Sexual resilience in couples

Abstract

Sexual resilience, as described herein, is a couple’s ability to withstand, adapt to, and find solutions to events and experiences that challenge their sexual relationship. As a field of research, relatively little is understood about how couples adapt to changes in their sexual relationships and why some couples successfully adapt while others do not. This chapter presents several existing models of sexuality, followed by the authors’ own model of sexual resiliency, the Physical Pleasure – Relational Intimacy Model of Sexual Motivation (PRISM Model). The ways in which this model adds to and extends previous models of sexuality by addressing the relational and dynamic nature of sexuality, and applies to a variety of challenges to sexual relationships, are explored.