Both definitions relate satisfaction with sexual pleasure, understood as “the physical and psychological satisfaction and enjoyment derived from solitary or shared erotic experiences, including thoughts, dreams, and autoeroticism”. For Pascoal et al., it constitutes an “emotional experience of frequent mutual sexual pleasure” (p. In the context of couple relationships, Lawrance and Byers define sexual satisfaction as “an affective response arising from one’s subjective evaluation of the positive and negative dimensions associated with one’s sexual relationship” (p. On the other hand, sexual satisfaction is an indicator of good sexual health, which has in turn been associated with people’s general well-being, as well as with different personal, interpersonal, and sociocultural variables.
Sexual health is not merely the absence of disease, but a state of physical, mental, and social well-being concerning an individual’s sexuality. Relational variables were more relevant in the explanation of sexual satisfaction. The results indicated that sexual satisfaction is associated in a negative sense with internalized homophobia, the number of sexual costs, anxiety, and avoidance, and in a positive sense with the remaining variables. The degree to which sexual satisfaction was related to these variables was examined separately, for both men and women, through multiple linear regression models within the framework of structural equation models. Internalized homophobia was considered as a personal variable, and as interpersonal variables, the dimensions of attachment (anxiety and avoidance), sexual functioning, dyadic adjustment, relationship satisfaction, the components of the Interpersonal Exchange Model of Sexual Satisfaction, the number of sexual costs and the number of sexual rewards were considered. The participants were 410 men (mean age = 29.24, SD = 9.84) and 410 women (mean age = 29, SD = 8.57) who maintained a relationship with another person of the same sex. This study aimed to develop an explanatory model of sexual satisfaction in same-sex attracted individuals with a partner, based on personal and interpersonal variables.