Rationale --------- Despite the increasing number of studies investigating the nature of LDRs and the strategies that partners adopt in order to maintain optimal relationship functioning (Rohlfing, 1995; Wang, 2015), sexting as specific communication channel that couples in LDRs could adopt to maintain sexual aspects of their relationships has received little attention. Although the academic community is relatively silent on this issue, many popular writers suggest that engaging in sexting, phone sex, etc., can be of considerable help to partners who are geographically separated, by keeping their sexual relationship alive, and increasing their relationship satisfaction (Charles, 2015; Chatel, 2016; Stadtmiller, 2016). Reis and Shaver’s intimacy process model (1988) may be helpful for understanding how sexting may impact various aspects of relationship quality. According to this theory, expressing personal self-relevant information to a partner (e.g., sexual likes and dislikes), which can be influenced by dispositional factors such as needs, traits and values (e.g., erotophilia-erotophobia, religiosity, etc.), or situationally relevant goals (e.g., keeping the “spark” alive), occurs in a variety of forms, perhaps even during sexual exchanges commonly known as sexting. When such self-expressions take place, they result in emotional and behavioral responses from a partner. If this response is positive, the self-expressing individual feels understood, validated and cared for, contributing to an increased sense of interpersonal closeness with their partner. As intimacy develops through this process, other aspects of relationship quality (e.g. satisfaction) are likely to improve as well. In the proposed study we are specifically interested in examining the associations between sexting and feelings of interpersonal closeness among long distance couples. Given Reis & Shaver’s (1988) process model of intimacy, we hypothesized that individuals within couples who use sexting as a way to stay sexually connected during separation will report more perceived interpersonal closeness with their partners than individuals in non-sexting couples. Moreover, given previous findings and popular discussions of sexting among long distance couples on the internet (Charles, 2015; Chatel, 2016; Stadtmiller, 2016) we hypothesized that couples who sext in LDRs would report more sexual and relationship satisfaction, since they will be engaging in more sexual self-disclosure (Byers & Demmons, 1999). Also, while there is little data to draw on, a number of relationship factors, such as having higher levels of sexual growth beliefs, better sexual communication, and erotophilia-erotophobia, may be relevant for understanding which couples are more likely to engage in sexting. As sexting requires individuals to explicitly express their sexual likes, dislikes, and needs, which could be closely related to how erotophilic/erotophobic, and sexually communicative they are, such factors were measured to examine their relationships with sexting behavior. We specifically hypothesized that individuals with higher levels of sexual growth beliefs, sexual communication, and erotophilia would more likely to engage in sexting. Measures of social pressure and sociosexuality were also included for exploratory purposes. Methods ------- After following a link to the survey, which will be hosted on Qualtrics, participants will be provided with the letter of information, where they can confirm their eligibility criteria. Ineligible participants will be automatically directed out of the survey. Participants who meet our eligibility criteria can continue the study by indicating their consent. Consenting participants will be redirected to a set of demographic questions. The survey will then be continued by the LDR questionnaire (developed by current authors). Afterward, the Sexting Behavior Questionnaire (developed by current authors) will be provided to participants in which they will be asked a set of quantitative and qualitative (open-ended) questions to probe evidence for various aspects of sexting in the context of Reis and Shaver (1988) intimacy process model. The survey will further be continued with the Sexual Self Disclosure Questionnaire (Byers & Demmons, 1999), Inclusion of Other in the Self (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992), and The Quality of Sex Inventory (Shaw, & Rogge, 2016) respectively. There will be an attention check item to make sure participants' responses are valid and usable. Next, participants will be responding to the Relationship Satisfaction: Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Sabourin, Valois, & Lussier, 2005), the Modified Investment Model Scale (Rusbult, Martz, & Agnew, 1998), the Sexpectations Scale-Short (Maxwell, Muise, MacDonald, Day, Rosen, & Impett, 2017), and the Sexual Desire Inventory (Spector, Carey, & Steinberg, 1996) respectively. Furthermore, The Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R) (Penke & Asendorpf, 2008), Religiosity scale (Hill & Hood, 1999), Sexual Opinion Survey (Fisher, White, Byrne, & Kelley, 1988) and Social Pressure (Owen, Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2010) will be provided to participants subsequently. Lastly, participants will be shown the debriefing form. It has been argued that estimates of correlation coefficients are unreliable with samples of less than 200 participants. As we have exploratory interests in examining gender differences in any associations that emerge, we require a minimum of 200 men. As the gender ratio is generally 1:2 in favor of women in survey research, we would need 600 individuals who meet our eligibility criteria and provide valid responses. In our experience, 25% of the data is lost due to invalid responses. Therefore, we estimated that we would need approximately 800 participants for this survey.