Fantasizing about sex is very common, and experts say it can even help relationships that have fallen into a rut.
Among the most common desires is to think about one or more people during sexual encounters, But what happens when that other person is an examiner, and to what extent is it healthy?
People enter into romantic relationships to satisfy psychological needs for emotional and sexual intimacy, and to the extent that they meet these needs, they feel fulfilled.
However, there will be times when a partner is unwilling or unable to meet your needs, and satisfaction with your sex life and relationship may deteriorate.
In that sense, it could happen that in order to remember better times, one may think of an old lover.
Dr. Amy Muise, director of the SHaRe Lab and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Canada, refers to sexual fantasies about past partners as sexual nostalgia in a study.
Why do people feel sexual nostalgia?
Previous research shows that people feel homesick when they are depressed, and memories of happy times past improve mood, even if only momentarily.
A team of researchers led by Muise and colleagues wondered whether people engage in this behavior for similar reasons: namely, as a way to boost their mood and self-confidence when they are dissatisfied with their relationship and sex life.
They also questioned whether sexual longing was just a form of fantasy, or whether the two could be distinguished in terms of the circumstances in which people engage in them.
Finally, the researchers wondered whether attachment style might influence the use of sexual nostalgia.
Some people, however, develop an insecure attachment, and this comes in two styles. On the one hand, people with anxious attachment fear that their lover will leave them, so they become very demanding and clingy. However, they are still strongly committed to their partner, just as securely attached people are.
Those with an avoidant attachment style, on the other hand, are reluctant to get too involved in any relationship, and instead value their independence. These people engage in romantic relationships, but avoid getting too close to their partner and generally do not trust their lover to meet their needs.
Muise's attachment style studies observed that those with an avoidant attachment style engage in sexual nostalgia differently than those who are secure or anxiously attached.
Thus, they predicted that most people only indulge in sexual nostalgia when they are sexually or relationally dissatisfied. In contrast, those with an avoidant attachment style are likely to engage in high levels of such a mechanism, regardless of how satisfied they currently are with their relationship.
When do people feel sexual nostalgia?
The researchers explored whether sexual longing is qualitatively different from other types of sexual fantasy AND whether there are differences in the experience of sexual longing between those with and without an avoidant attachment style, in a series of three studies.
In the first two, they recruited people who had been in a committed relationship that had ended. These participants first indicated whether they were currently in a new romantic relationship or still single. They then responded to surveys assessing types of sexual fantasies, including sexual nostalgia.
An analysis of the sexual fantasies people reported showed that they fell into four categories: romantic sexual encounters, submissive sexual acts, group or unemotional sex -- usually with strangers -- and fantasies about a previous partner. The last, sexual nostalgia, stood out from the other three types of sexual fantasy.
Thus, people who primarily referred to sexual nostalgia did so when they were single or dissatisfied with their relationship or sex life. In other words, sexual nostalgia seems to play a different psychological role than other types of sexual fantasy.
How does it affect relationships?
To see how sexual nostalgia plays out in real life, Muise and colleagues conducted a third study in which they recruited 98 cohabiting couples to participate in a longitudinal study.
Over 28 days, participants individually responded to a short version of the survey used in the first two studies. The results confirmed the finding that people are more likely to exhibit this behavior on days when their relationship or sexual satisfaction is low.
In addition, those who reported regular sexual nostalgia were also less satisfied overall with their relationships.
The study suggests that it is possible that recurrent sexual nostalgia may have harmful effects on the relationship. However, the data are correlational, meaning that relationship dissatisfaction could be the cause of sexual longing.
In any case, the results of these three studies show a consistent pattern, namely, that people engage in sexual nostalgia as a response to unmet relationship and sexual needs.
Fantasizing about an examiner is also distinctly different from other forms of sexual fantasy, as people engage in them regardless of their relationship status or satisfaction.
In addition, people with an avoidant attachment style, who try to maintain an emotional distance from their sexual partners, experience high levels of sexual nostalgia even when they are generally satisfied with their relationship and sex life.
Sexual nostalgia, like other forms of nostalgia, is a psychological coping mechanism that we engage in when we are dissatisfied with our situation.
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