Feeling Love and Lust: An Examination of Individualistic and Mutualistic Erotic Talk

Abstract

While for some (maybe even most), the act of sex may be a rather silent affair, others may communicate their needs, fantasies, and pleasure to their partners. However, research on this topic has several methodological and conceptual shortcomings. In heterosexual participants (N = 433; M_Age = 30.97, SD = 9.22, range = 18–73), who spoke German (20%; 28 men), Italian (41%; 88 men), or English (39%; 118 men), we examined the expected amounts (i.e., affective forecasting) of feeling loved and sexually aroused in response to two kinds of erotic talk in men and women, in the context of committed (i.e., long-term) and casual (i.e., short-term) relationships, and in relation to love styles. While participants expected mutualistic talk (e.g., feedback) to generally be more enjoyable than individualistic (e.g., dominance) talk, it was especially appealing in the long-term, romantic relationship context, whereas arousal was expected to be more evocative in the short-term, casual sex than the long-term context, and men expected more enjoyment than women in response to individualistic than mutualistic talk. In addition, erotic talk appears to be part of a game-playing and manic love style, but much more about arousal than love responses in the short term than the long term. Our study provides new information about two classes of erotic talk, responses to that talk, and gender differences and contextual associations therein.