Affect and emotions

The importance of assessing affect to facilitate a better understanding of the relationship between feelings and sexual behaviors, attitudes, and norms has been highlighted by the findings of several researchers. As such, the First Coital Affective Reaction Scale (FCARS) was developed to assess subjects’ reported affective reactions to their first coital experience. Scales used by Byrne et al. and Weis, in their assessment of affect, stimulated the development of the FCARS. The FCARS was developed as part of a cross-cultural research project comparing first coital experiences of American and Swedish women from an affective, behavioral, and attitudinal perspective. The Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health has offered a list of outcomes that may occur if a person or behaviors are sexually compulsive. This outcomes-based understanding of sexual compulsivity would suggest that individuals and their behaviors could lead to negative consequences in various domains, including social, emotional, physical, legal, financial/occupational, and spiritual areas of life.