ORIGINAL PAPER
The Effects of Acute Ethanol Consumption on Sexual Response
and Sexual Risk-Taking Intent
Nicole Prause
•
Cameron Staley
•
Peter Finn
Received: 29 July 2009 / Revised: 29 November 2010 / Accepted: 1 December 2010 / Published online: 12 February 2011
Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
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 pro-
pensity. 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 .08g/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
notrespondasstronglywhenbreath 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.
Keywords Alcohol myopia Á Acute alcohol intoxication Á
Sexual arousal Á Sexual risk taking Á Risk propensity
Introduction
Alcohol is viewed by many as a broad disinhibitor with pharma-
cological properties that release ‘‘true’’ sexual desires (Testa &
Dermen, 1999). Data largely seem to support this view, as global
association (e.g., correlational) studies (for review, see Leigh,
1990) and laboratory studies (for review, see George & Stoner,
2000) document that increased alcohol consumption is related
to increased sexual risk taking. No gold standard exists for assess-
ing sexual risk in global association studies, although the
strengths and limitations of available methods have been
reviewed at length (e.g., Catania et al., 2005). However, the
relationship between alcohol and sexual risk taking is docu-
mented inconsistently when event-level and laboratory meth-
ods are used (Shuper et al., 2010). Event-level analysis has
failed to find a relationship between alcohol and condom use
(e.g., Schroder, Johnson, & Wiebe, 2009; Taylor, Fulop, &
Green, 1999), while others have found that alcohol consump-
tion leads to decreased impulsivity (Ortner, MacDonald, &
Olmstead, 2003). One theoretical explanation for this para-
doxical effect is alcohol myopia (Steele & Josephs, 1990). The
alcohol myopia model posits that people differ in the cues they
consider when making sexual risk decisions before drinking
alcohol, alcohol decreases processing capacity, and decreased
processing capacity leads the intoxicated person to consider
only cues that were most salient to them before they started
drinking. A third model is that sexual arousal mediates the
relationship between alcohol and sexual risk taking (George
et al., 2008). In the current study,sexual arousal wasmonitored
during acute alcohol consumption to test whether alcohol
directly, or through its interaction with sexual arousal, exerted
effects on sexual intercourse intentions.
Alcohol affects both psychological and genital sexual arou-
sal. Generally, alcohol is expected to enhance sexual experi-
ences (Brown, Christensen, & Goldman, 1987) and expecting
N. Prause (&)
Mind Research Network, 1101 Yale Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM
87106, USA
e-mail: nprause@mrn.org
C. Staley
Department of Psychology, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID,
USA
P. Finn
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana
University, Bloomington, IN, USA
123
Arch Sex Behav (2011) 40:373–384
DOI 10.1007/s10508-010-9718-9