are also likely to vary in their sexual beliefs and attitudes. For example, historical studies suggest that sex has had a lower rank in the hierarchy of values for many adults who were children before World War II (Laws, 1980). Several researchers have found more conservative sexual attitudes and higher sexual guilt in older as compared to younger American women (Hudson et al., 1983; Keller et al., 1978; Kinsey et al., 1953). Frequency of sexual daydreaming and fantasy among women has also been shown to be positively related to such sociocultural variables as level of sexual experience, number of past partners, level of sexual guilt, and liberal attitudes toward the concerns of women (Chick and Gold, 1987-1988; Brown and Hart, 1977; Pelletier and Herold, 1988). Although Hunt's (1974) and Brecher et al.'s (1984) surveys reveal a dramatic shift toward permissiveness and liberal attitudes toward sex since Kinsey et al.'s (1953) survey, conservative attitudes were still more frequent among older, and especially female, respondents. Furthermore, those expressing Victorian sexual views were more likely to report low sexual enjoyment and low sexual frequency. Although older respondents as a group were more conservative than younger respondents, many older individuals had developed an open attitude and a willingness to try new modes of stimulation in response to rising sexual response thresholds and physiological changes. The current study investigates further the relationship of sexual daydreaming to age, sexual drive and activity, sexual attitudes, and sexual satisfaction among female participants of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Based on the research literature described above, which suggests the important influence of biological aging, birth cohort, as well as life-stage on female sexuality, we hypothesized that sexual daydreaming, self-reported sexual interest, and sexual activity would be lower in older compared to younger participants. Furthermore, negative sexual attitudes were expected to be more common among older women. Independently of age, we also expected sexual daydreaming to be positively related to sexual interest, sexual activity, sexual satisfaction, and positive attitudes toward sex.

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METHOD Subjects T h e study sample consisted of 117 women comprising three age groups: 26 to 39 years (n = 35, x = 33.3, SD = 3.7), 40 to 55 years (n = 32, x = 47.9, SD = 5.1), and 56 to 78 years (n = 50, x -- 64.9, SD = 6.0). Age was at the time of administration of the sexual daydreaming questionnaire. The women were participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA; Shock et al., 1984) at the Gerontology Research Center of the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Maryland. Most of the women were white, married, middle- or upper middle-class individuals with at least 1 year of post high school education. All were unpaid volunteers who visit the center for 21/2 days every 18 months. Table I presents a demographic description of each age group. While visiting the center, each participant completed a sexual daydreaming questionnaire and participated in a personal interview involving a detailed sexual history. The sexual daydreaming questionnaire was completed independently of, and blind to, the sexual history interview, which could have taken place up to 4 years earlier or later. A 4-year separation occurred in only 3% of the total sample. The mean number of years elapsed between the administration of the sexual daydreaming questionnaire and the sexual history interview for the three age groups was as follows: 26-39 years old (x = 0.89, SD = 0.96); 40-55 yeasr old (x = 0.75, SD = 1.05), and 56-78 years old (x = 1.12, SD = 1.35). Although most BLSA women participating in the sexual history interviews were married or had been married at one time in the past (see Table I), a few were cohabitating with a sexual partner. For these women, the sample questions were asked as were asked of married women. Of the sample of 117 women, all who were sexually active with a partner at the time of interview were heterosexual except for a middle-aged, self-described lesbian.

Sexual Daydreaming Questionnaire Sexual Daydreaming Scale values were obtained from 12 items of the retrospective 344-item Imaginal Processes Inventory (IPI; Singer and Antrobus, 1970). The Sexual Daydreaming Scale of the IPI indicates the degree of self-reported sexually oriented daydreams. Scale values were obtained by summing responses to the 12 items. Each item has five options which are points on a continuum indicating applicability to the individual. The options were assigned values of 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 depending on their

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Sexual Daydreaming Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of Each Age G roup of W o m e n Age group a Characteristic Race W hite Black Other Marital status Never married Married once & still married Married > once & still married Divorced/separated Widowed Living with partner Currently have sexual partner yes no Highest educational degree Grad e school High school A.A. B.A./B.S. M.A./M .S. Ph.D./Ed.D/M.D. Oth er Current occupation Homemaker Clerical/sales Professional/manager Retired Income $0-$19,999 $20,000-50,000 >$50,000 Religion Protestant Catholic Jewish Oth er

26-39

40-55

56-78

94.1 2.9 2.9

90.6 6.3 3.1

94.0 4.0 2.0

5.7 71.4 2.9 t 1.4 -8.6

3.1 81.3 3.1 12.5 ---

2.0 66.0 10.0 8.0 14.0 --

94.1 5.9

80.6 19.4

63.3 36.7

-5.9 2.9 64.7 17.6 2.9 5.9

3.2 19.4 6.5 29.0 25.8 -16.1

2.2 19.6 4.3 43.5 26.1 4.4 --

31.4 5.7 62.9 --

22.6 3.2 74.2 --

30.6 8.2 20.4 40.8

11.8 79.5 8.8

22.6 48.4 29.0

13.6 68.1 18.2

64.3 28.6 -7.1

65.5 20.7 -13.7

76.1 8.7 4.3 10.9

aNumbers represent the percentage of each age group with stated characteristics.

ordinal position on the continuum. The 12 items and the five response options are presented in Table II. The Sexual Daydreaming Scale has both good internal consistency and test-retest reliability (Giambra and Martin, 1977; Giambra, 1979-1980; Giambra and Singer, 1988). Ninety-eight women completed the IPI while on a regularly scheduled visit to the Gerontology Research Center; the remainder completed the IPI at home. Each participant was given a brief explanation of daydreaming

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Purifoy, Grodsky, and Giambra Table II. Items from the Sexual Daydreaming Scalea 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

My daydreams about love are so vivid, I actually feel they are occurring. I imagine myself to be physically attractive to people of the opposite sex. While working intently at a job, my mind will wander to thoughts about sex. Sometimes on the way to work, I imagine myself making love to an attractive person of the opposite sex. My sexual daydreams are very vivid and clear in my mind. While reading, I often slip into daydreams about sex or making love to someone. While traveling on the train or bus my idle thoughts turn to love. Whenever I am bored, I daydream about the opposite sex. Sometimes in the middle of the day, I will daydream of having sexual relations with someone I am fond of. In my fantasies, 1 arouse great desire in someone I admire. Before going to sleep, my idle thoughts turn to love-making. My daydreams tend to arouse me physically.

aResponse options: (0) definitely not true for me, (1) usually not true for me, (2) usually true for me, (3) true for me, (4) very true for me.

a n d the p u r p o s e s o f the study. E x a m p l e s of d a y d r e a m i n g b e h a v i o r w e r e p r o v i d e d a n d p a r t i c i p a n t s w e r e advised to " m a k e a d i s t i n c t i o n b e t w e e n ' t h i n k i n g ' a b o u t an i m m e d i a t e task y o u ' r e p e r f o r m i n g , e.g., working, d o i n g school work, thinking directly a b o u t it while y o u ' r e d o i n g it a n d ' d a y d r e a m ing' which involves t h o u g h t u n r e l a t e d to a task you are w o r k i n g on o r else t h o u g h t s t h a t c o n t i n u e while you a r e getting r e a d y for sleep o r on a long bus o r train ride."

Sexual History Interview E a c h p a r t i c i p a n t m e t individually with F.E.P., a f e m a l e a n t h r o p o l o gist, for a sexual history interview b a s e d o n the K i n s e y f o r m a t ( P o m e r o y et al., 1982). P a r t i c i p a n t s w e r e i n f o r m e d that their r e s p o n s e s w o u l d p r o v i d e i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t the effects o f aging on a w o m a n ' s sexual f u n c t i o n a n d the quality o f h e r sexual life. E a c h w o m a n was a s s u r e d that the interview d a t a w o u l d r e m a i n strictly c o n f i d e n t i a l and that details o f individuals' sexual histories w o u l d n o t b e revealed. O f w o m e n a s k e d to p r o v i d e an interview, only 2 % refused. B o t h n o n r e s p o n s e and self-selection a r e p r o b l e m s t h a t consistently p l a g u e sex survey r e s e a r c h ( C r o o k s a n d B a u e r , 1987); however, B L S A p a r t i c i p a n t s t e n d to be highly m o t i v a t e d subjects who a r e d e d i c a t e d to t h e overall goals o f t h e r e s e a r c h center. M o r e o v e r , t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s d i d n o t j o i n t h e B L S A to p a r t i c i p a t e in a study o f sexual b e h a v i o r o r for clinical reasons; they thus r e p r e s e n t a n o n b i a s e d s a m p l e for the study o f sexual questions.

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Interviews were conducted in a private room inside the BLSA participants' dormitory. Interviewer and interviewee sat in comfortable chairs in an informal seating arrangement, such as would occur in one's own living room. Each interview lasted approximately 2 hr and included questions about childhood, adolescent, and adult sexual behavior; premarital, marital, and extramarital behavior; masturbation; homosexual behavior; sexual interest; change in sexuality over the life span; attitudes toward certain sexual activities; and current concerns which could potentially affect sexual behavior. The interview format was semistructured. A specific set of questions was asked with additional time allowed for open-ended discussion and probes into areas that appeared to be important. Most questions required either a numerical response (e.g., frequency variables) or had a range of alternatives from which the interviewee was asked to choose. Answers were coded on a single sheet of paper, as described in Pomeroy et al. (1982). Not all sexual history questions were asked of each participant because some questions were contingent upon specific responses to other questions and some were added as much as a month after the initial interviews. For the purposes of this analysis a comprehensive measure, "Sumsex," was created by summing frequency of marital (or live-in partner) sexual activity, frequency of extramarital sexual activity, frequency of postmarital sexual activity (for those women who were divorced or widowed), and frequency of masturbation. Sumsex thus indicates total sexual activity, i.e., activity involving sexual arousal and perhaps (but not necessarily) orgasm, during the year prior to the interview. Interview variables were chosen for analysis based on their ability to measure those areas of sexual interest, activity, attitudes, and satisfaction which were hypothesized to relate to sexual daydreaming. However, any interview measure for which there were data on fewer than 90 cases was excluded. Table III includes the response choices and exact wording of each interview question used in the analysis. The following 10 variables were included: Sumsex, sexual drive, ideal frequency of sexual activity (with current partner), satisfaction with sex (with current partner), time comfortable without sex, frequency of nongenital physical intimacy (with current partner), rate of orgasm early in marriage, and attitude toward: One's own genitals, masturbation, oral-genital contact, and female-above coitus. No unequivocal statement can be made regarding the reliability and validity of the information obtained by personal interview. However, previous studies using the Kinsey format, which parallels that used in this study, have found good reliability for quantitative measures of sexual activity when subjects were reinterviewed (Kinsey et al., 1953; Pomeroy et al., 1982). As to validity, Kinsey et al. (1953) found a satisfactory correspondence between reports of common sexual activity by husbands and wives,

376

Purifoy, Grodsky, and Giambra Table III. Sexual History Interview Questions Included in This Analysis a

1. What has been the customary frequency of sexual relations in the last year? 2. In the past year, did you and your partner engage in acts of physical closeness which did not necessarily lead to sexual activity per se: a. Quite often b. Occasionally c. Really not very often 3. In the first year or two (of first marriage) what percentage of time did you achieve orgasm during sexual relations? a. Never b. 1 out of 4 times c. Half of the time d. 3 out of 4 times e. Almost always 4. (If involved in an extramarital or postmarital relationship in the past year): How often in the past year did you and he have sexual relations? 5. Currently, would you say that you are a. Very satisfied b. Somewhat satisfied c. Relatively unsatisfied with the sexual relationship as it now is 6. How often in the past year have you masturbated? 7. On a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being nothing at all and 10 being highest, how would you currently rate your sex drive, i.e., your desire for sex? 8. At the present time, how long do you think you could comfortably go without sexual activity of any kind? Is there an upper limit of time, for instance, when you would be very much aware of sexual need'? 9. If you could anytime you wanted to, how often would you like to have sexual relations (with a/your partner'?) 10. Is your attitude toward the following positive, negative, or neutral (indifferent)? 1) Your genitals 2) Masturbation 3) Oral-genital contact 4) Intercourse in the female-above position aThe order of the questions is not necessarily that of each interview. a n d b e t w e e n two i n t e r v i e w s w i t h t h e s a m e s u b j e c t s s p a c e d n e a r l y 3 y e a r s apart. For measures of sexual satisfaction and attitudes using continuous r e s p o n s e c h o i c e s s i m i l a r to t h o s e u s e d h e r e , o t h e r r e s e a r c h e r s h a v e rep o r t e d s a t i s f a c t o r y t e s t - r e t e s t reliability a n d c o n t e n t validity (Story, 1988a, 1988b; W h i t l e y , 1988).

RESULTS A s s e e n in T a b l e I V , t h e S e x u a l D a y d r e a m i n g Scale, t h e s e x u a l h i s t o r y v a r i a b l e s , a n d a g e a r e o f t e n significantly, p < 0.05, i n t e r c o r r e l a t e d . T o exp l o r e t h e u n d e r l y i n g s t r u c t u r e o f t h e s e i n t e r c o r r e l a t i o n s , this m a t r i x w a s factor analyzed using the principal components method. The three factors

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Table V. Factor Pattern after Varimax Rotation for Sexual History Variables, Age, and Sexual Daydreamsa Variables Sumsext' Ideal frequency of coitus Sexual daydreams Time comfortable without sex Sexual drive Age Attitude about genitals Attitude about masturbation Attitude about female-above coitus Attitude about oral-genital contact Satisfaction with sex Physical nongenital intimacy Orgasm early in 1st marriage Eigenvalue Percentage of variance accounted for by factor

Factor 1 76 72 66 -63 62 -61 -03 31 28 43 -03 15 01 3.07 23.6

Factor 2

Factor 3

04 02 37 -27 44 -40 83 62 50 50 -31 31 05

29 -07 -28 -14 16 10 30 -17 -06 07 73 70 61

2.31 17.8

1.75 13.5

aDecimal points are omitted in upper section of table. bSumsex represents the sum of frequency of marital (or live-in partner) sexual activity, frequency of extramarital sexual activity, frequency of postmarital sexual activity (for those women who were divorced or widowed), and frequency of masturbation.

with eigenvalues greater than 1 were then rotated to the varimax criterion. Table V contains the results of the factor analysis after varimax rotation. The variables for which Factor 1 accounted for at least 10% of their variance, i.e., where the factor-variable correlation was .32, were Sumsex, ideal frequency of sexual activity, sexual daydreaming scale, time comfortable without sex, sexual drive, age, and attitude toward oral-genital contact. Factor 1 is thus a dimension associated primarily with sexual activity and interest. Sexual daydreams are highly and directly associated with this dimension of sexuality. Also, the inverse relationship of age with Factor 1 shows that increased age is associated with lower reported sexual interest and activity. To illustrate further the effect of Factor 1 variables on sexual daydreaming, an Age Group (25-39 years, 40-55 years, and 56-78 years) x Sumsex (0-49 times, 50-249 times) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on Sexual Daydreaming Scale values. There was a significant effect of Age Group, F(2, 109) = 19.61, p < 0.0001, and Sumsex, F(1, 109) = 4.83, p < 0.05, but not their interaction, F(2, 109) = 0.93, p > 0.05. Figure 1 shows that sexual daydreaming is greater for 50 or more sexual events per year than for 49 or fewer sexual events and that sexual daydreaming

Sexual Daydreaming

379 24

o 0 - 49 Times/Year ,', 5 0 - 2 5 3 T i m e s / Y e a r

18 "O >,

N

12

X

03

6

I

I

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25 - 34

40 - 55

56 - 78

Age Group Fig. 1. Mean Sexual Daydreaming Scale values for young, middle-aged, and older women with 0-49 and 50 or more sexual events (coitus, masturbation) during the previous year (Sumsex variable).

is less frequent in the older age groups. The difference between high and low Sumsex values was minimal in the oldest age group. The variables that correlated .32 or greater with Factor 2 were attitude toward genitals, attitude toward masturbation, attitude toward femaleabove coitus, attitude toward oral-genital contact, sexual drive, age, and Sexual Daydreaming Scale. Factor 2 is thus a dimension primarily associated with attitudes toward sex. Both sexual drive and sexual daydreams are positively associated with this dimension. The inverse relationships of age with Factor 2 shows increased age is associated with more negative or conservative attitudes. To illustrate the effect of sexual attitudes on sexual daydreaming, an Age Group (40-55 years, 56-78 years) x Attitude Toward Genitals (Negative or Neutral, Positive) A N O V A was conducted on Sexual Daydreaming Scale values. The youngest age group was not included since very few young women had a negative or neutral attitude toward their genitals. There was a significant effect of Age Group, F(1, 65) = 15.57, p < 0.001, and Attitude toward Genitals, F(1, 65) = 7.22, p < 0.01, but not their interaction, F(1, 65) = 0.01, p > 0.05. Figure 2 shows that sexual daydreaming is more likely with a positive attitude than with a negative or neutral attitude for both age groups. The variables that correlated .32 or greater with Factor 3 were satisfaction with sex, frequency of nongenital physical intimacy, and orgasm

380

Purifoy, Grodsky, and Giambra

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early in first marriage. Sexual daydreaming and age seemed to have little influence on this dimension of satisfaction and physical intimacy. The above analyses included women with and without partners. It might be argued that those without partners have less opportunity for sexual activity and that might weaken the relationship between sexual daydreams and sexual activity. The analysis of variance which partitioned each age group into low and high sexual activity subgroups demonstrated that sexual daydreams occurred more often in high sexual activity women. Of the 26 women who had no current sexual partner the mean Sumsex was 5.8 (range = 0 to 75) with most sexual activity being masturbation. Since most of the women with no sexual partner are in the oldest age group, a t test, with age as a covariate, was conducted. It found significantly lower sexual daydreaming for women with no partners (x = 6.8) than those with partners (x = 9.5), t(46) = 1.97, p < 0.05, one-tailed. When the sample was restricted to those with partners the intercorrelations among 13 variables decreased from 1.271 to 1.211 reflecting the reduction in range brought about by sample restriction. A factor analysis was then done on that intercorrelation matrix augmented by inclusion of a variable that indicates the current degree of orgasmic consistency during intercourse. Because there were fewer than 90 women with data for this variable, current orgasmic consistency had been excluded from earlier analyses. However, we included it in the second fac-

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tor analysis, since most of the women with partners had answered this question. This analysis yielded four factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. One factor was identical with Factor 1 (see Table V) except that Age and Attitude toward Oral-Genital contact no longer correlated with it. A second factor was identical to Factor 3 (see Table V) with degree of current orgasmic consistency during intercourse also correlating .75 with it. The remaining two factors are composed of the variables which comprised original Factor 2 (see Table V). One factor loaded Age on it as well as Sumsex, Sexual Daydreaming Scale, Time Comfortable without Sex, and attitudes about oral-genital contact and masturbation. The other factor loaded attitudes toward genitals and masturbation and Frequency of Nonsexual Physical Intimacy.

DISCUSSION When women with and without partners were included in the analysis, our results revealed three major dimensions of sexuality in this sample of women. These three factors were primarily associated with sexual interest and activity, sexual attitudes, and satisfaction/intimacy. As predicted, increasing age was associated with lower reported sexual interest and activity and with negative attitudes. Since our analysis was done on cross-sectional data, however, the extent to which this age-related variability is due to biological aging versus cohort or life-stage effects is not clear. As predicted, sexual daydreaming frequency was highly and directly associated with Factor 1, the interest/activity dimension. These findings parallel those of Giambra and Martin (1977) which showed that the likelihood of a sexual orientation in daydreams varied directly with each of three behavioral indicators of sexual vigor for three age groups of BLSA males through age 64 years. Our data are also consistent with Zimmer et al.'s (1983) finding that frequency of sexual fantasies was positively related to sexual activity in younger subjects. However, these authors failed to find an association between activity level and fantasies for subjects older than 35 years. Obviously, women's self-assessments of sexual interest, desire, or drive depend on the interaction of physiological drive and arousal mechanisms and a variety of psychosocial factors, i.e., prior sexual experience, availability of a desirable and interested partner, other situational factors, etc. The three interview measures reflect (i) a participant's rating of the strength of her sexual drive; (ii) her assessment of an optimum frequency of sexual activity, and (iii) her estimate of how long she could go before being aware of sexual need. Presumably, this subjectively felt and assessed interest has

382

Purifoy, Grodsky, and Giambra

both a biological and psychological component, with which sexual daydreaming is significantly associated. The results of the second factor analysis, which involved only those women with current sexual partners, confirmed the association of sexual daydreaming with the interest/activity dimension. However, excluding those women without sexual partners tended to remove the cohort effect of age on Factor 1. The significant age association seen in the first analysis was thus due primarily to the fact that a greater proportion of women in the oldest age group had no current partner. The negative feedback effect of not having a sexual partner may thus explain both the lower reported sexual interest and lesser likelihood of sexual daydreaming among older compared to younger women. In fact, some of these women explained during the interview that they had adapted to the lack of a sexual partner, e.g., through widowhood, divorce, or estrangement within the marriage, by "not thinking about it." A lowering of sexual interest thus seems adaptive in certain contexts. The association in Factor 2 of sexual daydreaming frequency and positive attitudes toward various sexual activities also supports our prediction that those women with more negative attitudes regarding sex are less likely to report sexual daydreams. An inverse association of the likelihood of sexual daydreaming and positive attitudes toward sex might be explained a number of ways. For example, if a woman's early socialization tells her it is not proper to be interested in or feel positively about sex, she might never develop a facility for sexual daydreaming or fantasizing. Brown and Hart (1977), for example, found that college women with more traditional feminine attitudes reported fewer sexual fantasies compared to women with more liberal attitudes toward women's roles. Also, if negative beliefs or attitudes cause a woman to feel anxious or guilty about spontaneously occurring sexual thoughts, she might inhibit or deny them. Other researchers have reported that high levels of anxiety and sexual guilt are related to decreased frequencies of sexual fantasies in women (Brown and Hart, 1977; Chick and Gold, 1987-1988; Pelletier and Herold, 1988). The exclusion of women without sexual partners in the second factor analysis tended to reduce the range of the variables involved, which in turn caused a breakdown in correlations among the variables. As a result, the variables which comprised original Factor 2 were split between two new factors, only one of which was associated with age. This factor reflected the influence of age on two attitudinal variables: attitude toward oral-genital contact and masturbation. This apparent cohort effect parallels Hunt's (1974) finding that dramatic changes had occurred since Kinsey's time in attitudes toward masturbation as well as in the incidence of oral-genital contact among married couples. These two sexual attitudes were also as-

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sociated among these women with sexual activity, sexual daydreaming, and time comfortable without sexual activity. The other remaining factor showed an association between sexual attitudes toward genitals and masturbation and one measure of sexual satisfaction/intimacy: nongenital physical intimacy; however, neither age nor sexual daydreaming was associated with this fourth factor. Sexual daydreaming frequency was also not significantly associated with the satisfaction/intimacy factor, i.e., original Factor 3. However, the loading for sexual satisfaction on Factor 2, though not meeting our criterion for inclusion, showed that sexual satisfaction has an attitudinal component which is directly related to positive sexual attitudes and inversely related to sexual daydreaming. This supports Hariton and Singer's (1974) conclusions that sexual daydreaming and fantasizing reflect a positive orientation to one's sexual life. However, sexual daydreams and fantasies have also been shown to be more frequent in women who are in some way dissatisfied with their sexual lives (Brown and Hart, 1977; Giambra, 1983; Zimmer et al., 1983). Clearly, the relationship between sexual satisfaction and sexual daydreaming/fantasy is complex and perhaps not sufficiently described by simple, linear statistical techniques. Moreover, future studies should distinguish sexual daydreaming, i.e., spontaneously occurring thoughts with sexual content, from sexual fantasies, which involve the elaboration and directed flow of mental images. Qualitative methods might also be useful in this regard. The clustering in Factor 3 of the variables sexual satisfaction, frequency of nongenital physical intimacy, and rate of orgasm in early marriage supports Jayne's (1981) two-dimensional model of female sexual responsiveness, in which orgasm consistency (i.e., experiencing orgasm frequently and consistently) and satisfaction with one's sexual life are two separate but overlapping dimensions. Variables associated with satisfaction in Jayne's model include those related to the quality of the partner relationship, which is reflected in the frequency of nongenital physical intimacy reported by our women. In addition, the rate of orgasm reported by these women early in their first marriages gives an estimate of orgasm consistency. This association is further strengthened by the significant positive association of current rate of orgasm with an identical factor in our second factor analysis done only for those women with current sexual partners. In sum, our findings show that sexual daydreaming frequency in women is associated with a number of dimensions. First, the occurrence of sexual daydreaming varies directly with self-reported sexual interest and activity. Sexual daydreaming, interest, and activity are also negatively associated with age, but, since this was a cross-sectional study, it is not known to what extent this is an aging or cohort effect. Sexual daydreaming is also

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inversely related to sexual attitudes, which presumably stem from sociocultural influences that would be expected to vary by birth cohort. Sexual daydreaming is also positively associated with sexual satisfaction, which in turn is related to a woman's orgasmic consistency and the frequency of nongenital physical intimacy. Sexual daydreaming thus appears to reflect (i) the current concerns of the individual and (ii) a positive orientation to sexuality.

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