Intimacy and sexuality are two very important parts of our lives.  While it’s true that some people aren’t interested in their sexuality and have no need for intimacy, these people are very rare.  By far, most of us need both.  It is unsurprising that most of us would like to enhance our experiences in these areas.  It is often very hard to feel intimate without rewarding sex, and hard to have rewarding sex without intimacy.  Can we assess these things?  Yes, we can.

The Sexual Compatibility and Intimacy Test (SCIT) is an instrument that allows the test taker to compare their intimacy and sexual interests with those of other people of their sex, and allows them to track changes in their own interests over time.  These are the two major reasons the SCIT was developed.  First, some people simply want to know if their sexual interests are normal compared to others.  Are they less interested in sex or intimacy than others, or more so?  Can partners (or potential partners) compare their results to find common interests that they have been afraid to talk about?  Yes.  Perhaps more importantly however, is the ability of the SCIT to assess changes in the condition of our happiness.

There are several reasons why our level of intimacy or sexual interests might change over time: stress, age, medical conditions, medications, traumatic experiences, family background, cultural background, exposure to new ideas, and of course, relationship difficulties.  All of these things can affect us; sometimes the changes are for the better, and sometimes not.  Knowing what these changes are is important for us to know.

The SCIT lends itself very well to understanding changes, whether you are looking to improve your life by yourself and/or with your partner.  The SCIT can be tremendously useful in marital counseling, and also with treatment efforts with your doctor or your therapist.  The SCIT measures how your experiences are affecting these aspects of your personal life, and can reflect changes over time if one retakes the test at a later date.

Perhaps the best feature of the SCIT is the help it provides in our relationship with our significant other.  Many couples go through their entire lives not knowing each others’ desires – simply because they have been afraid to talk about it because of embarrassment or fear of rejection. Imagine the delight of both partners if they discovered common interests that they did not talk about!  Intimacy and sexual compatibility are the cornerstones of happiness for most people, and the SCIT can help.

The SCIT is currently intended to be taken by those who have partners of the opposite sex.  A version of the SCIT for the gay segment of our population is in development but is not expected to be completed in the near future.