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Sexual Compulsivity and Sexual Risk in Gay and Bisexual Men

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Abstract

Much of our understanding of the association between the Sexual Compulsivity Scale (SCS) and sexual risk behavior among men who have sex with men (MSM) has been limited to samples of HIV positive MSM only. Using data from a community-based survey of gay and bisexual men (n = 1214), this analysis sought to further evaluate the association between the SCS and sexual risk behavior. The SCS was significantly associated with a variety of sexual risk behaviors, including having sex under the influence of club drugs, engaging in unprotected anal sex (receptive or insertive) with partners of the same and/or different HIV serostatus, identity as a barebacker, intentions to have bareback sex, number of recent sex partners, and temptation for unsafe sex. The SCS was also significantly associated with having engaged in a variety of specialized sexual behaviors (i.e., fetishes), many of which can increase HIV transmission risks. Finally, in multivariate analyses, the SCS significantly predicted unprotected sex with a non-main partner even when controlling for race, HIV serostatus, age, identity as a barebacker, and club drug use. These data indicate that the SCS may be able to serve as an indicator to detect HIV-associated sexual risk behavior in community-based samples of gay and bisexual men.

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Acknowledgements

The Sex and Love v3.0 Project was supported by CHEST, under the direction of Dr. Parsons. The authors acknowledge the contributions of the project team: Michael R. Adams, Anthony Bamonte, Leland R. Bardsley, Lorelei Bonet, Justin Brown, Lauren DiMaria, Gideon Feldstein, Catherine Holder, James P. Kelleher, Brian C. Kelly, Juline Koken, Jose E. Nanín, Joseph C. Punzalan, Elana Rosof, Joseph P. Severino, Brooke Wells, and Anna Levy-Warren. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Christian Grov was supported in part as a postdoctoral fellow in the Behavioral Sciences training in Drug Abuse Research program sponsored by Public Health Solutions and the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (NDRI) with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (T32 DA07233). An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY), Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Christian Grov

  2. Center for HIV/AIDS Educational Studies and Training, New York, NY, USA

    Christian Grov, Jeffrey T. Parsons & David S. Bimbi

  3. Department of Social and Personality Psychology, The Graduate Center of CUNY, New York, NY, USA

    Jeffrey T. Parsons

  4. Department of Psychology, Hunter College of the City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10065, USA

    Jeffrey T. Parsons

  5. Department of Natural and Applied Sciences, LaGuardia Community College of CUNY, Long Island City, NY, USA

    David S. Bimbi

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  1. Christian Grov
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Correspondence to Jeffrey T. Parsons.

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Grov, C., Parsons, J.T. & Bimbi, D.S. Sexual Compulsivity and Sexual Risk in Gay and Bisexual Men. Arch Sex Behav 39, 940–949 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9483-9

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