The risks and benefits of technologised sexual practice scale: a quantitative measure of technology facilitated sex and intimacy

Background Technologies such as the Internet, smartphones, and sex toys have demonstrated the capacity to facilitate and enhance sexual and intimate practice by offering new ways to meet sexual partners, maintain and establish intimate connections, and providing access to sexual education and exposure to new ways of engaging in sex. They have also afforded novel risks to safety, privacy, and sexual autonomy. Understanding how people perceive and experience both the risks and benefits of using technology to facilitate sex and intimacy is important to understanding contemporary sexual practice, health, and pleasure. However, research in this space is currently hampered by a lack of quantitative measures to accurately and holistically assess both the risks and benefits in the context of technologised sexual practices.Methods To facilitate a nuanced quantitative exploration of these concepts, we present the psychometric properties of the newly developed Risks and Benefits of Technologised Sexual Practice Scale.Results Using an exploratory (Study 1, n = 445) and confirmatory factor analysis (Study 2, n = 500), this paper presents evidence for a 6-factor scale (Benefits (3): 'sexual gratification', 'connection', and 'access to information and culture'; Risks (3): 'concerns', 'worries', and 'knowledge of rights and ownership').Conclusion This scale may be used to contribute to research areas including sexual health, sexual behaviour, sexual education, online connection, online safety, and digital literacy with the aim to contribute to a sex- and technology-positive framework for understanding sexual health and pleasure. Technology has the potential to benefit relationships - it can facilitate and enhance sexual and intimate practices in a variety of ways. However, it also has the potential to be risky, with people reporting concerns about safety and privacy. This paper presents a new measure that is designed to accurately assess perceptions of the risks and benefits of sexualised technology use.