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Psychophysiological Response Patterns and Risky Sexual Behavior in Heterosexual and Homosexual Men

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Abstract

The past few years have seen an increased awareness of the relevance of studying the role of sexual response, emotion, and traits such as sensation seeking and the propensity for sexual inhibition in risky sexual behavior. The current study examined the association between self-reported sexual risk taking and psychophysiological response patterns in 76 heterosexual and homosexual men. Measures included genital, electrodermal, startle eyeblink, and cardiovascular responses, and stimuli included threatening (depicting coercive sexual interactions) and nonthreatening (depicting consensual sexual interactions) sexual film excerpts. Sexual risk taking was hypothesized to be associated with decreased inhibition of sexual arousal and hyporeactive affective and autonomic responses to threatening sexual stimuli. Controlling for age and number of sexual partners in the past year, sexual risk taking (number of partners during the past 3 years with whom no condoms were used) was found to be associated with stronger genital responses and smaller eyeblink responses to both threatening and nonthreatening sexual stimuli. Correlations between genital and subjective sexual arousal were relatively low. Sexual risk taking was related to sensation seeking but not to the propensity for sexual inhibition. The findings suggest that risky sexual behavior may involve a role for psychophysiological mechanisms that are specific to sex as well as for ones that are associated with more general approach/avoidance response tendencies.

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Notes

  1. Startle eyeblink responses (most commonly generated by presenting participants with sudden loud sound bursts) index the disposition of a person to react with either appetitive (approach) or aversive (avoidance) responses (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990). Startle responses are typically enhanced (i.e., stronger eyeblinks, measured using facial EMG) during the presentation of stimuli that induce negative emotional states and reduced (weaker eyeblinks) during the presentation of stimuli that induce positive emotional states. An attractive characteristic of this paradigm, as compared to the use of self-report measures, is that the startle reaction is a reflexive response and thus not subject to intentional processes (e.g., social desirability).

  2. We initially planned to use, in unmodified form, the design described by Janssen et al. (2002b). However, of the first 25 participants (M age = 29 years) who were run using that design, 12, or almost 50%, did not respond to the sexual stimuli (i.e., penile rigidity of less than 5% to the nonthreatening sexual clips). We therefore redesigned the study and eliminated the distraction and performance demand manipulations used by Janssen et al. (2002b) to include newer and more varied film clips and had the new sample of 76 participants select two clips themselves.

  3. The films used in the final design were generally effective in inducing genital responses. However, about one-quarter of the sample (20 participants) responded with penile rigidity of <10% to the long self-selected film. A hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward, 1963), using the average of the erectile responses to the four nonthreatening sexual films, revealed two distinct clusters, a low and a high response cluster, which differed in genital responses to all of the nonthreatening and the second threatening sexual film. The clusters did not differ in subjective sexual arousal to any of the films. High responders, however, were younger and higher in SES.

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Acknowledgements

This study was made possible by NIMH Grant R01-MH60519-02. We wish to thank the various organizations and venues who helped us recruit study participants, the many men who assisted us in the selection of the films, and Todd Agee, Kevin Bogart, and Ken McKinley for their help in collecting the data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Morrison Hall 313, 1165 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405-2501, USA

    Erick Janssen, David Goodrich & John Bancroft

  2. Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA

    John V. Petrocelli

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  1. Erick Janssen
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  2. David Goodrich
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  3. John V. Petrocelli
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  4. John Bancroft
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Correspondence to Erick Janssen.

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Janssen, E., Goodrich, D., Petrocelli, J.V. et al. Psychophysiological Response Patterns and Risky Sexual Behavior in Heterosexual and Homosexual Men. Arch Sex Behav 38, 538–550 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9432-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9432-z

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