Associations between insecure attachment and

sexual experiences

AMY L. GENTZLER AND KATHRYN A. KERNSKent State University

AbstractAssociations between insecure attachment and sexual experiences were tested in a sample of 328 college students.

Variations in adult attachment previously have been shown to relate to sexual behaviors, with the current study

extending earlier work by examining different sexual outcomes and by testing factors that may account for these

relations. Avoidant attachment was expected to relate to engagement in casual sex (i.e., a greater number of

sexual partners and lower percentage of partners within committed relationships), with less restrictive sexual

beliefs mediating the relations. In contrast, anxious attachment was expected to relate to more unwanted but

consensual sexual experiences, and to more negative affect about sexual experiences, with low self-esteem

mediating the relations. Results showed some support for the hypotheses. Avoidant attachment was related to the

type (but not number) of sexual partners, with sexual beliefs mediating the relations. A greater number of

unwanted but consensual sexual experiences related to anxious and avoidant attachment for women and to

avoidant attachment for men. Anxiety related to negative affect for women and men, and self-esteem served as a

partial mediator of these relations.

For many people, emotional intimacy is animportant component of physically intimatebehaviors, even a necessary prerequisite inthat sexual behaviors only follow once a cer-tain level of emotional intimacy is achieved.However, people’s motives for sexual behav-iors vary (Cooper, Shapiro, & Powers,1998), and particularly relevant to the presentstudy is the degree to which individuals desireand seek out emotional intimacy during sex-ual encounters. Because differences in attach-ment involve variations in behaviors relatingto intimacy, the goal of the current study is toinvestigate how attachment is related to sev-eral aspects of sexual experiences, and to testpossible mediating variables that may explainthe link between the two.

Adult attachment, romantic relationships,and intimacy

According to attachment theory, peopledevelop beliefs about themselves andothers, called working models, that cometo shape their thoughts and behaviors insocial interactions and relationships withothers (Bowlby, 1973). Although the meas-urement of individual differences in adultattachment has varied among researchers,often researchers have relied on classifica-tion systems by providing individuals withattachment prototypes or Likert scales thatare used to assign individuals to a particularattachment style. Specifically, Hazan andShaver’s (1987) 3-category model, whichthey designed to parallel different classifica-tions originating from parent-child attach-ment research (Ainsworth, Blehar,Waters, &Wall, 1978), includes secure, anxious, andavoidant attachment styles. BartholomewandHorowitz (1991), drawing fromBowlby’snotion that attachment behavior stems

Amy L. Gentzler is now at the Center for FamilyResearch at Department of Psychiatry andBehavioral Sciences, George Washington University.Correspondence concerning this article should be

addressed to Amy Gentzler, Center for Family Research,George Washington University, 2300 K St. NW,Washington, D.C., 20037; e-mail: cfralg@gwumc.edu.

Personal Relationships, 11 (2004), 249–265. Printed in the United States of America.Copyright # 2004 IARR. 1350-4126/02

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from how people view themselves and others,designed a 4-category model that also cap-tures how people vary in terms of anxietyand avoidance: secure (low anxiety, lowavoidance); preoccupied (high anxiety, lowavoidance); dismissing, (low anxiety, highavoidance); and fearful (high anxiety,high avoidance). The commonality sharedby these typologies and other assess-ments of attachment is that variations inattachment can be reduced to levels onan avoidant dimension and on an anxi-ous dimension, an argument later testedempirically by Brennan, Clark, and Shaver(1998).

Despite differences in how attachment ismeasured, previous research has validatedadult attachment by linking it to many fea-tures of romantic relationships. In general,secure attachment is related to positive rela-tionship outcomes, whereas insecure attach-ment is related to less-adaptive relationshipoutcomes. For example, studies have shownthat securely attached individuals, as com-pared to insecure individuals, are more likelytobeinstable,committedrelationships(Hazan& Shaver, 1987; Kirkpatrick & Davis,1994; Kirkpatrick & Hazan, 1994), and toexperience greater positive affect and satisfac-tion within these relationships (e.g., Feeney& Noller, 1990; Hazan & Shaver, 1987).Also particularly important to the presentstudy is how attachment style relates to vari-ations in emotionally intimate behaviors(e.g., self-disclosure) within romantic relation-ships. Specifically, attachment securityhas been linked to high self-disclosure(Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Mikulincer& Nachshon, 1991; Pistole, 1993). Althoughanxious attachment has also been linked tohigh disclosure (Bartholomew & Horowitz,1991) and more intimate behaviors in roman-tic relationships (Guerrero, 1996), anxiousor preoccupied individuals are inappropriatein their high amounts of self-disclosure(Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) and arecharacterized as demanding toward othersto get their attachment needs met. Avoidantor dismissing individuals, in contrast, reportless intimacy and do relatively less self-disclosing than others (Bartholomew &

Horowitz, 1991; Mikulincer & Erev, 1991;Mikulincer & Nachshon, 1991; Pistole,1993). Therefore, in comparison to securelyattached individuals, avoidantly attachedindividuals tend to minimize emotional inti-macy and anxiously attached individuals areneedy for emotional intimacy.

Adult attachment and sexual experiences

Considering another form of intimacybetween romantic partners—sexual behav-iors—previous findings for securelyattached individuals coincide with the pat-tern that secure individuals value emotionalintimacy and maintain romantic relation-ships. In particular, attachment security islinked to the belief that sex should berestricted to committed romantic relation-ships (Brennan & Shaver, 1995; Simpson &Gangestad, 1991). Similarly, secure adoles-cents report fewer one-night stands than doinsecure individuals (Cooper, Shaver, &Collins, 1998), and college students whohave never had a ‘‘hookup’’ (sexual encoun-ter with a stranger or acquaintance) ratethemselves higher on attachment security(Paul, McManus, & Hayes, 2000). Also,attachment security has been linked to hav-ing fewer partners (Januszewski, Turner,Guerin, & Flack (1996), as cited in Allen &Land, 1999), consistent with Belsky’s (1999)description of secure individuals’ approachto sexual relationships as ‘‘quality versusquantity.’’ In addition, secure individualsreport more positive emotions and lessnegative emotions about previous sexualencounters than do insecure individuals(Brennan, Clark, et al., 1998; Tracy, Shaver,Albino, & Cooper, 2003). Thus, a coherentpicture of attachment security and sexualityemerges in that secure attachment isassociated with sexual experiences withincommitted relationships, fewer partnersoverall, and more positive affect and lessnegative affect about these sexual experi-ences.

In contrast, avoidant attachment islinked to two approaches to limiting inti-macy in romantic encounters: avoiding sex-ual intercourse or engaging in casual sex

250 A. L. Gentzler and K. A. Kerns

encounters. Using a sample of college men,Kalichman et al. (1993) found that men whohave not had intercourse are more likely toendorse the avoidant attachment style. Inaddition, Cooper, Shaver, et al. (1998)found that avoidant adolescents are less likelyto have had sexual intercourse than are secureor ambivalent adolescents. However, forthose avoidant individuals who have had sex-ual intercourse, a different picture emerges.Studies have found that avoidant attachmentis associated with a greater acceptance of andengagement in casual sex (Brennan& Shaver,1995; Feeney, Noller, & Patty, 1993; Simpson&Gangestad, 1991). Similarly, avoidant ado-lescents are more likely to have had sexualintercourse with a stranger than are secureadolescents (Cooper, Shaver, et al., 1998),and avoidant college students are more likelyto have had ‘‘hookups’’ than either secure oranxious individuals (Paul et al., 2000). Add-itionally, avoidant adolescents are less likelythan secure or anxious individuals to reporthaving sexual intercourse to express love forone’s partner (Tracy et al., 2003). For sexu-ally active avoidant individuals, the prefer-ence for casual sex partners is still consistentwith their relatively low desire for emotionalintimacy within relationships.

Highly anxious individuals seem to be ina dilemma; although they crave the emo-tional closeness of committed romanticrelationships, they have trouble maintain-ing such relationships. Unlike avoidantindividuals, they are not accepting of casualsex outside of committed relationships(Brennan & Shaver, 1995; Simpson &Gangestad, 1991). Yet their intimacy needsmay make them more prone to a different,though nonetheless risky, set of sexualexperiences. For example, within samplesof college students, anxiety about relation-ships is negatively correlated with self-efficacy of sexual negotiation, meaning thathighly anxious individuals report being lessable to discuss contraception with partnersand to resist being pressured into unwantedsex (Feeney, Peterson, Gallois, & Terry,2000). Furthermore, individuals who aremore anxious about relationships are lesslikely to engage in safer sex behaviors

(Feeney, Kelly, Gallois, Peterson, & Terry,1999; Feeney et al., 2000). A sample of ado-lescents, anxious individuals were morelikely than secure or avoidant individualsto report having sex due to fear of losingtheir partners (Tracy et al., 2003). Impettand Peplau (2002) examined women’sreports of willingness to engage in unwantedbut consensual sexual behaviors in ahypothetical scenario with their current rela-tionship partner, with ‘‘unwanted but con-sensual sex’’ meaning that a person consentsto a sexual activity but without a desire toengage in it (O’Sullivan & Allgeier, 1998).Their findings showed that anxiety is posi-tively correlated with women’s willingnessto consent to unwanted sexual behaviors.Overall then, one pattern that emerges isthat highly anxious individuals may be espe-cially susceptible to peer influence due toboth their high anxiety and strong desirefor emotional intimacy (Cooper, Shaver,et al., 1998; Feeney et al., 1999; Impett &Peplau, 2002).

In the present study, the first goal was toexamine how insecure attachment relates tosexual experiences, with the expectationsthat findings would be consistent withthose from earlier research. However, weassessed attachment using attachmentdimensions—avoidance and anxiety aboutclose relationships—rather than a categor-ical model of discrete attachment stylesbecause recent research on adult attach-ment methodology has shown that dimen-sional assessments provide more precisemeasurement of attachment, and that thesedimensions of avoidance and anxiety, inparticular, are basic factors underlyingadult attachment styles (see Brennan,Clark, et al., 1998, and Fraley & Waller,1998). Our first hypothesis was that avoid-ance and anxiety would relate to differencesin participants’ first experience of sexualintercourse. Specifically, self-ratings onavoidance are expected to be higher forthose who have not had sexual intercourse,whereas self-ratings on anxiety are expectedto be higher for those who had had sexualintercourse at a relatively young age. Forparticipants who have experienced sexual

Insecure attachment and sexual experiences 251

intercourse, the associations betweenattachment and sexual experiences also areexpected to vary for avoidance and anxiety.Our second hypothesis was that individualswho are more avoidantly attached wouldshow a pattern of ‘‘quantity over quality’’(Belsky, 1999). Specifically, avoidance ofromantic relationships was expected to beassociated with (a) less restrictive sexualbeliefs, (b) a greater number of sexual inter-course partners, and (c) a lower percentageof these partners occurring within committedrelationships. Our third hypothesis was thatindividuals who are more anxiously attachedwould report more negative sexual experi-ences than would less anxious individuals.Specifically, anxious attachment wasexpected to relate to: (a) lower self-esteem,(b) engaging in a greater number ofunwanted but consensual sexual experiences,and (c) more negative affect about earliersexual experiences.

Gender and sexual experiences

In addition to attachment, gender is alsorelated to the degree to which emotionalintimacy is paired with physical intimacyin romantic relationships. Previous studieshave consistently found that men reportgreater acceptance of casual sex than dowomen (e.g., Carroll, Volk, & Hyde, 1985;Simpson & Gangestad, 1991). Similarly,when men and women are asked to providereasons for engaging in sexual intercourse,studies have shown that women reportmore emotional reasons (e.g., in love withpartner), whereas men report more reasonsrelated to themselves (e.g., for the experi-ence) rather than to their feelings towardtheir partner (Browning, Hatfield, Kassler,& Levine, 2000; Carroll et al., 1985; Taris &Semin, 1997). Therefore, gender also needsto be considered when investigating howattachment relates to sexual experiences.For example, prior studies have found thatanxiously attached women, but not men,engage in sexual intercourse at a youngage, compared to either less anxiouslyattached women (Bogaert & Sadava, 2002)

or avoidant and secure individuals (Cooper,Shaver, et al., 1998).

Because of these gender differences, ourfourth hypothesis was that associationsbetween avoidance and sexual variableswould be stronger for men, whereas associ-ations between anxiety and sexual variableswould be stronger for women. In otherwords, because men do not pair sexual inti-macy with emotional intimacy as much aswomen do, and people who are high inavoidant attachment particularly dislikeemotional intimacy, men high in avoidantattachment may be especially likely toadopt a casual sex orientation. Consideringthe reverse, that women tend to pair sexualbehaviors with feelings toward partnersmore than men, and also because thosewho report high anxiety about relationshipsmay do whatever they can to obtain ormaintain romantic relationships, anxiouswomen may be especially likely to engagein unwanted sexual behaviors or have sexualintercourse at a young age to feel close totheir partners or out of fear of losing them.

Explaining associations between attachmentand sexual experiences

Although sexual correlates of adult attach-ment have been studied in prior research,little testing has been done to determinewhether additional variables are needed toaccount for these effects. In some cases, theeffects of attachment on sexual experiencesmay be mediated (i.e., accounted for) byinternally generated cognitions and emo-tions that are influenced by attachmentand that, in turn, impact sexual experiences.Indeed, when explaining the sexual cor-relates of attachment, investigators oftenrefer to other constructs such as sexualbeliefs or self-esteem (e.g., Tracy et al.,2003). To develop more accurate theoreticalmodels, these additional variables needed tobe included so that formal tests of medi-ation could be performed. Also, as more islearned about why less secure people haveless adaptive sexual experiences, clinical orintervention work can be targeted toward

252 A. L. Gentzler and K. A. Kerns

changing these more proximal causes ofproblematic sexual and relational experi-ences. Cooper, Shaver, et al. (1998) testedwhether personality characteristics couldmediate relations between attachment andsexual experiences; they found that avoid-ant individuals’ delay in having inter-course relative to secure individuals couldbe explained by avoidant individuals’ lackof social competence and greater anxiety.They also found that avoidant and anxiousindividuals, because of their greater hos-tility compared to secure individuals, aremore likely to have sex with a stranger(i.e., a one-night stand). Impett and Peplau(2002) found support for mediation in thata partial explanatory factor linking anxietyand consenting to unwanted sexual activ-ities is a large discrepancy between thewomen’s and their partners’ relationshipcommitments (i.e., anxious women aremore likely to engage in unwanted but con-sensual sexual activities when they perceivethat they are more committed than theirpartners).

Therefore, in the present study, our sec-ond goal was to investigate potential medi-ating mechanisms to explain the linksbetween attachment and sexual experiences.Not only did we expect that avoidance andanxiety would be associated with differentpatterns of sexual experiences, but also thatdifferent mediators would account for theseassociations. In particular, our fifth hypoth-esis was that an individual’s sexual beliefs,specifically the degree of acceptance ofcasual sex, would mediate the relationbetween avoidance and casual sex behav-iors. Although prior research has foundthat avoidance is related to both sexualbeliefs and sexual behaviors, we testedwhether less restrictive sexual beliefs arethe explanatory factor linking avoidantattachment to casual sex behaviors. Thereason, then, for avoidant attachment tobe linked to the number and type of sexualintercourse partners should be becauseavoidant individuals can be comfortablegetting physically intimate with a partnerwithout an accompanying sense of emo-tional intimacy.

Our sixth hypothesis was that self-esteemis expected to mediate the association ofanxiety to unwanted but consensual sexand to negative affect. Previous researchhas shown that individuals who reporthigher anxiety (e.g., ambivalent or preoccu-pied individuals) have lower self-esteem(e.g., Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991;Feeney & Noller, 1990) and may seekintimacy and approval from others to feelgood about themselves. Therefore, we testedthe hypothesis that low self-esteem mayaccount for the relations of more anxiouslyattached individuals experiencing unwantedsexual experiences and negative affect aboutsexual experiences.

Method

Sample

The sample consisted of 328 undergraduatestudents, 202 (61.6%) females and 126(38.4%) males. Participants were from gen-eral psychology class or upper division psy-chology courses, and were recruited duringtwo different semesters at a midwestern uni-versity. The age range was 18–50 years(M¼ 20.5). Most were freshmen (58.8%),and the rest were sophomores (17.7%),juniors (11.0%), and seniors (4.6%), with7% not giving information. The ethnic dis-tribution of the sample was 86% Caucasian,8.2% African-American, 2.1% Asian-American, 1.8% Latino-American, .3%American-Indian, and1.5%other.The educa-tion level of fathers and mothers was ascer-tained as a proxy for socioeconomic status.The modal response for both fathers andmothers was high school graduate (39.3%and46.3%, respectively)with education levelsranging from no high school diploma tograduate school. Data were originally col-lected on 348, but 20 subjects were excludedfrom the analyses —17 due to incomplete orinaccurate data and 3 because they indicatedthey were homosexual and it is unclearwhether their responses to sexual experiencequestions and relations to attachment wouldbe comparable to those for heterosexualparticipants.

Insecure attachment and sexual experiences 253

Measures

Attachment to romantic partners. Partici-pants completed the Experiences in CloseRelationships Questionnaire (Brennan,Clark, et al., 1998). This 36-item attachmentquestionnaire contains 18 items measuringavoidance and 18 items measuring anxietyabout romantic relationships. Examples ofavoidance items include: I am nervouswhen partners get too close; I usually discussmy problems and concerns with my partner(reverse scored). Examples of anxiety itemsinclude: I worry about being alone; I worry afair amount about losing my partner. Eachitem was rated on a 7-point Likert scale(ranging from 1¼ disagree strongly to7¼ agree strongly). The two scales, avoid-ance and anxiety, were created by obtainingthe mean of the corresponding 18 items. Forthe current sample, reliabilities for the avoid-ance and anxiety scales were high (.93 forboth scales), and consistent with earlier reli-ability estimates (e.g., Brennan, Clark, et al.,1998).

Self-esteem. On this 10-item measure(Rosenberg, 1965), participants rate itemson a 4-point Likert scale (1¼ strongly dis-agree to 4¼ strongly agree). Sample itemsinclude: On the whole, I am satisfied withmyself; At times I think I am no good at all(reverse scored). Consistent with prior useof the scale, it showed high reliability(alpha¼ .89) within the current sample.

Sexual beliefs. To measure sexual beliefsindependently of behavior, eight items thatassess attitudes toward sex without commit-ment and casual sex were given (Snyder,Simpson, & Gangestad, 1986). Participantsrate the degree to which they agree witheach statement on a 9-point Likert scale(1¼ strongly disagree to 9¼ strongly agree),with higher scores indicating less restrictivesexual beliefs. Sample items include: Sexwithout love is OK; I would not havesex with someone unless I was totally andexclusively committed to that person first(reverse scored). For the current sample,

the scale demonstrated high reliability(alpha¼ .92).

Sexual history. Participants were askedvarious questions about their sexual andrelationship history. They were first askedwhether they had ever had sexual inter-course. If yes, the next questions addressedtheir age of first intercourse, the number ofsexual intercourse partners, and the numberof partners within committed relationships.Due to the skewed distribution of partici-pants’ number of sexual partners, scoresthat were greater than 3 standard deviationsabove the mean were recoded at the scoreclosest to within 3 standard deviations ofthe mean (i.e., 6 participants who reportedmore than 35 partners, were recoded ashaving 35). To compute a percentage oftheir sexual intercourse partners withincommitted relationships, the number ofpartners within committed relationshipswas divided by the total number of sexualpartners.

Experience of unwanted, but consensualsexual experiences. Ten items measuredhow much individuals had consented tounwanted sexual activities, with some ques-tions asking about engaging in sexual inter-course and some questions asking aboutengaging in any sexual behaviors. Someitems were part of the Sexual CoercionScale (Koss & Oros, 1982); other itemswere created by the authors. Sample itemsincluded: Have you ever engaged in sexualintercourse with someone because you feltlike if you refused, your relationship couldbe damaged? Have you ever engaged in sex-ual intercourse with someone because youdidn’t want to upset him/her, even thoughyou didn’t want to? Participants indicatedexperience in a yes/no format. One item wasdropped due to low reliability and becausethe item assessed pressure toward not usinga condom instead of pressure towardengaging in unwanted sexual experiences.Items were summed to create the scale ofunwanted but consensual sexual activities;therefore scores could range from 0 to 9.

254 A. L. Gentzler and K. A. Kerns

The scale showed adequate reliability(alpha¼ .86).

Negative affect about sexual experiences.The Positive and Negative Affect scale(PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988)was given to obtain a measure of affectabout sexual experiences. Only the negativeaffect scale is relevant to the current hypoth-eses. Participants were asked to think abouttheir past sexual experiences and rate the 10negative emotions (e.g., distressed, upset)according to the degree to which they haveever felt the emotions after engaging in sex-ual behaviors, using a 5-point scale (1¼ veryslightly or not at all to 5¼ extremely). Withthe present sample, the negative affect scalehad high reliability (.91).

Results

Preliminary analyses

Preliminary analyses included tests ofwhether participants’ gender or age or theirparents’ educational level related to any of themajor variables (i.e., attachment, belief andsexual experience variables). The educationlevel of participants’ parents, either motheror father, was not related to any variables.Participants’ age however, was correlatedwith anxiety, r (326)¼�.18, p< .01; with

number of partners, r (260)¼ .35, p< .001;and with percentage of partners within com-mitted relationships, r (260)¼�.18, p< .01.With the results reported below, we did notcontrol for age. (However, the pattern offindings remains the same when analyses arerepeated when controlling for participantage.)

As expected, several gender differenceswere found. The overall percentage of thesample that reported having sexual inter-course was 79.4%. A chi-square test revealeda significant gender difference, �2 (1,N¼ 3.28) ¼ 3.91, p< .05, in that males weremore likely to report having had sexual inter-course (86.5%) than females (77.7%). To testfor other gender differences, t tests were per-formed (see Table 1).Women andmendid notdiffer on mean levels of avoidant or anxiousattachment. Females did report lower self-esteem than males. Consistent with previousresearch, males indicated greater acceptanceof casual sex than did females. On the behav-ioral indices of casual sex, men reported agreater number of sexual intercourse partners,and had a lower percentage of these partnerswithin committed relationships, compared towomen. Instances of unwanted but consen-sual sexual experiences were relatively lowfor both women and men; however, womenscored significantly higher than men. Also,women reported more negative affect fromtheir sexual experiences than did men.

Table 1. Means and t tests by participant gender

Women Men

Mean SD Mean SD t

Avoidance 2.96 1.16 2.75 1.09 1.62Anxiety 3.84 1.27 3.79 1.27 .36Self-esteem 3.00 .54 3.17 .53 �2.76*Sexual beliefs 2.75 1.76 5.06 2.19 �10.00***Age of first intercourse 16.47 1.79 16.54 1.68 �.34Number of partners 4.36 5.53 7.86 13.78 �2.49*% partners within relationships .68 .33 .56 .37 2.64*Unwanted, but consensual sex 3.26 3.01 1.56 1.95 5.54***Negative affect 2.38 1.01 2.06 .71 3.01**

*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.

Insecure attachment and sexual experiences 255

Table 2 shows the correlations amongdependent variables. As predicted, forboth women and men, greater acceptanceof casual sex (i.e., less restrictive sexualbeliefs) was associated with a greater num-ber of partners and lower percentage ofpartners within committed relationships.Additionally, as expected, lower self-esteemrelated to more unwanted but consensualsexual experiences and to more negativeaffect. Also for both women and men, alower percentage of sexual partners withincommitted relationships was linked to moresexual partners and to more negative affectduring sexual experiences. Some additionalassociations among the variables werefound for women: less restrictive sexualbeliefs were associated with more unwantedbut consensual sexual experiences, higherself-esteem was linked to having more sex-ual partners, a higher number of sexualpartners was linked to more unwanted butconsensual sex and to more negative affect,

a lower percentage of sexual partners withincommitted relationships was related tomore unwanted but consensual sex, andmore unwanted but consensual sex wasrelated to more negative affect.

Correlates of attachment

Tests for a relation between age of firstintercourse experience and attachment.For our first hypothesis, we expected thatindividuals who had not had intercoursewould rate themselves higher on avoidantattachment, whereas individuals who hadhad intercourse at a young age would ratethemselves higher on anxious attachment.The sample was divided into three groups:those who had had sexual intercourse at age15 or younger; those who had had sexualintercourse at 16 years or older; and thosewho had not had sexual intercourse.Because the mean age of first intercourseexperience for both women and men was

Table 2. Correlations among dependent variables

Self-esteemNo. ofpartners

Percentageof partners

Unwantedsex

Negativeaffect

Women (N¼ 155)

Sexual beliefs �.03 .41*** �.52*** .20* .12Self-esteem .23*** .04 �.16* �.24**No. of partners �.41*** .37*** .18*Percentage of

partners withinrelationships

�.22* �.19*

Unwanted butconsensual sex

.48***

Men (N¼ 107)Sexual beliefs .08 .34*** �.42*** .09 .04Self-esteem .09 .00 �.29** �.28**No. of partners �.51*** .01 .09Percentage of

partners withinrelationships

�.03 �.30**

Unwanted butconsensual sex

.10

*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.

256 A. L. Gentzler and K. A. Kerns

16 years of age, this was used as a divisionpoint to create a group of individuals withrelatively early intercourse experience(i.e., those that had had intercourse before16 years of age). Two 3� 2 (Age of firstintercourse�Gender) ANOVAs wereperformed with avoidant and anxiousattachment as dependent variables.

In Table 3, we report the results of maineffects for age of first intercourse and ofinteraction effects. For avoidant attach-ment, a significant age effect was found. ANewman Keul’s post hoc test showed thatboth those individuals who had had inter-course at age 15 or younger and those whohad not had sexual intercourse rated them-selves higher on avoidant attachment thandid those who had had sexual intercoursefor the first time at 16 years of age or older.No gender differences emerged, either as amain effect or as an interaction with firstintercourse experience.

For the 3� 2 ANOVA using anxiousattachment as the dependent variable, nosignificant differences emerged. However,both the main effect of first intercourseexperience and its interaction with genderwere marginally significant (p< .07). Asshown with the interaction test, the meansfor women were in the predicted directionand consistent with prior research in thatwomen who had had early sexual inter-

course had higher levels of anxious attach-ment than did those who had had firstintercourse later or not at all. For men,however, the means were in a different pat-tern: the group of men who had not engagedin sexual intercourse had the highest levelsof anxiety.

Relation of attachment to beliefs and sexualbehaviors. Correlations between attach-ment, belief, and sexual experience variablesare reported in Table 4 for the women(N¼ 155) and men (N¼ 107) who reportedhaving experienced sexual intercourse. Oursecond hypothesis was that avoidant attach-ment would relate to acceptance of casualsex, the number of sexual partners, and thepercentage of partners within committedrelationships. Consistent with our hypoth-eses, for both women and men, less restric-tive sexual beliefs (greater acceptance ofcasual sex) were related to avoidant attach-ment. Contrary to expectations, the numberof partners was not related to avoidance,but results showed that, for men, fewer sex-ual partners related to higher levels of anxi-ety. As expected, a lower percentage ofpartners within committed relationshipswas related to higher avoidance.

Our third hypothesis was that anxiousattachment would relate to self-esteem,unwanted but consensual sexual experiences,

Table 3. ANOVAs using age of first intercourse and gender as factors on levels of avoidantand anxious attachment (main effects of age and interaction effects are reported)

Intercourse� 15 years(n¼ 67)

Intercourse� 16 years(n¼ 199)

No intercourse(n¼ 63)

Women(n¼ 41)

Men(n¼ 26)

Women(n¼ 116)

Men(n¼ 83)

Women(n¼ 45)

Men(n¼ 18) F

Avoidance 3.07a 2.69b 3.28a 5.64**3.15 2.96 2.73 2.62 3.39 2.99 .32

Anxiety 3.97 3.71 4.06 2.70þ

4.21 3.61 3.71 3.72 3.92 4.42 2.75þ

Note. Groups that do not share the same subscript are significantly different using a Newman Keul’s post hoc

test.þp< .07. **p< .01.

Insecure attachment and sexual experiences 257

and negative affect about sexual experi-ences. As expected, for both women andmen, self-esteem was negatively correlatedwith anxious attachment, as well as withavoidant attachment. A greater number ofunwanted but consensual sexual experi-ences were related to both higher anxiousand avoidant attachment for women, butonly to higher avoidant attachment for men.Greater negative affect about previoussexual experiences was related to bothavoidant and anxious attachment forwomen, and to anxious attachment formen.

Gender, attachment, and sexual experiences

Our fourth hypothesis was that associationsfor avoidance would be stronger for men,but associations for anxiety would be stron-ger for women. For avoidant attachmenthowever, findings were invariant acrossparticipant gender. For both men andwomen, avoidant attachment scores werehigher for those who had not had sexualintercourse, and avoidant attachment waslinked to acceptance of casual sex andfewer partners within committed relation-ships. However, for anxious attachment,the marginal finding that women’s (but notmen’s) scores on anxiety were higher forthose who had had intercourse at an earlyage was consistent with expectations andprior literature. Also, anxious attachmentwas linked to unwanted but consensual

sexual experiences for women, but not formen. For both men and women, anxiousattachment correlated with negative affectabout previous sexual experiences. To pro-vide a more explicit test of the hypothesis ofgender differences, we also examinedwhether any of these expected associationsdiffered for men and women. However, wefound that none of correlations were signi-ficantly different for women and men.

Tests of mediation

To determine whether a variable mediatesthe relationship between two other vari-ables, a series of analyses must be com-pleted. Three conditions must be metbefore testing for mediation. In generalterms, the independent variable (e.g., avoid-ant attachment) would have to be relatedto the dependent variable (e.g., number ofpartners). Also, the mediating variable (e.g.,sexual beliefs) would have to be related toboth the independent variable and thedependent variable. As long as these threevariables are correlated, mediation can beexamined by analyzing the relation betweenthe independent and dependent variablewhile controlling for the mediating variable.Evidence for mediation would be demon-strated if the relationship between theindependent and dependent variable is sig-nificantly reduced after controlling for themediator (Baron & Kenny, 1986).

Table 4. Correlations between avoidant and anxious attachment, belief variables, and sexualexperience variables

Women (N¼ 155) Men (N¼ 107)

Avoidance Anxiety Avoidance Anxiety

Sexual beliefs .28*** �.04 .23* .01No. of partners .11 �.03 .04 �.20*Percentage within

relationships�.24** �.04 �.26* .05

Self-esteem �.27*** �.45*** �.31*** �.39***Unwanted sex .23** .29*** .22* .19Negative affect .41*** .38*** .14 .33***

*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.

258 A. L. Gentzler and K. A. Kerns

Our fifth hypothesis, that the linkbetween avoidant attachment and casualsex behaviors would be mediated by lessrestrictive sexual beliefs, could be testedfor the percentage of partners within com-mitted relationships but not for the numberof sexual partners (because avoidance wasnot related to the number of partners). Mul-tiple regression analyses were used to testthe mediation model for avoidance and per-centage of partners within committed rela-tionships. As shown in Table 5, for women,avoidance was related to the type of sexualintercourse partners, but this relationbecame nonsignificant when sexual beliefswere entered on the first step. Similarly, formen, avoidance was related to the type ofsexual partners, but this relation wasreduced to nonsignificance after controllingfor sexual beliefs. Thus, having less restric-tive sexual beliefs can partially explain whyavoidant attachment is associated with hav-ing more sexual partners outside the contextof committed relationships.

Our sixth hypothesis, that low self-esteem would mediate the link betweenanxious attachment and negative sexualexperiences (unwanted but consensual sex,and negative affect), could be partiallytested. For unwanted but consensual sexualexperiences, the mediation hypothesis wastested only for women, because, for men,anxious attachment was not related tounwanted but consensual sex. As shown inTable 6, for women, anxiety was related to

unwanted but consensual sexual inter-course. When controlling for self-esteem,the association remained significant andsimilar in magnitude. Therefore, otherfactors need to be considered in explainingthe link between anxious attachment andunwanted but consensual sexual experiences.

Self-esteem could be tested as a possiblemediator to explain the link betweenanxious attachment and negative affect forboth women and men. For both women andmen, anxious attachment related to nega-tive affect from sexual experiences. Whenself-esteem was entered on the first step ofthe equations, the relationships betweenanxious attachment and negative affectremained significant. Even though in bothcases the percentage of variance wasreduced once self-esteem was controlled,these findings suggest that other factorsare also needed to explain the associationbetween anxiety and negative affect.

Discussion

This study provides some support for sev-eral hypotheses concerning how avoidantand anxious attachment are related tosexual experiences. As expected, avoidantattachment and anxious attachment showa different set of correlates, with some find-ings differing for women and men. Inaddition, the present study provides anextension of earlier work by testingmediating

Table 5. Regression analyses predicting percentage of partners within committedrelationships from avoidant attachment

Percentage of partners in relationships

Females Males

B SE B b �R2 B SE B b �R2

Equation 1Step 1: Avoidance �.07 .02 �.24** .06** �.09 .03 �.26** .07**

Equation 2Step 1: Sexual beliefs �.09 .01 �.52*** .27*** �.07 .02 �.41*** .17***Step 2: Avoidance �.03 .02 �.10 .01 �.06 .03 �.17* .03

*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.

Insecure attachment and sexual experiences 259

mechanisms to explain the links betweenattachment and sexual experiences.

Sexual correlates of attachment

Based on prior research, we expected thatindividuals who had not had intercoursewould rate themselves higher on avoidantattachment, whereas individuals, particularlywomen, who had had their first intercourseexperience at a young age would rate them-selves higher on anxious attachment. Ourfindings partially supported this first hypoth-esis in that individuals who had not had sex-ual intercourse rated themselves higher onavoidant attachment than did those whohad had their first sexual intercourse at 16years of age or older. Additionally, scores onavoidance were higher for those participantswho had had their first intercourse experienceprior to age 16, compared to those who hadfirst had intercourse at age 16 or older. For

anxious attachment, contrary to expecta-tions, results indicate that participants whohad had intercourse at 15 years of age oryounger do not report significantly greateranxiety about close relationships.

Our second hypothesis was that avoidantattachment would be linked to acceptance ofand engagement in casual sex. Although ourexpectations that avoidance would relateboth to not engaging in sexual intercourseas well as engaging in casual sex seem con-flicting, either strategy would be consistentwith the goal of limiting intimacy in closerelationships (the former strategy minimizesphysical intimacy, whereas the latter min-imizes emotional intimacy). Our resultsshow that for both males and females higheravoidant attachment is associated with lessrestrictive sexual beliefs, and with one type ofcasual sex behavior (i.e., having a lower per-centage of their sexual partners within thecontext of committed relationships).

Table 6. Regression analyses predicting unwanted but consensual sex and negative affectfrom anxious attachment

Unwanted but consensual sex

Females

B SE B b �R2

Equation 1Step 1: Anxiety .55 .71 .31*** .10***Equation 2Step 1: Self-esteem �.92 .44 �.17* .03*Step 2: Anxiety .68 .20 .30*** .07***

Negative affect

Females Males

B SE B b �R2 B SE B b �R2

Equation 1Step 1: Anxiety .29 .06 .38*** .15*** .18 .05 .34*** .12***Equation 2Step 1: Self-esteem �.45 .14 �.25** .06** �.37 .12 �.28** .08**Step 2: Anxiety .26 .06 .34*** .09*** .14 .05 .27** .06**

*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.

260 A. L. Gentzler and K. A. Kerns

Unexpectedly, for both women and men,higher avoidance is also linked to engagingin more unwanted, but consensual sexualexperiences. Two post hoc explanationsare offered. One explanation relies on thedifferent mean levels of desired physical andemotional intimacy based on attachmentstyle. Specifically, avoidant attachment isassociated with lower desire for physicallyintimate behaviors. Brennan, Clark, et al.(1998) found that dismissing and fearfulindividuals (both high in avoidant attach-ment) are lower in their desire for affection-ate behaviors (e.g., cuddling, kissing,gazing) and normative sexual behaviors(e.g., oral or manual stimulation of part-ner’s genitals, vaginal intercourse) than aresecure and preoccupied individuals. There-fore, it may be that partners of highly avoid-ant individuals compensate for a perceiveddeficit in either physical or emotional inti-macy by initiating sexual behaviors. Highlyavoidant individuals, who want to keeptheir intimacy level to a minimum, may per-ceive these sexual advances as excessive, butare nevertheless still willing to engage inthem with their partners. This pattern maybe particularly likely with avoidant individ-uals who have anxious partners, a combin-ation that was found to be more prevalentin a sample of seriously dating couples thanin avoidant-avoidant or anxious-anxiouspairings (Kirkpatrick & Hazan, 1994).

A second possible explanation of theassociation between avoidant attachmentand consenting to unwanted sexual activityis that highly avoidant individuals mightprefer to have sex when they do not wantto rather than deal with the alternative sce-nario if they refuse. That is, if a personrefuses a partner’s sexual advances, a dis-cussion of feelings about sexual activity orpossibly an argument may ensue, whichhighly avoidant individuals may wish toprevent due to the intimate nature of thediscussion. This is consistent with Impettand Peplau’s study (2002), in which avoid-ant women reported that they compliedwith unwanted sex with their current datingpartners because it was easier than sayingno and because of established norms to

engage in sexual activity in their relation-ships.

Our third hypothesis was that anxiousattachment would be linked to negative sex-ual experiences; in particular to a greaternumber of unwanted but consensual sexualexperiences and to more negative affectabout sexual experiences. Results showedpartial support for this hypothesis. Forwomen but not for men, we found thathigher anxiety is linked to more unwantedbut consensual sexual experiences. Thisfinding for anxiety is particularly telling,given the previous research finding that pre-occupied and fearful individuals (who bothscore high on anxiety) are highest on a‘‘desire for more touch’’ scale, indicatingthey feel touch deprived and are dissatisfiedwith their romantic partners’ lack of interestin touching (Brennan, Wu, & Loev, 1998).The expectation that anxious attachmentwould be related to negative affect aboutprevious sexual experiences was supportedfor women and men. Additionally, oneunpredicted association with anxietyemerged for men: higher anxiety related tofewer sexual partners.

Gender, attachment and sexual experiences

For our fourth hypothesis, we expected thatrelations between avoidance and sexualexperiences would be stronger for men,whereas relations between anxiety and sex-ual experiences would be stronger forwomen. Instead, we found no gender differ-ences for the pattern of findings with avoid-ance. With anxious attachment, althoughanxiety is linked to unwanted but consen-sual sexual experiences for women but notfor men, the correlations are not signifi-cantly different for women and men. Forthe sexual experience variables examined inthe present study, associations with avoid-ant and anxious attachment dimensionstend to be similar across gender.

Mediation between attachment and sexualexperiences

To determine whether avoidant individuals’choice in sexual partners is influenced by

Insecure attachment and sexual experiences 261

their need for less emotional intimacy, forour fifth hypothesis we tested whether lessrestrictive sexual beliefs account for the linkbetween avoidance and casual sex behaviors.We found that less restricted sexual beliefspartially mediate the relation between avoid-ant attachment and the type of sexual part-ner. Thus, highly avoidant adults tend tohave more sexual experiences outside of thecontext of committed relationships, in part,probably because they do not make emo-tional intimacy a prerequisite for physicalintimacy.

Our sixth hypothesis, that low self-esteem would explain the link betweenanxious attachment and unwanted but con-sensual sexual experiences, could be testedfor women but not for men. Howeverbecause this hypothesis was not supportedin the mediation test, other factors maytherefore explain the link between anxiousattachment and unwanted but consensualsex for women. As Impett and Peplau(2002) found, women’s reports of their will-ingness to engage in unwanted but consen-sual sexual activities (in a hypotheticalscenario) are due to their feelings of beingmore committed to their current romanticpartner than they think their partners are tothem. Other mediating factors could beexamined in future studies, such as women’sconcern that their partner will leave them,their perception of intimacy (or lackthereof) in their current or past romanticrelationships, or their belief that engagingin unwanted sexual activities will lead to acloser relationship with their partner.

Self-esteem also was tested as a mediatingfactor between anxious attachment andnegative affect. For both women and men,the inclusion of self-esteem in the modelresults in the path between anxiety and nega-tive affect dropping slightly in magnitude,but remaining significant (the varianceaccounted with women dropped from 15%to 9%, and with men from 12% to 6%).Although one reason highly anxious individ-uals experience higher negative affect dur-ing sexual encounters is that they feel badlyabout themselves, other factors are neededto fully explain this link. It might be that

negative affect about previous sexual experi-ences stems not from low global self-worthbut instead from self-evaluations concerningspecific aspects of previous sexual encoun-ters (e.g., performance anxiety, concern thattheir partner did not enjoy the experience,regret of engaging in sexual activities).

Limitations and future directions

Some limitations of the current study shouldbe noted. First, due to reliance on self-reportmeasures, there is potential for biases inreporting. Particularly with the sexualexperience questions, systematic bias couldbe due to self-presentation effects or prob-lems with the accuracy of recall. Responsebias in sexual behavior studies has beenfound in both self-administered question-naires as well as interviewer-administeredquestionnaires (e.g., Gribble, Miller, Rogers,& Turner, 1999; Meston, Heiman, Trapnell,& Paulhus, 1998). Recently, researchers havedeveloped techniques (e.g., computer-assisted self-interviews) that increase feelingsof anonymity and reduce reporting biases(Gribble et al., 1999), which could be usefulin future studies.

A second concern is the homogenousnature of the sample. Because such a largepercentage of the sample was Caucasian,hypotheses could not be tested separatelyby both gender and race. Prior researchhad found that insecure attachment is dif-ferentially linked to sexual experiences. Forexample, higher percentages of risky sexualbehaviors relates to anxious attachment forAfrican-American adolescents but to avoid-ant attachment for Caucasian adolescents(Cooper, Shaver, et al., 1998). Thus, futurestudies should involve more racially diversesamples.

A third weakness of the study is the cor-relational nature of the data, which pre-vents conclusions from being drawn aboutcausation. One possibility is that being highin avoidant or anxious attachment couldpredispose individuals to have certaintypes of sexual experiences. For example,highly avoidant individuals who downplaythe importance of emotional intimacy may

262 A. L. Gentzler and K. A. Kerns

avoid physical intimacy or may choose toobtain physical intimacy without requiringemotional intimacy. Another possibility isthat having certain types of sexual experi-ences could increase feelings of avoidant oranxious attachment. For example, scores onavoidant attachment are higher for individ-uals who have not experienced sexualintercourse compared to individuals whohad their first intercourse experience afterage 16. As hypothesized, it may be thathighly avoidant people who are uncomfort-able with a high level of intimacy withinclose relationships may also avoid sexualintimacy as a result. However, we mustalso consider the possibility that individualswho do not engage in sexual intercourse (forreasons unrelated to attachment) may bemore likely to report being more avoidantlyattached. Most likely, both explanationshave some validity in that the relationbetween attachment and life experiences isbidirectional. In other words, not only isattachment associated with correspondingbeliefs and behaviors, but, as Collins andRead (1994) suggested, because individualsbehave in ways consistent with their work-ing models, the resulting situations caninadvertently confirm their initial beliefs.

This area of research could benefit fromthe use of longitudinal study designs.Although Feeney and colleagues (Feeneyet al., 1993, 1999, 2000) have assessed indi-viduals’ sexual behavior across time (6–8weeks), studies that involve longer time per-iods between assessments and that controlfor sexual experiences before the initialassessment are needed. For example, stu-

dents could be assessed at the beginning oftheir first year of college and again at theend of the year, controlling for sexualexperiences prior to college, so that attach-ment assessed at the first time point can beused to predict subsequent sexual experi-ences. By investigating attachment and sex-ual experiences across time, more definitive,directional conclusions could be made forthe mediation models tested in the presentstudy.

Overall, this study offers new insight intohow attachment is linked to sexual experi-ences of young adults by testing for linkswith different sexual experiences and testingmediators to explain the links with attach-ment. Another strength of the study is theuse of avoidant and anxious scales, whichallow attachment dimensions to be assessed,rather than categorical measures that forceparticipants into a discrete attachmentstyle. Within this study, although manyhypotheses were supported, it should benoted that attachment explained a relativelylow percentage of the variance in sexualexperiences (ranging from 6 to 15%).Therefore, because many other factors con-tribute to people’s sexual experiences,researchers investigating attachment andsexual experiences should study attachmentwithin a broader set of sociocultural factors(e.g., religious beliefs, gender socialization).Also, future studies could extend this studyby employing longitudinal designs, obtain-ing more diverse samples, and by testingother variables that may explain associ-ations between attachment and sexualexperiences.

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