Sexuality and Attachment

Although sexual behavior can serve a variety of physical, emotional, instrumental, or relationship-centered needs, prominent among them are such attachment-related needs as love, acceptance, closeness, intimacy, physical or emotional comfort, and control of access to one's attachment figure. This entry discusses how such attachment-related goals and concerns can affect (a) whether one chooses to engage in sex at all, (b) the reasons one seeks or avoids sexual intimacy, (c) the strategies one chooses to enact these choices, and (d) the objective and subjective results of these choices, such as sexual or relationship satisfaction.

John Bowlby's Attachment Theory proposes that a person's attachment style begins to form during the first 1 1/2 years of life based on the nature of caregiver behaviors toward the infant. These experiences form the basis of expectations concerning the responsiveness and benevolence of others, and of oneself as lovable and deserving of support from others, that pervasively affect social thinking and behavior from the cradle to grave. These individual differences in “attachment style” are associated with differences in preferences for, and active pursuit of, closeness, intimacy, and interdependence with others versus suppression of attachment needs, distancing behaviors, independence, and self-reliance. Attachment style is also associated with self-esteem, confidence, worry, and [Page 1471]other expectations and emotions that affect the person's projections of how others are likely to react to him or her.

Because sexual behavior involves physical intimacy and can involve emotional intimacy, it can provide an important mechanism for regulating intimacy. As with any interpersonal behavior, sexual behaviors can affect one's reputation or relationships with others. Sexual attractiveness and performance are often central to the ability to attract and keep romantic partners, and therefore affect one's ability to satisfy needs for love, closeness, and intimacy. Partners may become more attracted and committed as a result of satisfying sexual interactions or disinterested as a result of less satisfying interactions. Sexual attractiveness can also be central to social status and to approval from others. For these reasons, sexual behavior can provide a mechanism for increasing love, closeness, and commitment from sexual partners; promoting positive reactions to oneself; self-esteem enhancement; and promotion of social status. Sexual behavior for these purposes is more likely among those who value such outcomes and who believe others are likely to react positively to them as sexual beings.

Attachment style fundamentally reflects differences in these feelings and motives. Secure persons are comfortable with intimacy, enjoy high self-esteem and self-confidence, and do not tend to worry about their ability to elicit positive regard from others. Anxious persons have great desire for intimacy, but experience low self-esteem and heightened worry over others' love, availability, and positive regard. These worries are central to anxious persons' thinking and provide a prominent motive for behavior (hyperactivation of attachment needs). Avoidant persons prefer to minimize intimacy and emphasize self-reliance, personal competence, and mastery (deactivation of attachment needs). These orientations are pervasively reflected in the way that persons with varying attachment styles think about sex and in their choices of whether, when, how, and with whom to have sex.

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