The Effects of Acute Ethanol Consumption on Sexual Response and Sexual Risk-Taking Intent

Abstract

Two theories of sexual risk taking (disinhibition and alcohol myopia) were tested using genital measures of sexual response and computer measures of sexual risk propensity. A total of 44 men and women completed two sessions comparing responses to erotic films while consuming alcohol (breath alcohol doses were .025 g/kg and .08 g/kg) or juice alone. After consuming alcohol, more sexual arousal was reported in response to neutral films and at a breath alcohol level of .08 g/kg as compared to no alcohol. Genital responses for men and women increased during sexual films, but men did not respond as strongly when breath alcohol level was .08 g/kg. Intentions to have intercourse with a new partner at baseline predicted the level of sexual arousal reported. As self-reported sexual arousal increased in response to sexual films and higher alcohol dose, the intent to engage in intercourse with a new partner increased. Alcohol dose was not related to later sexual intercourse intentions. With no direct relationship of alcohol and intercourse intentions, results appear more consistent with a disinhibition model of sexual arousal.

The influence of groups and alcohol consumption on individual risk-taking

“…To this end, the research findings have largely supported the notion that there is a focal narrowing towards environmental cues which influences sexual decisions (Lyvers et al, 2009(Lyvers et al, , 2011A. B. Morris & Albery, 2001;Prause, Staley, & Finn, 2011). The influence of attentional myopia to environmental cues has further been evidenced in experimental field work (Flowe, Stewart, Sleath, & Palmer, 2011).…”

“…(Hopthrow, Abrams, Frings & Hulbert, 2007). nuanced understanding of the differing effects of intoxication on behaviour in varying settings (MacDonald et al, 2000;Prause et al, 2011).…”

Alcohol acutely enhances decoding of positive emotions and emotional concern for positive stimuli and facilitates the viewing of sexual images

“…Thus, alcohol reduced the unpleasantness of viewing explicit sexual stimuli rather than enhanced the sexually arousing effects of erotic or pornographic pictures. This finding could be interpreted as alcohol-induced disinhibition of a socially unacceptable behavior (viewing pornographic images) and/or sexual disinhibition (Prause et al 2011;Sumnall et al 2007). This is different from the effects of the psychostimulant methylphenidate, which primarily enhanced ratings of sexual arousal compared with placebo using the same SAT (Schmid et al 2015b).…”

“…Dopamine has been proposed to mediate the increase in sexual arousal following administration of these stimulant drugs (Schmid et al 2015b;Volkow et al 2007). The mechanisms by which alcohol alters sexual arousal are complex and dose-dependent (George and Stoner 2000;Prause et al 2011). The expectancy of alcohol drinking or actual alcohol drinking increased the time of viewing erotic pictures (George and Stoner 2000;Lang 1985) and approach toward erotic stimuli (Simons et al 2015), indicating an increase in sexually oriented behavior.…”

“…Alcohol prolonged the viewing of erotic pictures (Lang 1985) and also produced an approach bias toward erotic stimuli compared with placebo (Simons et al 2015). However, unclear is whether alcohol actually enhances sexual arousal and desire or produces disinhibition (Prause et al 2011), and we are unaware of studies that evaluated whether alcohol acutely enhances subjective sexual arousal by sexual/erotic visual stimuli. Therefore, we examined the effects of alcoholic beer in a Sexual Arousal Task (SAT) that was previously shown to be sensitive to the effects of a psychostimulant (Schmid et al 2015b).…”