Archives of Sexual Behavior最新文献

Chemsex is mostly approached through the prism of risk-taking, neglecting the pleasure and social linking dimensions. However, feedback from the field and few studies highlights a diversity of chemsex practices and relationships to chemsex (RtC). Using Q-methodology, we identified the main RtC and their divergences and convergences, to help develop tailored prevention and care programs. Q-methodology enables the exploration of complex subjective structures and provides a multifaceted picture of a phenomenon. In 2019–2020, we asked 126 men who have sex with men living in France and practicing chemsex to rank order 37 statements. RtC were defined through by-person factor analysis and interpreted using a holistic process. Five RtC emerged, highlighting various motivations for practicing chemsex, relationships to substance use and to sexuality, and regulation strategies implemented: (1) From compensation to fulfillment; (2) The pleasure-seeking manager; (3) Between addiction and management; (4) From curiosity to the destruction of sexuality; and (5) From the hope of compensation to disillusion. Respondents all agreed on two statements: the need to first accept oneself as a drug user in order to be able to manage drug use, and the possibility of harm reduction during chemsex sessions. Our results are the first to elicit the main RtC and the intricacies between the dimensions at stake. The five analysis-based narratives derived from RtC might facilitate discussion during interviews or support groups on chemsex, and could serve as a standardized survey tool. Our findings advocate longitudinal studies to identify factors associated with shifting from one RtC to another.

This study used a recently developed statistical technique to investigate the relations between various elements of a subject's family background and the odds of that subject reporting a sexual history indicative of a minority sexual orientation. The subjects were 78,983 men and 92,150 women who completed relevant questionnaire items in the UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database of volunteers aged 40-69 years. The men were divided into three sexual minority groups-homosexual, bisexual, and asexual-and a comparison group of heterosexual men. The same was done for the women. The analytic procedure consisted of logistic regressions specifically designed to disentangle the effects of birth order and family size. The results showed that older brothers increased the odds of homosexuality in both men and women, and that older sisters increased the odds in men. In contrast, neither older brothers or older sisters affected the odds of bisexuality or asexuality in men or in women. These results suggest that birth order effects may be specific to homosexuality and not common to all minority orientations. The only family size finding was the negative association between family size and the odds of asexuality in both men and women. The outcomes of this study indicate that the maternal immune hypothesis, which was advanced to explain the relation between older brothers and homosexuality in later-born males, might have to be abandoned or else expanded to explain the findings concerning females. A few such modifications are considered.

When people raise concerns about pornography, they most often are focused on whether pornography increases violence toward women and/or whether it degrades women. While a substantial amount of cross-cultural data suggests that there is no direct link between adult consumption and violence, the question of whether pornography is inherently degrading to women lacks clear answers. As does the question of whether behaviors in pornography that are commonly labeled as degrading are perceived that way when they take place outside pornography. To answer this question about the inherent nature of degradation, we need a better definition and understanding of what particular behaviors people consider to be degrading and whether their perception of what is degrading is influenced by the circumstance or the people involved in a non-pornography setting. To examine this, 496 individuals (247 females, 249 males) were asked to indicate their perceptions of various sexual behaviors when engaged in by males and females toward male and female partners. Results suggest that while some particular sexual behaviors are broadly viewed as degrading (e.g., watersports), perceptions of degradation for other behaviors seem to be influenced by who is doing what to whom. In this sense, the perception of degradation exists in the eye of beholder and is often not defined by the particular sexual act. Future studies of degradation should take into account the context as well as the players involved.

The female orgasm remains a subject of extensive debate within evolutionary sciences, primarily due to the absence of a consensus regarding its adaptive function. Some hypotheses propose that it could function as a mechanism for mate selection, possibly linked to reproductive strategies. Studies have observed that lesbian women tend to experience orgasms more frequently than straight women, suggesting a potential link to advantageous partner characteristics. We explored the connection between the female orgasm and mate selection, aiming to ascertain its role as an adaptive tool for mate choice. A total of 939 sexually active Brazilian women (M_age = 28.3 years) engaged in committed relationships participated by completing the Marital Empathy Questionnaire, the Female Sexual Function Index, and evaluations of their partners' attributes. Analysis using structural equation models revealed that higher orgasm scores were positively associated with perceptions of partner kindness, intelligence, good health, physical attractiveness, and empathy. However, the small effect sizes of these associations warrant caution in their interpretation, and no significant association was found for relationship duration, financial prospects, dominance, and masculinity/femininity. Additionally, no differences were found between women in same-sex and other-sex relationships regarding orgasm frequency and its association with partner traits. The findings partially support the mate-choice theory, encompassing both sire-choice and pair-bond hypotheses, suggesting that female orgasm is positively associated with some partner attributes related to genetic quality and the capability for emotional connection and resource investment. Therefore, female orgasm may offer information about the partner that might not be primarily accessed and contribute to relationship maintenance.