A Multidimensional Understanding of the Relationship between Sexual Identity, Heteronormativity, and Sexual Satisfaction among a Cisgender Sample

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have carefully read the paper titled "A Multidimensional Understanding of the Relationship between Sexual Identity, Heteronormativity, and Sexual Satisfaction" and I am pleased to extend my sincere commendation to the authors for their exemplary work.

The paper not only demonstrates a high level of methodological rigor but also offers a valuable contribution to the ongoing scientific discourse in the field. The authors have masterfully navigated the complex interplay between sexual identity, heteronormativity, and sexual satisfaction, shedding light on their multifaceted relationships.

The structured approach to presenting their findings greatly enhances the clarity and coherence of the paper, making it accessible to both experts in the field and those with a general interest in the topic.

One of the most impressive aspects of the paper is its meticulous attention to methodological detail. The authors provide a clear and comprehensive account of their research design, data collection methods, and statistical analyses. 

I was particularly pleased to note the authors' commitment to engaging with the broader scientific dialogue surrounding heteronormativity. While your work stands as a comprehensive examination of the topic, it might be further enriched by incorporating insights from related studies that focus on heteronormativity in different contexts in order to offer a comparative perspective. For instance, you can consider:

Gezgin, E. (2023). Between Privileges and Sacrifices: Heteronormativity and Turkish Nationalism in Urban Turkey. Journal of Homosexuality, 70(10), 2072-2095.

Pérez, B., Ramiro Sánchez, M. T., & Barrientos, J. Victimization in Sexual and Reproductive Health: Violence, Coercion, Discrimination, and Stigma. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1253136.

Varela, M. D. M. C., Dhawan, N., & Engel, A. (Eds.). (2016). Hegemony and heteronormativity: Revisiting'the political'in queer politics. Routledge.

Scandurra, C., Monaco, S., Dolce, P., & Nothdurfter, U. (2021). Heteronormativity in Italy: psychometric characteristics of the Italian version of the heteronormative attitudes and beliefs scale. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 18, 637-652.

Zhao, Y., & Madill, A. (2018). The heteronormative frame in Chinese Yaoi: integrating female Chinese fan interviews with Sinophone and Anglophone survey data. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 9(5), 435-457.

The inclusion of these works could serve to amplify the breadth of your discussion and underscore the applicability of your work across diverse (more and less inclusive) settings. 

Author Response

Please see end for authors response. 

Reviewer 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have carefully read the paper titled "A Multidimensional Understanding of the Relationship between Sexual Identity, Heteronormativity, and Sexual Satisfaction" and I am pleased to extend my sincere commendation to the authors for their exemplary work.

The paper not only demonstrates a high level of methodological rigor but also offers a valuable contribution to the ongoing scientific discourse in the field. The authors have masterfully navigated the complex interplay between sexual identity, heteronormativity, and sexual satisfaction, shedding light on their multifaceted relationships.

The structured approach to presenting their findings greatly enhances the clarity and coherence of the paper, making it accessible to both experts in the field and those with a general interest in the topic.

One of the most impressive aspects of the paper is its meticulous attention to methodological detail. The authors provide a clear and comprehensive account of their research design, data collection methods, and statistical analyses. 

I was particularly pleased to note the authors' commitment to engaging with the broader scientific dialogue surrounding heteronormativity. While your work stands as a comprehensive examination of the topic, it might be further enriched by incorporating insights from related studies that focus on heteronormativity in different contexts in order to offer a comparative perspective. For instance, you can consider:

Gezgin, E. (2023). Between Privileges and Sacrifices: Heteronormativity and Turkish Nationalism in Urban Turkey. Journal of Homosexuality, 70(10), 2072-2095.

Pérez, B., Ramiro Sánchez, M. T., & Barrientos, J. (2023). Victimization in Sexual and Reproductive Health: Violence, Coercion, Discrimination, and Stigma. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1253136. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1253136

Varela, M. D. M. C., Dhawan, N., & Engel, A. (Eds.). (2016). Hegemony and heteronormativity: Revisiting'the political'in queer politics. Routledge.

Scandurra, C., Monaco, S., Dolce, P., & Nothdurfter, U. (2021). Heteronormativity in Italy: psychometric characteristics of the Italian version of the heteronormative attitudes and beliefs scale. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 18, 637-652.

Zhao, Y., & Madill, A. (2018). The heteronormative frame in Chinese Yaoi: integrating female Chinese fan interviews with Sinophone and Anglophone survey data. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 9(5), 435-457.

The inclusion of these works could serve to amplify the breadth of your discussion and underscore the applicability of your work across diverse (more and less inclusive) settings. 

We wish to thank the reviewer for both their graciousness in engaging our work and for taking time to carefully suggest additional citations that could help us deepen the discussion of heteronormativity, especially in ways that extend its conceptualization and interpretation more globally. We really enjoyed the articles and were able to reference all but one of them in the manuscript. We believe these added to the manuscript in important ways and even helped us better interpret some of the findings. Again, we thank you!  

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you very much for allowing me to review this fascinating article. Below are several comments and suggestions by section to improve the paper.

I am struck by the fact that in the title you put the variable of sexual identity when it is assumed that according to the requirements of the study, people had to be cisgender. This premise is all over the article because then you talk about queer people. The article explains that queer theory rejects stagnant categories of sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity and then you describe sexual orientations as queer. Recontextualize the conceptual errors regarding this issue.

In summary, it is not clear to me what the results are and what the study contributes to society, i.e. what its impact is.

In the introduction review these contradictory arguments and summarise.

In the methodology, clarify the questions regarding the characteristics of the sample.

In the results, relate it to the hypotheses raised in the introduction and show the results obtained clearly, taking into account the previous conceptualization of the terms.

In the discussion, refute the objectives and hypotheses put forward and improve the conceptual errors of the article in relation to queer terminology, or qualify this theory with scientific evidence that justifies the conceptual choice of the authors.

Add a greater number of updated citations on this topic.

Author Response

Please see author responses in bold

Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you very much for allowing me to review this fascinating article. Below are several comments and suggestions by section to improve the paper.

I am struck by the fact that in the title you put the variable of sexual identity when it is assumed that according to the requirements of the study, people had to be cisgender. This premise is all over the article because then you talk about queer people. The article explains that queer theory rejects stagnant categories of sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity and then you describe sexual orientations as queer. Recontextualize the conceptual errors regarding this issue.

We wish to thank the reviewer for such thoughtful comments and catching several details that we missed- we apologize for missing them. We indeed inverted the use of sexual identity and sexual orientation is several places throughout the manuscript, thereby leading to some conceptual confusion and inaccuracies. We careful went through the manuscript to correct these as well as to add some additional clarifications. Related, we also clarified the focus on those who only were cisgender and when we use the term sexual identity we are not including gender identity for the purposes of this study, although queer theory certainly engages sexual and gender identities. Sexual identity and gender identity are distinct although certainly related; thus, queerness can be related to either or both as queerness is about the extent to which something/one is positioned in relation to the culturally-situated normative. We believe these fixes resolve most of the reviewer’s comments but are happy to engage this further if it remains unclear or if we misinterpreted some of the reviewer comments- we tried to find a good balance with adding clarity without adding a lot of extra pages.

In summary, it is not clear to me what the results are and what the study contributes to society, i.e. what its impact is.

We have added some statements to clarify and articulate this more explicitly in the abstract, introduction, and discussion. For example, the abstract now is explicit that better understanding some of the correlates of health disparities can lead to the identification of prevention and intervention sites to help mitigate these disparities. We include this point in the text of the manuscript as well. We also added clarification about the importance of assessing multiple dimensions of sexual identity given the findings that different dimensions had different pathways of impact on sexual satisfaction.

In the introduction review these contradictory arguments and summarise.

Addressed in the first response comment.

In the methodology, clarify the questions regarding the characteristics of the sample.

We added a sentence in section 2.2 that refers readers to Table 1 for all demographics assessed and the response options from which respondents could select.

In the results, relate it to the hypotheses raised in the introduction and show the results obtained clearly, taking into account the previous conceptualization of the terms.

We added several phrases to connect back to our hypothesized models.

In the discussion, refute the objectives and hypotheses put forward and improve the conceptual errors of the article in relation to queer terminology, or qualify this theory with scientific evidence that justifies the conceptual choice of the authors.

Addressed in the first response comment.

Add a greater number of updated citations on this topic.

We added several new citations, including several suggested by the other reviewer.

We again thank the reviewer for their helpful suggestions and believe that greatly clarified and improved the manuscript. 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for doing the changes.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your consideration