Since it was originally proposed by Festinger (1954), Social Comparison Theory has been extended upon to include two different types of comparisons, upward and downward social comparisons (Willis, 1981). An upward social comparison occurs when a person compares themselves with someone viewed as better off than they are. Research has suggested that upward social comparisons can lower self-regard (Brown, Novick, Lord, & Richards,1992; Cash, Cash, & Butters, 1983; Thornton & Moore, 1993), although it has been suggested that these comparisons may also provide inspiration to improve oneself (Brewer & Weber, 1994; Brickman & Bulman, 1977; Brown et al., 1992; Buunk, Collins, Taylor, VanYperen, & Dakof, 1990; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). In contrast, a downward comparison occurs when a person compares themselfves with someone who is viewed as worse off than they are. Downward comparisons can elevate self-regard, and increase one's subjective well-being (Cash, Cash, & Butters, 1983; Wills, 1981; Wood, Taylor, & Lichtman, 1985). The potential for these comparisons to affect people’s self-evaluations can also be impacted by additional factors. One of these factors is the similarity or closeness of the target of comparison. According to research on the Self-Evaluation Maintenance model of social behavior, when someone outperforms the self on a task high in relevance to the self, the closer the other person to the self, the greater the threat to self-evaluation (Tesser, Millar, & Moore, 1988). Therefore, the similarity or closeness of the target of comparison to the self has the potential to intensify the effects of the comparison . Social comparisons have been demonstrated to occur in a number of areas of social life that are relevant to sexuality and sexual pleasure, including romantic relationship comparisons (White, 2010), relational standards (Wayment, 2005), perceptions of peers’ sexual behaviour (Martens, Page, Mowry, Damann, Taylor, & Cimini, 2006), and comparisons to media portrayals of romantic relationships and sex (Aubrey, Harrison, Kramer, & Yellin, 2003; Ward, 2003). However, potential sources of comparison and whether these comparisons occur within the domain of sexual pleasure have not been examined. The current study will examine whether manipulating the direction and similarity of the source of comparison regarding sexual pleasure will affect individuals’ perceptions of their current sexual relationship. In our previous study (see Study 1) we determined which sources of information and comparison regarding sexual pleasure are commonly used, and which sources individuals feel similar/dissimilar to. This information was used to select which sources of information would be used for the conditions in the current study. When narrowing down the possibilities, sources were removed if at least 50% of the sample had not used it as a source of information, and if at least 50% said they never use it as a source of comparison. The remaining sources were separated into high (items in top 5 highest mean similarity ratings) and low similarity (items in bottom 5 lowest mean similarity ratings). Pornography was the only remaining low similarity item, and as such is the low similarity source of comparison for the current study. All of the top 5 highest similarity sources met the other cut off points. However, we determined that 2 of those sources (past sexual experiences, imagination/fantasies) would be difficult to manipulate to create the upward/downward comparison conditions, and that a third (current/past romantic partner(s)) may impact other relationship measures and not be comparable to the low similarity source (pornography). We decided to keep both of the remaining sources (internet and friends), and have 2 high similarity conditions. Participants indicated they feel more similar to information from the internet, but friends have commonly been used as a high similarity source of comparison in previous research. **Hypotheses** Hypotheses 1-3: There will be a main effect of direction of comparison, such that downward comparisons (compared to upward comparisons) will be associated with higher sexual satisfaction (1) and reports of sexual pleasure (2), and lower perceived quality of alternatives (3). Hypothesis 4-6: We do not anticipate a main effect of source of comparison on sexual satisfaction (4), sexual pleasure (5), or quality of alternatives (6), although we will explore this effect. Hypothesis 7-9: The effects of direction of comparison will be greater in the high similarity conditions than the low similarity condition, for sexual satisfaction (7), sexual pleasure (8), and quality of alternatives (9).