The effect of alcohol on sexual risk-taking among young men and women

Abstract

The current study investigated the effects of alcohol and gender on the intentions of engaging in sexual risk-taking. Young adults (101 men, 99 women) were randomly assigned to the alcohol, placebo, or no-alcohol conditions. Participants listened to an audiotaped scenario that presented a romantic situation between a man and a woman who had just met. Participants were asked to imagine that they were one of the individuals in the scenario and then judged their intentions to engage in sexual risk-taking. Similar previous studies (e.g., Abbey, Saenz, & Buck, 2005) employing a vignette in which the couple had known each other prior to the romantic encounter found that intoxicated individuals reported a greater willingness to engage in sexual activity than those in the placebo and control groups. In contrast, the current study's results showed that intoxicated and placebo-treated women reported a greater intention of engaging in sex than sober women ( b = 4.92, t = 2.42, p < 05). Conversely, intoxicated and placebo-treated men reported less willingness to engage in sex than sober men ( b = −4.66, t = −2.14, p < .05). Neither alcohol nor gender predicted participants' intention to use a condom if they chose to engage in sex. However, those who used condoms more frequently were more likely to report intending to use a condom in this scenario ( b = −1.60, t = −2.17, p < .05). The results demonstrated the complex processes underlying the effects of alcohol on engaging in casual sex by revealing a gender-specific psychological effect of alcohol.