When Women with Endometriosis Communicate About Sexual Activity: Message Valence and Health Outcomes

The study investigates women who experience the chronic illness of endometriosis, their communication about sexual activity and physical, emotional and relational health outcomes. In an examination of data posted on Reddit over a one year period, 90 posts and responses, results indicate that women experience negative physical and emotional health outcomes more frequently than positive outcomes related to their chronic health condition and sexual activity. Further, women experience neutral outcomes as related to physical health, but no neutral outcomes are reported related to emotional or relational health. Finally, regarding relational health, women most frequently shared positive health outcomes related to sexual activity, suggesting the importance of positive and supportive partners and healthy relational communication. Discussion and implications follow. Similar content being viewed by others

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This manuscript is based on the first author’s thesis, directed by the second author. The authors would like to thank Drs. Pennington, McManus and Carrion for their assistance on this project Author information Authors and Affiliations Corresponding author Ethics declarations Conflict of interest The authors report no known conflict of interest. Additional information Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Rights and permissions Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. About this article Cite this article Wiese, M., Emmers-Sommer, T. When Women with Endometriosis Communicate About Sexual Activity: Message Valence and Health Outcomes. Sexuality & Culture 27, 1288–1299 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-023-10063-5 Accepted: Published: Version of record: Issue date: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-023-10063-5