SUBJECTIVE SEXUAL WELL-BEING: CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE CONCEPT AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL
Authors:   Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Hupalovska Viktoriia 
Published: February 2023

The importance of interpersonal and sexual relations and realized sexuality in the concepts of subjective well-being is considered quite often, but the understanding of sexual well-being is presented rather vaguely, mainly in the context of medical issues as the absence of sexual dysfunction, as a component of sexual health, is equated with the satisfaction of sexual life. This article uses theoretical research methods - analysis, generalization, synthesis, conceptualization and modelling. Based on theories and approaches to subjective well-being, is highlights the concept of sexual well-being and presents a psychological model of subjective sexual well-being. We define sexual well-being as the harmonious realization by the subject of his sexuality on the bodily-physical, soul-emotional and spiritual-mental levels; a person's harmonious experience of belonging to the sex and an adaptive way of realizing this belonging. In a broad sense, subjective sexual well-being can be seen as a multifactorial construct that reflects the complex interrelationships of cultural (for example, continuum of norms accepted in culture), social (permissibility of certain thoughts and actions), psychological (cognitive, emotional and behavioral; for example, attractiveness, desirability, satisfaction, self-esteem), physical (physical attractiveness, sexual constitution) and spiritual factors (transcendence, axiological interpretation). Sexual well-being can be considered on at least two levels - non-deficient, from the standpoint of the absence of disorders and problems; and at the level of eudemonic, meaningful, existentially filled. According to the levels of sexual development, sexual well-being can be assessed at the bodily-physical level, soul-emotional and mental-spiritual level. Sexual well-being can be represented in the trinity of cognitive, emotional and conative (motivational, behavioral) components. The cognitive component includes: self-awareness as a representative of the sex, acceptance of one's own self-sexual, acceptance of one's own gender, orientation and attraction, one's own body, corporeality, acceptance of a partner, partnership, trust and openness, communication. The emotional component includes a positive assessment of oneself as a sexual subject, satisfaction with a partner, partnership, intimacy, satisfaction with sexual life. The conative component includes: libido, sexual interest, openness of experience, adaptive sexual scenarios, sexual security (absence of violence, coercion, blackmail, discrimination), freedom of expression, equal partnership. Factors of sexual well-being are individual (permissiveness, sexual interest, realized sexuality), dyadic (relationships as value, sexual communication, intimacy, trust, openness) and evaluation factors (satisfaction with one's own self-sexual, satisfaction with sexual relations, partnership, satisfaction with sexual life in general). We can talk about the levels of determinations of sexual well-being: 1) ) determinants of the personal level or microsystem (socio-demographic characteristics, sexual dysfunctions, personality traits, sexual self-disclosure, attitudes toward sexuality and subjective well-being); 2) determinants of the interpersonal level or mesosystem (characteristics of the relationship itself, sexual communication, intimacy, equality, openness, trust, romantic love, partnership), 3) determinants of exosystems (traditions, family values, social support, pregnancy, parenthood, victimization and victimization) in childhood); 4) determinants of macrosystems (religiosity and political ideology, public morals and values, freedom of expression). Further study of sexual well-being requires empirical verification of theoretical assumptions, clarification of empirical criteria of sexual well-being with the help of our developed psychological tools for psychodiagnostic measurement of this indicator.