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A Double Life: The Psychological Being of Heterosexually Married Men Who Have Sex With Men. A Thematic Analysis

Files

Dissertation(2.26 MB)

Date

2016

Authors

Supervisor

Emmens, Joanne

Item type

Thesis/Dissertation

Degree name

Master of Psychotherapy

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

Heterosexually married men who have sex with men (HMMSM) are considered an ?invisible? group in society and research exploring the psychological being of these HMMSM has been scarce. This dissertation explores the perceptions and experiences of these HMMSM in a New Zealand context and presents a thematic analysis of the transcripts from three participants? interviews using a semi-structured interviewing approach. Three main themes were identified: ?Sexual Satisfaction?, ?Sexual Stressors? and ?Effort and Attempts to Protect?, with each theme supported by three or more sub-themes. ?Sexual Satisfaction? related to participants? positive feelings and sexual rewards of pleasure, arousal and enjoyment from engaging in same-sex activities. ?Sexual Stressors? encompassed the participants? struggles with feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety and fear for their extramarital same-sex inclination and behaviour. ?Effort and Attempts to Protect? related to participants? coping strategies for managing their same-sex needs and desire and for protecting their wives and families from their same-sex proclivities outside marriage. An interplay of these three main themes captured the dilemmatic struggle of these HMMSM as they split their lives between having extramarital sex with men and staying married to a woman. This study attempts to better understand the impact a double life has on the psychological well-being of these men.

Description

Keywords

Double-life, Men-who-have-sex-with-men, Married-MSM, MSM, MMSM, Thematic-analysis

Source

DOI

Publisher's version

Rights statement

Permanent link

https://hdl.handle.net/10292/9913

Collections

Masters Dissertations