Christopher Rovira
SCH210.1784
05/05/09
Velez-Blasini, C., (2008) Evidence Against Alcohol as a Proximal Cause of Sexual Risk Taking Among
College Students. Journal of Sex Research, 45, 118-128
The Use of Alcohol and its Relationship in Risky Sexual Behaviors
INTRODUCTION
Alcohol has long been presumed to play an integral role in increasing the possibility of sexual risk
taking. There are people who support this view, and also there are people who oppose it. Several
analyses have implied that the relationship between the consumption of alcohol and sexual risk taking is
limited to a narrow band of sexual behavior. The article that is being covered supports the notion that
alcohol and sexual risk taking do not necessarily go hand in hand. Popular belief supports that alcohol
and sex go together. Often in the media, alcohol commercials depict women who are barely clothed
having a good time when you purchase a certain alcoholic drink. Two separate events were used to prove
this: ones with intercourse, and ones without. A relatively large number of studies have examined the role
alcohol plays in explaining sexual risk taking. Previous research indicates that heavier drinking is closely
related with heightened sexual risk taking. More studies were undertaken to bypass the shortcomings of
that research, which does not examine the actual instance of alcohol use and risky sexual behaviors.
These studies examined the relationship between alcohol and risky sex at the situational level by asking
the participants how many times drinking led to intercourse and how many times they had unprotected
sex within a certain period of time. However, the conclusion of this research suggested that the high
prevalence of both alcohol intake and risky sex might occur solely by chance. The author states that more
research might be necessary, “to reduce the incidence of unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted
diseases, and other related problematic events such as date rape.” (Velez-Blasini 118). Also, past
research has not proven or disproven the assumption that alcohol increases the likelihood of risky
behaviors during sexual events. One area that has received little attention relates to the point at which
alcohol has its impact on the risky sexual choice. Velez-Blasini states that, “If alcohol is in fact associated
with an increase in the likelihood of a shift toward risky behavior, it should be consumed more frequently
on the occasions when intercourse took place.” (119). Additionally, it was noted that both individual
difference dimensions and behavioral tendencies might impact sexual decisions. Three variables were
measured: impulsivity/sensation seeking, sex-related alcohol expectancies and sociosexual orientation. It
was predicted that individuals that engaged in high risk sexual activity would score higher in the impulsive
sensation-seeking scale, have a more unrestricted sociosexual orientation and would support a strong
belief of alcoholic expectancies affecting sex. The question the author presented was whether or not
alcohol really affects the occurrence of risky sexual behaviors in college students, due to college students
being a high risk population, as they tend to drink heavily. This research would be incredibly important if it
is true that alcohol increases the risk of sexual events.
METHODS
Participants in the study were a sample of 240 college students. 74 of the students were male,
while 166 were female. All of the students were enrolled in various psychology courses. The range of age
of the students was from 18 years old to 24 years old. The average age of the participants was 19.3
years. The ethnicity, sexual orientation and the location of the participants was not mentioned in the
study. Data was collected anonymously online, and the subjects received course credit for participating.
At the beginning of each instrument each participant was asked to first recall the most recent instance
within the past 2 years of a sexual encounter that did not include intercourse, labeled as a PSS event.
First they were asked to recall an instance when this happened with a person that they were not
otherwise romantically connected to, such as a friend, brief acquaintance or a complete stranger. If an
event in this situation could not be recalled, participants were asked to recall a PSS event with a romantic
partner. After that, participants were asked to recall a sexual event that did include intercourse, labeled as
a SEX event. As before, sexual activity with a casual partner was asked for first before asking about
sexual activity with a romantic partner. Despite the instructions, 24 of the participants reported having
engaged in an intercourse (SEX) event when they were asked to recall a nonintercourse (PSS) event.
The data from these 24 were deleted from the study, bringing the total number of participants to 216. This
was done as to not allow any inconsistencies to affect the outcome of the research. It was not reported in
this experiment how many of the 24 were male or female.
The instruments for the experiment used were mostly scales, surveys, and also questionnaires.
First the participants were asked to report if they had consumed any alcohol before or during the
encounter with the casual or romantic partner. Like previously stated, these encounters were to be
recalled from a period of 2 years ago. They were also asked to estimate their level of intoxication using a
10-point scale, 1 being not intoxicated and 10 being highly intoxicated. Next the costs and benefits of the
encounter were weighed, this time using a 6-point scale, 1 being strongly disagree and 6 being strongly
agree. An example of a question that was asked was “I had a hard time deciding whether or not I wanted
to have sex.” Participants were next asked what forms of birth control were available during either the
PSS or SEX encounter, and if any were used. In the case of an event that did not lead to intercourse,
they were asked if the lack of a birth control or protective devices led to the decision not to engage in
intercourse on that occasion. Each participant was then given a list of sexual behaviors that they partook
in during the PSS or SEX event. These behaviors included: a) holding hands, (b) verbal/physical flirting,
(c) cuddling/hugging, (d) kissing, (e) tongue kissing, (f) touching of breasts, (g) oral contact with breasts,
(h) manual contact with genitals, (i) oral contact with genitals, (j) anal intercourse, and (j) vaginal
intercourse. Participants were also asked their level of sexual arousal before and during the event using
the 10-point scale, 1 being not aroused, 10 being extremely aroused. Following that, sensation seeking
was measured with a 35 item true or false questionnaire that yielded scores in five different areas:
impulsive-sensation seeking, neuroticism-anxiety, aggression-hostility, activity and sociability.
Sociosexual orientation, which is the behavioral and attitudinal dimension associated with willingness to
engage in uncommitted sexual relations, was tested for in the participants. Participants were rated in
between unrestricted sociosexuality and restricted sociosexuality. Lastly the participants were classified
by how much they drank. This ranged from heavy drinking to abstaining from alcohol. These methods led
to a different result than most people expect.
RESULTS
A large portion of the remaining 216 participants reported an instance of a sexual event without
intercourse (PSS). A little more than half of the participants reported an event including intercourse
(SEX). More PSS events occurred with casual partners compared to SEX events. Birth control or
protection was available in half of casual relations and about three quarters in romantic relations for PSS
events. The absence of birth control was determined to not be a factor in the event intercourse was not
engaged. In SEX events, birth control was used a great deal of the time with casual partners, and a little
over half the time with romantic partners. Alcohol use was much more common during nonrelational
sexual behavior. It was consumed much more often during PSS events with casual partners than PSS
events with romantic partners. The same applies for instances of events including intercourse. However,
even though alcohol was highly consumed, condom or birth control use was used the same amount of
time whether intoxicated or not.
A within-subjects comparison of 40 participants deemed higher risk (29 women, 11 men) was
created to test whether alcohol was consumed in PSS and SEX events. This tested the concept that
alcohol leads to an increase in the likelihood of intercourse once some form of sexual behavior has
started. In this subsample, nearly all of the participants had consumed alcohol in non-intercourse events.
Alcohol was much less common in intercourse events. These findings indicate that the consumption of
alcohol casts doubt on the notion of a causal role for risky sexual behavior. The impact of level of
intoxication on risky behavior was examined using the within-subjects. These results provided no
evidence indicating that higher levels of intoxication were associated with an increase in likelihood of
intercourse during sexual activity with partners. Another revealing factor in this experiment is that a high
number of condom uses among the participants was shown when interacting with nonrelational partners.
The 40 participants in the subsample that were deemed higher risk were compared with the rest of the
participants. The ones in the higher risk category used condoms a lot more frequently than the rest who
are supposedly at lower risk. When alcohol was consumed during the intercourse events, the 40
participants were only slightly more impaired than the rest of the participants. However, it was not
significant to make a difference. This shows that even at a higher risk, alcohol does not impair judgment
and cause riskier sexual behaviors. Promiscuity and sexual risk taking may be more suitably explained by
personality and behavior tendencies, rather than alcohol use. Lastly, the behavioral and personality
predictors showed differences. The high risk group in the casual sex sample showed they were much
heavier drinkers. They also scored higher on sociosexual orientation. As shown in the sensation-seeking
questionnaire, the higher risk participants scored higher on impulsive sensation seeking, on the activity
scale and the sociability scale than the main group. However, there was no difference in sex expectancy
score.
DISCUSSION
In this article, I learned that alcohol does not always impact judgment on a person’s decision to
make a choice about risky sexual behavior. In spite of alcohol use and risky sexual behaviors being
prevalent in the lives of most college students, most of the analyses concluded that there is little to no
support for the idea that alcohol and risky sex are related. Another thing I learned is that most of the
college students did not use the absence of birth control as an excuse to not perform intercourse. I
believed that it would be the opposite. I believed that the reason that sexual events led to not engaging in
intercourse would be because birth control was not available. Lastly, another important thing I learned is
that condom use was widely reported to be used even when intoxicated. I thought people who were
intoxicated would elect not to use a condom and just go straight to business.
A couple of problems with the research that I had was that most of the data in both the total study
and the within subject study was female. The male population was not greatly represented in this study.
Also I believe that if the participants were to recall an instance where the last event of intercourse or
nonintercourse occurred over a year ago, the data might not be very accurate. Additionally, one more
problem with the research is that some of the scales used might be inaccurately reported, such as how
intoxicated a person was during the experience, or how aroused they were.
Some suggestions that I believe would help future research on this topic would be to include
more male participants, so to accurately represent the college student population. A good number would
probably include half female and half male participants in all. Another suggestion I would make would be
to lower the scale of intoxication. Instead of making it a 10-point scale, lowering down to a 5 or 6 point
scale. How much more of a difference from 3 or 4 in the 10-point scale be? Lastly, a suggestion VelezBlasimi makes is to increase the number of online surveys. Velez-Blasimi claims, “The fact that the
surveys were conducted online in all probability increased the degree to which participants at least
attempted to report the truth regarding their sexual activity. There is currently mounting evidence that
computers may increase reporting of sensitive data.” (126). I believe the article is interesting because it
sheds light on the fact that alcohol does not significantly affect a person’s decision process when
choosing to engage in risky sexual activities, contrary what most people believe. If this research was
added to the textbook, it would probably best fit in chapter 13, The Sexual Body in Health and Illness, in
the section of Alcohol Use and Sexuality. The findings of this research would help reinforce the notion
that sex and alcohol does not always go hand in hand. Also, more could be added to the textbook in this
section about this research, as it is only about 2 pages long. This research is important as it shows us
that alcohol does not play an integral role as most people think.