Engaging in digital sexual activities like sexting with a romantic partner can be a positive or negative experience depending on the underlying reasons for doing so. New research published in The Journal of Sex Research indicates that seeking intimacy and pleasure through digital sexual exchanges is linked to higher relationship and sexual satisfaction. Participating simply to avoid negative outcomes is associated with lower satisfaction across multiple areas of a person’s life.
Technology-mediated sexual interactions refer to sharing self-created sexual material through digital communication devices. This broad category includes activities like sending sexually explicit text messages, exchanging intimate photographs or videos, and engaging in phone sex. Many people in committed romantic relationships use these digital tools to connect with their partners. For some couples, these interactions function as a way to maintain intimacy across long physical distances.
Previous studies on the outcomes of these digital sexual behaviors have yielded mixed findings. Some research suggests that sexting boosts relationship happiness and individual well-being. Other studies link it to increased relationship conflict and negative emotional states.
“This research was motivated both by a debate in the existing research on technology-mediated sexual interactions (TMSIs),” said study author Erin Leigh Courtice, a postdoctoral research associate working with the CARE Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. “The literature in this area has been contradictory. Our interpretation was that these inconsistencies were because researchers hadn’t examined the motivations that underlie people’s TMSI use with a romantic partner.”
To understand these conflicting findings, Courtice and her colleagues applied a psychological concept known as the approach-avoidance motivational framework. “Basically, what this theory states is that people can engage in a behavior, including a sexual behavior, with approach or avoidance motives,” Courtice said.
“Approach motives drive people towards a specific outcome, e.g., engaging in sexual activity to gain sexual pleasure, or a closer connection with someone,” Courtice detailed. “Avoidance motives drive people away from a specific outcome, e.g., engaging in a sexual activity to try and prevent a relational conflict or a breakup.”
Typically, seeking positive outcomes builds satisfaction, but acting out of fear damages it. Courtice noted that this framework is well-established for physical intimacy, but “this theory hasn’t been tested with technology-mediated sexual contexts, so we also wanted to see if this pattern that we see for in-person sexual behaviors would hold in a new context.”
In the first phase of their research, the scientists recruited 269 university students who were in committed romantic relationships. The participants were mostly young adults, with an average age of 19, and the group included roughly 55 percent women and 41 percent men. About 40 percent of these participants were currently in a long-distance relationship. The participants completed a detailed survey about their digital sexual behaviors and motivations.
Because no standard questionnaire existed for this specific purpose, the researchers created a new scale to measure why people participate in digital sexual interactions. They adapted questions from previous surveys used for in-person sexual behaviors and added new questions specific to technology. The initial phase suggested that motivations for digital sexual interactions generally fall into three separate categories: approach motives, avoidance motives, and affirmation motives.
Affirmation motives specifically involve seeking reassurance or validation about one’s physical desirability. “We found that some people also reported TMSI motives related to seeking affirmation, specifically, seeking validation about one’s body and desirability,” Courtice noted. “We didn’t examine this too closely, but I think there would be some interesting things to unpack about whether those motives relate to higher vs. lower sexual and relationship satisfaction.”
The statistical analysis also indicated that participants viewed their satisfaction with digital sexual activities as distinct from their satisfaction with in-person sexual activities. This finding suggests that digital and physical sexual experiences are processed differently by individuals in romantic relationships. Similarly, the participants’ desire for digital sexual interactions was mathematically distinct from their desire for physical intimacy.
To test how these different motivations relate to overall well-being, the scientists conducted a second study with 459 adults in committed relationships. This group was older and more diverse, with an average age of 30, and was recruited from online survey platforms alongside university pools. Participants completed the refined motivation questionnaire from the first study, as well as measures assessing their overall life satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, and the specific frequency of their digital sexual interactions.
The researchers initially guessed that individuals using avoidance motives would engage in digital sexual activities less often. “We predicted that people who engaged in TMSI less often would report more avoidance motives,” Courtice told PsyPost. “We thought that this kind of reluctant, defensive engagement would suppress frequency.”
The data told a different story. “But we actually saw the opposite: TMSI frequency was positively associated with avoidance motives,” Courtice explained. Frequent digital sex was not tied to just one type of goal, as individuals seemed to use technology for various reasons throughout their relationship.
This counterintuitive finding indicates that using avoidance strategies can still reinforce a behavior if it successfully averts the feared outcome. “This might suggest that someone who sexts, for example, to prevent a break-up often does get the outcome they were trying to avoid, which reinforces both the behavior and the motive, even while the broader satisfaction picture is worse,” Courtice added.
Despite happening frequently, these two types of motivations were associated with entirely different emotional and relational outcomes. “The honest answer to ‘is sexting good or bad for a relationship?’ is that the question is misspecified,” Courtice summarized. “What predicted outcomes in our data weren’t whether or how often couples engaged, but the motivation behind it.”
“In our research, people who more often engaged in TMSI with their partners for approach reasons, e.g., pursuing intimacy, pleasure, enhancement, building toward in-person sex, reported higher satisfaction with their technology-mediated sexual life, their in-person sexual life, and their relationship,” Courtice said.
The opposite was true for those seeking to avoid a negative result. “People who more often engaged in TMSI with their partners for avoidance reasons, e.g., appeasing a partner, coping with negative feelings, trying to prevent conflict or rejection, or sidestepping in-person sex, reported lower in-person sexual satisfaction and lower relationship satisfaction,” Courtice explained.
“For both of these, the pathway ran largely through desire for one’s partner,” Courtice noted. “Approach motives predicted stronger dyadic sexual desire, which in turn predicted higher satisfaction across sexual, relationship, and life domains. Conversely, avoidance motives predicted weaker desire, which in turn predicted lower satisfaction across those same domains.”
To understand the real-world impact of these psychological dynamics, the researchers calculated how much these motivations actually explain variations in couples’ overall happiness. “The associations were importantly moderate, and not the same for every outcome that we measured,” Courtice said. “The largest effect sizes were on technology-specific outcomes: approach motives and technology-mediated sexual satisfaction, and approach motives and desire for technology-mediated sex with one’s partner.”
As the outcomes moved further away from specific digital interactions, the statistical associations weakened. “The amount of variance explained drops off sharply as you move away from the sexual domain,” Courtice pointed out.
“We saw that motives and desire together accounted for about 35% of the variance in in-person sexual satisfaction and 27% in relationship satisfaction, but only 8% in life satisfaction,” Courtice elaborated. “So these approach and avoidance motives for TMSI were meaningfully related to how people feel about their sex lives and relationships, but only faintly related to how they feel about their lives overall.”
The study relied on data collected at a single point in time, meaning it cannot establish a strict chain of cause and effect. “This was also a cross-sectional study, so we can’t say for sure that there is a causal relationship here, just that these different motivational styles are correlated with different levels of sexual, relationship, and life satisfaction,” Courtice explained. It is highly possible that existing relationship dissatisfaction causes people to rely on avoidance motives, rather than the motives causing the relationship issues.
The research also focused exclusively on couples who were already exchanging digital sexual material. “Study eligibility required that our participants were in a committed relationship with someone they had engaged in TMSI with, so our findings describe variation among people already doing this, and don’t adjudicate whether someone should start sexting with their partner if they aren’t already,” Courtice said.
Sending an intimate digital message is not a guaranteed fix for relationship problems, nor is it inherently destructive. “One big one: we didn’t necessarily find that sexting is either wholly good or wholly bad for relationships,” Courtice clarified. “We found that ‘it depends on the motives behind sexting’.”
By paying attention to underlying goals, partners can better navigate digital communication. “So, for anyone in a relationship: if you’re thinking about sexting with your partner, it’s useful to question why you want to,” Courtice advised. “If it’s for those more ‘approach’ motives, it might be beneficial, but if it’s because you’re trying to avoid or prevent something negative, it may be less beneficial.”
The study, “It’s Not What You Do, it’s Why: Motives and Outcomes of Technology-Mediated Sexual Interactions in Romantic Relationships,” was authored by Erin Leigh Courtice, Vesna Beljo, and Krystelle Shaughnessy.