Cargando…

The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown

From March 11 to April 26, 2020, the Italian government imposed a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, a quarantine that resulted in significant restrictions on the movement and social contacts of the population, with a view to limiting the pandemic outbreak. The quarantine forced people to experience dist...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Federici, Stefano, Lepri, Alessandro, Castellani Mencarelli, Alessandra, Zingone, Evel, De Leonibus, Rosella, Acocella, Anna Maria, Giammaria, Adriana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9070892/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35511830
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268079
_version_ 1784700729553846272
author Federici, Stefano
Lepri, Alessandro
Castellani Mencarelli, Alessandra
Zingone, Evel
De Leonibus, Rosella
Acocella, Anna Maria
Giammaria, Adriana
author_facet Federici, Stefano
Lepri, Alessandro
Castellani Mencarelli, Alessandra
Zingone, Evel
De Leonibus, Rosella
Acocella, Anna Maria
Giammaria, Adriana
author_sort Federici, Stefano
collection PubMed
description From March 11 to April 26, 2020, the Italian government imposed a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, a quarantine that resulted in significant restrictions on the movement and social contacts of the population, with a view to limiting the pandemic outbreak. The quarantine forced people to experience distorted social distance in two contrasting ways. For some people, it resulted in social distancing and isolation, for example by separating noncohabiting couples into different dwellings. For others, however, quarantine increased and imposed social closeness, forcing couples and families into constant, daily, and prolonged cohabitation. The aim of this study was to investigate the sexual health and behaviors of Italian adults during the lockdown period using a multimethod research. An open- and a closed-ended e-questionnaire were administered immediately after the end of the lockdown. A total of 465 Italian adults completed the digital questionnaire (female = 78.7%). Participants recognized their lived sexual experience with generally positive characteristics (related to openness, unproblematic relationship with the body, and awareness and self-reflection about one’s sexuality), while negative thoughts such as worry and pain were quite scarce. Participants with a disability (5.6%) showed a marked inversion compared to the mean of respondents, recognizing themselves mainly in negative thoughts related to low self-esteem, inadequacy, and feelings of suffering, yet reporting a higher than mean level of arousal. In the qualitative analysis, the Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) index was computed to measure the salience of the word used by participants to respond to the open-ended five questions. It revealed a generally depressed emotional experience associated with the experience of lockdown, both in terms of desire, which seemed to be shifted more to the level of imagination and fantasies, and the actual possibility of experiencing sexual activity as usual. Nevertheless, the participants emphasized an opening to new possibilities in terms of expressing sexuality, accompanied by a rediscovery of the value of tenderness and affectivity as well as a clearer awareness of their sexual life, needs, and desires.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9070892
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-90708922022-05-06 The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown Federici, Stefano Lepri, Alessandro Castellani Mencarelli, Alessandra Zingone, Evel De Leonibus, Rosella Acocella, Anna Maria Giammaria, Adriana PLoS One Research Article From March 11 to April 26, 2020, the Italian government imposed a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, a quarantine that resulted in significant restrictions on the movement and social contacts of the population, with a view to limiting the pandemic outbreak. The quarantine forced people to experience distorted social distance in two contrasting ways. For some people, it resulted in social distancing and isolation, for example by separating noncohabiting couples into different dwellings. For others, however, quarantine increased and imposed social closeness, forcing couples and families into constant, daily, and prolonged cohabitation. The aim of this study was to investigate the sexual health and behaviors of Italian adults during the lockdown period using a multimethod research. An open- and a closed-ended e-questionnaire were administered immediately after the end of the lockdown. A total of 465 Italian adults completed the digital questionnaire (female = 78.7%). Participants recognized their lived sexual experience with generally positive characteristics (related to openness, unproblematic relationship with the body, and awareness and self-reflection about one’s sexuality), while negative thoughts such as worry and pain were quite scarce. Participants with a disability (5.6%) showed a marked inversion compared to the mean of respondents, recognizing themselves mainly in negative thoughts related to low self-esteem, inadequacy, and feelings of suffering, yet reporting a higher than mean level of arousal. In the qualitative analysis, the Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) index was computed to measure the salience of the word used by participants to respond to the open-ended five questions. It revealed a generally depressed emotional experience associated with the experience of lockdown, both in terms of desire, which seemed to be shifted more to the level of imagination and fantasies, and the actual possibility of experiencing sexual activity as usual. Nevertheless, the participants emphasized an opening to new possibilities in terms of expressing sexuality, accompanied by a rediscovery of the value of tenderness and affectivity as well as a clearer awareness of their sexual life, needs, and desires. Public Library of Science 2022-05-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9070892/ /pubmed/35511830 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268079 Text en © 2022 Federici et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Federici, Stefano
Lepri, Alessandro
Castellani Mencarelli, Alessandra
Zingone, Evel
De Leonibus, Rosella
Acocella, Anna Maria
Giammaria, Adriana
The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown
title The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown
title_full The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown
title_fullStr The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown
title_full_unstemmed The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown
title_short The sexual experience of Italian adults during the COVID-19 lockdown
title_sort sexual experience of italian adults during the covid-19 lockdown
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9070892/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35511830
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268079
work_keys_str_mv AT federicistefano thesexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT leprialessandro thesexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT castellanimencarellialessandra thesexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT zingoneevel thesexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT deleonibusrosella thesexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT acocellaannamaria thesexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT giammariaadriana thesexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT federicistefano sexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT leprialessandro sexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT castellanimencarellialessandra sexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT zingoneevel sexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT deleonibusrosella sexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT acocellaannamaria sexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown
AT giammariaadriana sexualexperienceofitalianadultsduringthecovid19lockdown