Analytic Plan ------------- The primary hypothesis of this study is that long distance couples (LDC) who practice sexting may have higher levels of interpersonal closeness than LDCs who never sext. To test this hypothesis, interpersonal closeness will be regressed on reported frequency of sexting with a primary partner. Participants who sext with someone other than their primary partner will be excluded from this analysis. As related secondary endpoints, we also hypothesize that sexting should be positively associated with sexual self-disclosure, more investment on the relationship, higher levels of relationship and sexual satisfaction, as well as higher sexual growth beliefs. Each of these relationships will be examined with Pearson correlations. Once again, participants who sext with someone other than their primary partners will be excluded from these analyses. The relationship between sexting and closeness is hypothesized to be moderated by three main variables: erotophobia-erotophilia, sexual desire, and gender. Multivariate regression analyses will be conducted to determine the interaction between the potential moderators and the independent variable, sexting, with respect to their effect on the dependent variable, interpersonal closeness. With respect to erotophilia, it is expected to be associated with higher likelihood of engagement in sexting. However, sexting may still occur among more erotophobic individuals, and such cases are still expected to benefit from some positive effect of sexting on their interpersonal closeness than individuals who never sext. With that in mind, more erotophilic participants should be more likely to respond to their partners’ sexual overtures and disclosures positively than more erotophobic participants, resulting in higher net closeness among erotophiles who sext than erotophobes who sext. Sexual desire was hypothesized to have the similar effect on the relationship between sexting and closeness. Higher sexual desire is expected to augment the relationship between sexting and closeness, though sexting and closeness are still expected to be positively related among those with low desire. Lastly, gender may also have a moderating effect on the relationship between sexting and closeness in heterosexual relationships. As women are on average known to be more erotophobic than men, they might be less likely to participate in sexting in general, and have more negative responses when they do. Consequently, in a heterosexual sample, male participants will be more likely to be sexting with a reluctant partner than female participants. For this reason, we expect to find that female sexters will report higher closeness than male sexters, though both may report higher closeness than non-sexters.