Explorative survey on the level of online sexual activities and sexual paraphilias

Abstract

Objectives The objective of this survey is to analyze the relationship between the level of online sexual activities (OSA) and the presence of sexual paraphilias in a sample of 300 Internet users (230 males, 63 females and 7 transsexuals; age 18-58 years). Materials and methods Participants recruitment and data gathering were managed online through a self-report electronic questionnaire that included: The Internet Sex Screening Test, aimed to assess the level of OSA and to divide the users in recreative users and at-risk users; an ad hoc questionnaire (QTSPoo) elaborated to survey the presence of online and offline sexual paraphilias. Results Our data showed a positive and significant relationship between the level of OSA and the time spent online for sexual purposes and also between the level of OSA and the level of sexual paraphilias, specifically: group sex, exhibitionism, fetishism, sadism, masochism, voyeurism, reversed voyeurism, urophilia, narratophilia and picacism. We assessed differences between at-risk group (n=126) and recreative group (n=153) on the basis of some socio-demographic variables and also in relation to frequency and time online for sexual purposes. Specifically, the at-risk users group reports a level of online and offline sexual paraphilias higher than the recreative group. This difference is statistically significant (t(277) = −10.91, p Conclusions The differences assessed between the groups seems to support the theoretical hypothesis that considers the use of Internet to obtain sexual satisfaction a potential factor involved in the complex expression of paraphiliac sexual behaviour.