The Sexological Flexibility Scale
A domain-specific psychological flexibility measure for sexuality
My doctoral research focused on the development and initial validation of the Sexological Flexibility Scale (SFS), a brief measure designed to assess psychological flexibility specifically within the context of sexuality.
Psychological flexibility refers broadly to the ability to remain open to internal experiences, stay connected to the present moment, and take action guided by what matters. While researchers have studied it extensively across many areas of mental health and well-being, no existing measures currently assess psychological flexibility in this domain.
My research explored whether there may be value in understanding psychological flexibility within this specific area.
The Sexological Flexibility Scale
SFS
The SFS is a six-item measure examining how people relate and respond to thoughts, experiences, relationships, values, behavior, and the body within their sexual lives.
The scale was developed through a quantitative validation study involving 600 gay and bisexual men. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a brief, generally unidimensional measure with good internal consistency.
Initial findings
Initial validity findings were encouraging. Sexological flexibility was moderately related to general psychological flexibility, while remaining sufficiently distinct to provide additional information. Higher SFS scores were associated with:
Lower sexual shame
Lower internalized homonegativity
Greater sexual satisfaction
Importantly, the SFS explained additional variance in these outcomes beyond a general measure of psychological flexibility, providing preliminary support for assessing psychological flexibility at the level of this specific life domain.
Why it matters
Sexuality does not occur outside of context. Sexual experiences can be shaped by relationships, identity, cultural expectations, stigma, body experiences, personal values, and the meanings people have learned to attach to sex and sexuality.
The SFS was developed from the premise that psychological flexibility within this particular context may tell us something that a broad measure of psychological flexibility cannot fully capture.
The research draws primarily from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Relational Frame Theory (RFT), and minority stress theory, which brings these perspectives together to examine how people respond to difficult thoughts, feelings, social messages, and experiences related to sexuality.
Current status & continuing research
The SFS has undergone initial psychometric validation and demonstrated preliminary evidence of reliability, convergent validity, and incremental predictive validity in the original study population.
Additional research is needed to examine the measure across more diverse populations and settings, evaluate stability over time, and further establish its clinical and research utility. At this stage, the SFS should be considered an emerging research measure with potential clinical applications rather than a diagnostic instrument. Clinical cutoff scores have not been established.
I am interested in continued research examining sexological flexibility, including replication of the SFS findings, validation with broader populations, and further exploration of how psychological flexibility may contribute to sexual health and well-being.
Sexological Flexibility Scale (SFS)
Developed by Josh Jacobs, PsyD
Information about SFS use, scoring, research collaboration, and study publications will be available here as this work continues. Please reach out to me if you are interested in using this scale in your research or if you have questions related to the preliminary psychometric properties of this measure.