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Women’s Cortisol Stress Responsivity, Sexual Arousability, and Sexual History

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Abstract

Life history theory and the adaptive calibration model state that characteristics of one’s early environment influence individual differences in both neuroendocrine reactivity to stress and sexual risk-taking behavior. However, few studies have directly examined the relationship between neuroendocrine reactivity to stress and risky sexual behavior. This study used multilevel modeling to test whether cortisol reactivity and recovery in response to laboratory stress were associated with women’s history of sexual behavior and their sexual arousability in response to laboratory sexual stimuli. Participants were 65 women (35% heterosexual, 44% bisexual, and 21% lesbian) who completed two laboratory sessions, two weeks apart. Women’s self-reported sexual arousability to sexual stimuli interacted with their sexual abuse history to predict their trajectories of cortisol stress reactivity and recovery. Cortisol reactivity and recovery were not associated with women’s sexual risk taking, such as the age of sexual debut, sociosexuality, or lifetime number of sexual partners.

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Funding

This research was funded by grants from the American Institute of Bisexuality and the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, awarded to the second author.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 South 1530 East, Room 502, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-0251, USA

    Jenna Alley, Lisa M. Diamond & David L. Lipschitz

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Karen Grewen

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  1. Jenna Alley
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Correspondence to Jenna Alley.

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Alley, J., Diamond, L.M., Lipschitz, D.L. et al. Women’s Cortisol Stress Responsivity, Sexual Arousability, and Sexual History. Arch Sex Behav 49, 1489–1503 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01585-x

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