The desire to be authentic: The development of the Sexual Authenticity Scale

Authenticity has been demonstrated as an important factor in relationships and sexual health. Although authentic behaviour is generally beneficial, sharing one’s true thoughts, feelings, and desires may be especially difficult in sexual contexts. Existing research has demonstrated that individuals find sexual communication awkward, uncomfortable, and embarrassing and may avoid such discussions. Despite evidence that behaving authentically in sexual contexts is uniquely challenging, research has yet to explore sexual authenticity. The primary objectives of this study were to develop a measure of sexual authenticity and to establish the reliability and validity of the measure. Study 1 involved performing several exploratory factor analyses on 23 proposed items adapted from existing authenticity scales and developed with experts in the area, yielding a 15-item scale that loaded onto three factors: 1) Honest Sexual Communication, 2) Sexual Placating, and 3) Sexual Self-Doubt. These subscales were statistically associated with related constructs such as relationship authenticity, honesty, and sexual deception. In Study 2, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on two independent samples which provided additional support for the sexual authenticity model and evidence for generalizability for the scale.