Sexual Minority Women and Alcohol: Intersections between drinking, relational contexts, stress and coping

Few studies explore sexual minority women's experiences and perceptions of alcohol. Qualitative interviews were conducted with six sexual minority women who reported having sought help for alcohol problems in the past and six who did not. Themes emerged in two broad areas: stressors that contributed to heavy or problem drinking and factors that enhanced coping and reduced both stress and problem use. Alcohol use across groups was framed in terms of social context (e.g., bar patronage), stress management, and addiction. The findings of the study underscore the importance of considering the role of alcohol in managing stress as well coping factors that may inform social service interventions.     

Minority Stress and Stress Proliferation Among Same‐Sex and Other Marginalized Couples

Drawing from 2 largely isolated approaches to the study of social stress—stress proliferation and minority stress—the authors theorize about stress and mental health among same‐sex couples. With this integrated stress framework, they hypothesized that couple‐level minority stressors may be experienced by individual partners and jointly by couples as a result of the stigmatized status of their same‐sex relationship—a novel concept. They also consider dyadic minority stress processes, which result from the relational experience of individual‐level minority stressors between partners. Because this framework includes stressors emanating from both status‐based (e.g., sexual minority) and role‐based (e.g., partner) stress domains, it facilitates the study of stress proliferation linking minority stress (e.g., discrimination), more commonly experienced relational stress (e.g., conflict), and mental health. This framework can be applied to the study of stress and health among other marginalized couples, such as interracial/ethnic, interfaith, and age‐discrepant couples.     

Childhood Maltreatment,Bullying Victimization,and Psychological Distress Among Gay and Bisexual Men

Sexual minority men report higher psychological distress than heterosexual men, including depression and anxiety. Research suggests that these health disparities may be due to the heightened stressors that gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals experience. Some of these stressors occur early on in life, such as childhood abuse and bullying, and may include stressors that are topically related to sexual minority status, such as anti-gay bullying and teasing for gender nonconformity to masculine gender norms. We tested a structural equation model on the association between negative childhood experiences and adult psychological distress among 304 gay and bisexual men. The model fit the data well, and demonstrated an indirect effect of negative childhood experiences on adult psychological distress via dysfunctional thoughts toward oneself. The results integrate the childhood abuse and anti-gay bullying victimization literatures by showing that both forms of adverse childhood experiences are associated with adult psychological distress. The findings suggest the benefit of treatments to reduce negative, dysfunctional thoughts among gay and bisexual men who have experienced adverse childhood events.     

Stress Spillover and Crossover in Same-Sex Couples: Concurrent and Lagged Daily Effects

ABSTRACT

A growing body of literature on romantic relationships demonstrates associations between daily stress and relationship quality; however, this research has largely focused on heterosexual couples. Whereas all couples may experience common external stressors originating outside the relationship (e.g., work and finances), sexual-minority couples may also experience unique stressors due to their sexual orientation (e.g., discrimination or harassment). To address the dearth of literature on the daily experience of stress in same-sex relationships, we examine concurrent (same-day) and lagged (next-day) effects of common external and sexual-minority stressors on relationship quality using 14-day daily diaries from 81 same-sex couples. In doing so, we identify the types of external stress most likely to spill over into the relationship, as well as those vulnerable to crossing over from one partner to the other. We further examine whether the effects are proximal (concurrent) or carry over from one day to the next (lagged). Common external stress was negatively associated with same-day actor and partner relationship quality. Sexual-minority stress demonstrated lagged effects for actor relationship quality, but only for men. Implications for the proximal impact of common external stress and the lagged effects of sexual-minority stress, specifically for men, on relationship quality are discussed.     

Intersectional Epistemologies of Ignorance: How Behavioral and Social Science Research Shapes What We Know,Think We Know,and Don’t Know About U.S. Black Men’s Sexualities

Epistemologies of ignorance describe how ignorance influences the production of knowledge. Advancing an intersectional epistemologies of ignorance approach that examines how conscious (or unconscious) ignorance about racism, heterosexism, and classism shapes empirical knowledge about Black men’s sexualities, we conducted a critical review of the behavioral and social science research on U.S. Black men, ages 18 and older, for two time frames: pre-1981 and the most recent decade, 2006–2016. Our search yielded 668 articles, which we classified into five categories: sexual violence, sexual experiences and expressions, sexual identities, cultural and social-structural influences, and sexual health and sexual risk. We found that most of the research, particularly pre-1981, centered the experiences of White heterosexual men as normative and implicitly constructed Black men as hypersexual or deviant. Most of the research also color-blinded White privilege and ignored how racism, heterosexism, and classism structured Black men’s inequities. We also found notable exceptions to these trends. Black men who are gay, bisexual, or who have sex with men, and research on HIV risk were prominent in the past decade, as was research that emphasized the social-structural (e.g., poverty, heterosexism, racism) and cultural (e.g., masculinity, religion) contexts of Black men’s lives and sexualities. We provide 10 recommendations to avoid intersectional epistemic ignorance in future research.     

Sexual Fantasies and Gender/Sex: A Multimethod Approach with Quantitative Content Analysis and Hormonal Responses

Research links explicit sexuality (e.g., physical attraction and pleasure) to high testosterone (T) and nurturance (loving contact) to low T. Engaging in sexual fantasy, which can include explicit sexual and nurturant elements, increases T in women but not in men. We examined whether individual differences in the explicit sexual and nurturant content of fantasy were linked with T or with estradiol (E₂). In addition, we explored whether fantasy content differed or overlapped by gender/sex. Participants (26 women, 23 men) provided saliva samples for hormones before and after imagining a self-defined positive sexual encounter and responding to open-ended questions about the situation they imagined. We systematically content-coded responses for explicit sexual and nurturant content. In men, lower inclusion of nurturant content predicted larger T responses to fantasy. Fantasy content was not linked with T in women or with E₂ in women or men. Women and men did not differ significantly in explicit sexual and nurturant content. Our findings suggest that individual experiences of fantasy as more or less nurturant affect T in men, provide support for the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds, and highlight the value of integrating hormones and content analysis to investigate research questions relevant to sexuality and gender/sex.     

Marginalized within the Margins: Minority Stress and Identity Centrality

Research documents how identity linked processes may have important health implications for people with marginalized or stigmatized identities. While previous work suggests that certain dimensions of identity may moderate the impact of minority stressors to wellbeing, work on identity centrality has yielded mixed findings about the directionality of the relationship between centrality and health. Given the importance of identity centrality on self-concept, this study highlights how differential exposure to minority stressors matters for identity construction. Drawing from 25 in-depth interviews on Black and Latino/a sexual minority adults, I examine perceptions of identity centrality and exposure to minority stressors. There are three key findings to highlight. First, results present evidence of intra-group variability in identity centrality. Second, results indicate that differential exposure to minority stress matters for perceptions of identity centrality. Finally, results note that differentiating between stigma and race related stressors is necessary to better understand experiences of minority stress.     

Birth order and sexual orientation in a national probability sample

The relations between birth order and sexual orientation in both men and women were examined in a national probability sample of the United States (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994). In addition, a possible mechanism that may underlie a birth order/sexual orientation relationship—sibling sexual activity/influence—was examined in these data. As in previous studies, men with same‐sex attraction were born later relative to men with opposite‐sex attraction, and there was no birth effect in women. In addition, no evidence was found that sibling sexual activity/influence (e.g., mutual sexual play/activity among brothers) underlies the birth order effect in men. These results suggest that existing birth order/sexual orientation findings are reliable, despite recent sampling problems in other research areas on sexual orientation development, and that future research needs to concentrate on other theories of the birth order effect, particularly on gender‐specific (i.e., male only) developmental mechanisms.     

Distressing Sexual Difficulties in Heterosexual and Non-Heterosexual Croatian Men: Assessing the Role of Minority Stress

Although research has shown a connection between minority stressors and internalizing mental health problems, the role of minority stress has mainly been neglected in the assessment of sexual problems among non-heterosexual men. Using online samples of heterosexual (n = 933) and non-heterosexual participants (n = 561) aged 18 to 50 years, this study aimed to comparatively assess sexual difficulties and problems and explore the role of minority stress in non-heterosexual men's sexual problems. Although the age-adjusted odds of reporting rapid ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, and sex-related anxiousness significantly differed between the two groups, the overall prevalence of sexual difficulties and the associated levels of distress did not significantly differ between the samples. In multivariate assessment, anxiety and depression significantly increased the odds of reporting distressing sexual difficulties among both heterosexual and non-heterosexual participants. In the non-heterosexual sample, positive body image significantly decreased the odds of experiencing sexual problems. Pointing to a role of minority stress, highest levels of victimization related to sexual orientation increased the risk of sexual problems. This association was partially mediated by negative emotions. Our findings offer some support for a recent call to include sexual orientation among the social determinants of health recognized by the World Health Organization.     

Considerations for Culturally Sensitive Research With Transgender Adults: A Qualitative Analysis

Transgender (trans) individuals have historically been left out of research, and previous work has often conflated gender identity with sexual orientation. Furthermore, language used in psychology measures is often heteronormative and uses binary gendered language (e.g., “him”/“her”). The aim of the current study was to provide empirically derived guidance on conducting culturally sensitive research with transgender participants using qualitative data. We recruited trans individuals, ages 18 to 44, to participate in an anonymous, qualitative, national online survey as part of a quantitative study on the relationships among minority stress, sexual behavior, and mental health. The qualitative portion included four open-ended feedback questions. We identified four overarching themes regarding experiences with our survey: (a) emotional reaction; (b) insight gained; (c) being outside the box; and (d) value of the work. Research with trans adults should be more inclusive of diverse gender identities, sexual identities, and sexual behaviors. Steps in this direction may include soliciting feedback from community members regarding survey language and response options, allowing participants to contextualize their responses using open-ended questions, and clarifying language to distinguish between sexual behavior and sexual identity. A list of seven preliminary guidelines was proposed to aid scientists in conducting culturally sensitive research with trans individuals.     

Positive Feelings After Casual Sex: The Role of Gender and Traditional Gender-Role Beliefs

The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of positive and negative affect following casual sex. Specifically, the primary goal was to investigate how traditional gender-role beliefs, peer approval of casual sex, perceptions of others, sexual assertiveness, and sexual pleasure influence affective experiences. Second, we aimed to determine the extent to which these associations were comparable for men and women. Although we expected mean differences on many of these constructs (e.g., men perceiving more peer approval), we expected the relationships between these constructs to be comparable for women and men. Participants ages 18 to 35 (N = 585) were recruited from a large university and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and described their most recent casual sex experience in a self-report questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses indicated that gender-role beliefs were significantly associated with less sexual assertiveness and more negative perceptions of others; for women they were also associated with less peer approval of casual sex. For women and men, sexual assertiveness predicted sexual pleasure; and sexual pleasure was associated with affect. To decrease the gender discrepancy in positive affect and sexual pleasure, it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of the interrelationships among norms, casual sex experiences, and affect.     

Associations of Bisexual-Specific Minority Stress and Health Among Cisgender and Transgender Adults with Bisexual Orientation

Among sexual minorities, bisexuals are at the greatest risk for poor health due in part to prejudice and stigma. This research examined associations of bisexual-specific minority stress and health among cisgender (non-transgender) and transgender adults with bisexual orientation. Participants were 488 adults (378 cisgender women, 49 cisgender men, 61 transgender individuals), age 18 to 66 years, with bisexual orientation based on identity and/or attractions to multiple genders. Participants completed an online survey. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted with sexual minority stress and bisexual-specific minority stress as the predictors and physical health, measured by the 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36), as the outcome. Models controlled for demographic variables. Moderation analyses were conducted to test for gender differences. Greater bisexual-specific minority stress significantly predicted poorer overall physical health (β = ?0.16), greater pain (β = ?0.16), and poorer general health (β = ?0.25) above and beyond the effects of sexual minority stress. Gender moderated the association between bisexual-specific minority stress and health, such that bisexual-specific minority stress predicted overall physical health and role limitations for transgender individuals but not for cisgender women. Addressing bisexual-specific minority stress is necessary to improve the health and well-being of bisexual individuals.     

Psychosocial Factors Associated with Male Sexual Difficulties

The role of medical conditions, childhood experiences, and psychological and relationship factors in the development and maintenance of male sexual difficulties is not well understood. Using self-report questionnaires, the current study examined how these factors are associated with male sexual difficulties overall, as well as for each of four separate problems (low sexual desire, erectile difficulties, premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation). The participants for the study were 331 Australian men from the general population, all of whom were in cohabiting heterosexual relationships and had experienced one or more of the aforementioned sexual problems. Data were collected via an online survey between January 2010 and April 2011. The results demonstrated that medical factors as well as current psychological factors (e.g., performance anxiety) were most likely associated with each male sexual difficulty. These findings are in contrast to those obtained with women, where relationship factors are strongly related to female sexual problems. They would suggest that the targets for sex therapy may be different for men and women, with medical problems and performance anxiety being the primary targets for men.     

Men's and Women's Interpretation and Endorsement of Items Measuring Self-Reported Heterosexual Aggression

Early research on sexual aggression (e.g., sexual coercion, sexual assault, and rape) mainly focused on men as perpetrators and women as victims; more recently, researchers have begun to investigate women as perpetrators of sexual aggression as well. However, most measures of sexual aggression perpetration were designed for use with men and have not been well validated with women. This study sought to examine two different measures of sexual aggression perpetration in terms of their convergent validity for both men and women and to examine gender differences and similarities in item interpretation using open-ended inquiries. Participants were 590 individuals (395 women, 195 men) with a mean age of 25 years (SD = 8.1) recruited from an undergraduate psychology subject pool and an online convenience sample. The majority of the sample was White (65.4%) and Black (20.3%). All measures were completed online anonymously. Results suggested that convergent validity for the two measures was less than optimal, particularly for women. Further, item interpretation analyses revealed that, compared to men, more than twice the percentage of women provided a false-positive response to one of the measures, suggesting that women may be more likely than men to endorse self-report perpetration items incorrectly.     

Prevalence of Sexual Trauma History Using Behaviorally Specific Methods of Assessment in First Year College Students

There are several challenges associated with evaluating the prevalence of sexual trauma, including child sexual abuse and adult sexual assault. The aim of this study was to assess sexual trauma prevalence rates among first year college students (N = 954) using behaviorally specific questions and a more representative recruitment sample that did not rely on self-selection. Participants completed a list of sexual trauma questions, including general questions containing labels such as “rape” or “abuse” as well as behaviorally specific questions that describe specific behaviors that qualify as sexual trauma without labels. Results indicated that 6.7% of the sample reported at least one incident of child sexual abuse, with similar rates for men and women. Women were more likely to report a history of adult sexual assault, which was reported by 12.4% of the total sample. Participants were also more likely to endorse a history of sexual trauma when answering behaviorally specific rather than general “label” questions. Women survivors in particular were more likely than men to identify their experiences as abuse/assault (66.7% versus 21.1% for child sexual abuse), which may help explain prevalence differences between men and women in prior research. Men may be less likely than women to label their experiences as abuse and may be underidentified in sexual trauma research without the use of behaviorally specific questions. Overall, the results of this study suggest that the prevalence of sexual trauma is better assessed using behaviorally specific questions and that this is an important topic of study among both men and women.     

Sexual expression: its emotional context in heterosexual, gay, and lesbian couples

Much of what is known about emotions and sexuality explores the relationship enhancing qualities of positive affect. This research extends the current literature by focusing on the association between negative feelings and sexual thoughts and experiences in the context of close relationships, controlling for the effect of positive feelings. Specifically, the unique effects of daily negative feelings toward one's partner in general and specific negative feelings (i.e., anger, anxiety, and sadness) on the sexual experience of heterosexual, gay male, and lesbian relationships were explored. Participants completed an initial questionnaire followed by daily diary measures for 14 consecutive days. Positive feelings were positively associated with sexual variables as expected. Negative feelings were associated with increases in sexual behaviors for heterosexual men and women and gay men, but not lesbian women. Sadness showed a unique positive association with arousal, lust, wanted sexual behavior, and sexual behavior for heterosexual men and women and gay men, but not lesbian women. Neither anger nor anxiety was uniquely associated with the sexual experience for heterosexual or same-sex couples.