Ricerc@Sapienza

Understanding sexual desire and fantasies requires an approach that brings together the influences of biology, psychology, sociology and culture. In this challenging scenario, researchers and clinicians have recognized the biopsychosocial model as the gold standard for sexology and sexual medicine studies (Simonelli et al., 2019; Nimbi et al., 2020). However, so far most research on sexual desire and fantasies has focused primarily on the biological factors that influence male and female sexual desire and fantasies. Although biological factors play an important role in the levels of sexual desire and the frequency of sexual fantasies, these seem not to be sufficient for a full understanding of sexual function. In fact, sexual, psychological, socio-relational, emotional and cognitive factors (e.g. depression, anxiety, emotions, communication, discomfort, satisfaction, sexual functioning, conflicts, gender roles) also seem to be involved in the development and maintenance of low levels. of male and female sexual desire (Carvalho & Nobre, 2010; Nimbi et al., 2019). Furthermore, scientific research on sexual desire and fantasies so far has mainly focused on the factors that influence the individual's sexual desire and fantasies, rather than the couple (Ferreira et al., 2015). The scientific literature and clinical practice highlight the need to understand more deeply the psychological, socio-relational and emotional-cognitive dynamics and processes that influence the sexual desire and fantasies of couples (Nimbi et al., 2020) to understand how sexual desire works within intimate relationships and to provide health professionals with useful tools to guide them in an integrated way in their choices regarding clinical treatments. Therefore, the goal of the following research project is to better understand which sexual, psychological, emotional and cognitive factors influence the sexual desire and sexual fantasies of couples and the relationship between them.