A growing body of research has demonstrated how the link between pornography use and various manifestations of psychological distress and dissatisfaction is explained by moral incongruence—the experience of violating one’s deeply held moral values. The predictive power of moral incongruence, however, has yet to be applied to other sexual activities. Drawing on data from available waves of the General Social Surveys (1988–2018: n_men = 6590, n_women = 7047; 1989–2018: n_men = 3558, n_women = 4841), this study extended moral incongruence theory by testing whether engaging in same-sex or non-marital sexual activity when one rejects either as morally wrong is associated with a greater likelihood of reporting unhappiness. Analyses demonstrated that American men (but not women) who reported engaging in same-sex sex in the previous year were more likely than other men to say they were unhappy, but only if they viewed homosexuality as “always wrong.” Analyses also showed that American women (not men) who reported higher frequencies of non-marital sex in the previous year were more likely than other women to report being unhappy, but only if they viewed non-marital sex as “always wrong.” Though nuanced by gender, findings affirmed expectations from moral incongruence research: Sexual behavior per se is not associated with unhappiness, but moral inconsistency or conflict regarding one’s sexual behavior is.

越来越多的研究表明，色情不当现象（一种侵犯自己根深蒂固的道德价值观的经历）可以解释色情制品的使用与心理困扰和不满的各种表现之间的联系。然而，道德不一致的预测能力尚未应用于其他性活动。利用《一般社会调查》（1988-2018年：n_男性 = 6590，n_女性 = 7047; 1989-2018：n_男性 = 3558，n_女性 （= 4841），这项研究通过测试当一个人因道德上的错误而拒绝时是否从事同性或非婚姻性活动，从而增加了报告不快乐的可能性，从而扩展了道德不相容理论。分析表明，去年报告称从事过同性性行为的美国男性（而非女性）比其他男性更有可能说自己不快乐，但前提是他们认为同性恋“永远是错误的”。分析还显示，前一年报告的非婚姻性发生频率更高的美国女性（而非男性）比其他女性更有可能报告自己不快乐，但仅如果他们认为非婚姻性行为“总是错误的”。尽管受到性别的影响，但研究结果肯定了道德不一致研究的期望：性行为本身并不与不快乐相关，但道德上的不一致或与性行为的冲突却与之相关。