When women feel their partner demands perfection, sex life suffers

And some men expect their partners to fit into perfectionist standards based on pornography.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/uok-wwf032916.php

Public Release: 30-Mar-2016
When women feel their partner demands perfection, sex life suffers
University of Kent

Women who perceive that their sexual partner is imposing perfectionist standards on them may suffer sexual dysfunction as a result, psychologists at the University of Kent have found.

In the first in-depth study of how different types of sexual perfectionism affect women over a period of time, researchers also found that 'partner-prescribed' sexual perfectionism contributed to negative self-image.

Perfectionism is defined as a 'striving for flawlessness and the setting of exceedingly high standards for performance, accompanied by tendencies for overly critical self-evaluations and concerns about negative evaluations by others'. It is a common personality characteristic that may affect all domains of life. However, the longer term consequences of how it affects people's sex life had previously not been explored.

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Researchers differentiated between four forms of sexual perfectionism: self-oriented, partner-oriented, partner-prescribed and socially prescribed. They found that partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism contributed to woman's negative sexual self-concept and female sexual dysfunction. In particular, partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism predicted decreases in female sexual function regarding arousal.

They further found that partner-prescribed sexual perfectionism predicted decreases in sexual esteem and increases in sexual anxiety, suggesting that it is a psychological factor that may contribute to sexual self-concept problems in woman.

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