Meta-Analyzing People's Self-Disclosure of Sexual Information to Romantic Partners

People disclose many aspects of their sexuality to close partners, such as their sexual attitudes, history, and behaviors, which is established to be beneficial for their own and their relationship well-being. However, evidence on the extent to which people engage in sexual self-disclosure and the predictors (i.e. facilitators or barriers) of sexual self-disclosure is currently inconsistent and inconclusive. A meta-analysis (k = 30, N = 9,239) on sexual self-disclosure identified a moderate-to-high level of disclosure of sexual attitudes and values, sexual difficulties, sexual history, sexual preferences, and solo-sexual behaviors. We identified 17 significant correlates of greater sexual self-disclosure, the strongest being greater sexual communication satisfaction, sexual assertiveness, and general self-disclosure. Our findings offer novel support for the theoretical claim that people seek to share important facets of their sexuality while retaining some privacy over their sexual information and suggest that people weigh the benefits against the costs of disclosing facets of their sexuality to their partners.