The Internet Sex Screening Test: A comparison of sexual compulsives versus non-sexual compulsives

Abstract

This study compared individuals who are sexually compulsive with their non-compulsive counterpart on selected demographic characteristics and online sexual activities through the use of the Internet Sex Screening Test (ISST). Selected demographic variables were compared, as well as seven empirically derived subscales on the ISST. Male (n=5005) and female (n=1083) data were analysed separately with a one-way between-subjects multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results indicated that there were no meaningful differences between the age of offline sexual compulsives and non-sexually compulsive individuals, or the total amount of time they spent online. However, the ratio of total online time to time spent online in pursuit of sexual behaviours was found to be meaningful, since sexual compulsives spent significantly more time engaged in online sexual behaviour than non-sexual compulsives. In addition, scores on all seven subscales of the ISST (online sexual compulsivity, online sexual behaviour-social, online sexual behaviour-isolated, online sexual spending, interest in online sexual material, nonhome computer use for online sexual behaviour, and accessing illegal sexual material) were found to be significantly higher for sexual compulsives than the non-sexually compulsive sample. The limitations of this study are discussed along with implications of the findings.