Sex, Intimacy and Self Esteem

This is a pilot study exploring intimacy and self esteem in older black women. Twenty six married, urban, non-institutionalized African American women over the age of 60 were interviewed in this investigation. Information concerning their intimate relationships with their spouses and its relationship to their self esteem was gathered. Subjective passages are examhed to accent these relationships. These women were, generally, open about the quality of the relationship between themselves and their spouses. They reported relatively high levels of intimate relations. In particular they described the sub-factors of intimacy such as affection, friendship and a sense of empathy to be positively associated with self esteem. Interestingly, higher frequency of sexual intercourse was seen to be negatively associated with self esteem for these older women. Implications of these findings are discussed.