Browsing by Author "Lyytikäinen, Enna"

Condom use negotiation in casual sex relationships is a topic that has not been studied in Finnish speech communication research. This study aimed to explore the negotiation strategies used in casual sex relationships among 20–30 years old young adults and examine the factors impacting these strategies and the negation as an interactional event. The theoretical reference frame consists of mostly American condom use negotiation studies, Finnish sex and sexuality research and the Goals-Plans-Action theory that was designed to explain the process by which influence messages are produced. The data was collected by interviewing fifteen 22–28 years old Finnish women and men who had all experienced at least one casual sex relationship. The interviews were conducted on internet chat platforms. The data was analyzed qualitatively using data-driven and theory-guided content analysis. The informants described a great amount of various condom negotiation strategies. These strategies were divided to strategies associated with the nature of communication and strategies associated with the content of communication. The previous were further categorized to considerate, self-centered, avoiding and open strategies. The latter were divided to condom-related and physical consequence-related strategies. The factors influencing the negotiation event and impacting the negotiation strategies were situational factors (e.g. alcohol intoxication), individual factors (e.g. significance of personal experience) and partner related factors (e.g. familiarity of partner). The results were in most part similar to the knowledge presented by the earlier research. Nevertheless some substantive differences were found, e.g. differences in arguments enhancing condom use and gender differences in using alternate negotiation strategies. It was concluded that communication in casual sex relationships differs from communication in more committed relationships. In addition, results gained in American studies cannot be directly applied to Finnish speech culture. On the grounds of this study it would be beneficial to pay more attention to teaching condom negotiation skills in Finnish sex education if the goal is to increase condom use in casual sex relationships.