Volume 24, Issue 4, October–December 2015, Pages e84–e93
F. Tripodia, , ,S. Eleuterib, , ,M. Giulianic, R. Rossia, S. Livib, I. Petruccellid, F. Petruccellie, K. Danebackf, C. Simonellib
Summary
Previous studies explain that the Internet makes it possible to explore various unusual desires with little embarrassment and often with the illusion of personal security. Despite the flourishing publications on the double link between sexuality and the Internet in the last decade, there are relatively few studies analyzing the contents of online erotic stimuli to specifically investigate unusual sexual interests.
Objective of the study
To examine cultural and gender differences in online sexual behaviors and unusual sexual interests in online pornography reported by young adults recruited in Italy and Sweden, aiming to offer clinical considerations that could be useful when facing this issue in clinical practice.
Method
A survey was conducted with 847 Italian and Swedish heterosexual university students. They completed a set of measures including Internet Sex Screening Test, Sexual Addiction Screening Test – Abbreviated and Unusual Online Sexual Interests Questionnaire.
Results
Men scored higher than women did on viewing and feeling excited by unusual sexual interests. Although the conditional effect of gender was statistically significant (P < 0.05) in both national contexts for the same scenes, the differences between males and females were greater in Italy than in Sweden. Swedish women appeared more curious about sexual contents than Italian ones, with no differences regarding excitement level.
Discussion and conclusion
Our results could help clinicians by offering information about the diffusion of some unusual online sexual interests and the “normality” of the Internet use for sexual purposes. It is very important that the clinicians have a specific knowledge on online sexual matters; otherwise, they could be vulnerable to stereotyping and making judgments. The contents of the seen pornographic scenes and the felt excitement could be important topics to focus in the psychosexual counselling. They could be considered, in fact, as possible indicators of sexual compulsivity and/or cybersexual problematic behavior.
Keywords
- Sexual interests;
- Cybersexuality;
- Internet sexual behaviour;
- Online sexual activities (OSA);
- Sexual addiction;
- Sexual arousal
Excerpts from study
“ The porno-graphic material found online may have a normalizing and validating effect on sexual ideation (Berger et al., 2005), facilitating unusual sexual preferences among those with a preexisting predilection for such erotic fantasies (Galbreathet al., 2002) and, presumably, leading some subjects to the discovery of new interests.”
” In order to evaluate if the Internet sexual behavior had become clinically problematic, the Internet Sex Screening Test (ISST), a 25 true-false item test, was used. ISST total scores provide a classification of the subjects into three categories: low risk (1—8), at risk (9—18) and high risk (> 19).” [Subjects averaged (M) 5.+, (F) about 2.0] …” Regarding ISST, most of the participants (91.4% of Italians vs 88.7% of Swedes) belonged to the ‘‘low risk’’ category, the remaining percentage of subjects were classified as ‘‘at risk’’ (8.3% of Italians vs 11% of Swedes), while one Italian and one Swedish male subjects were ‘‘at high risk’’, with no differences between the Italian and Swedish groups.”
“As for SAST-A, no differences between Italians and Swedes were found with 90% of subjects obtaining a total score of 2 (very low level of sexual compulsivity); men obtained higher scores than women both in the Italian group and the Swedish one….”
… “Finally, the Unusual Online Sexual Interests Questionnaire (UOSIQ), an ad hoc 22-item measure describing different unusual sexual contents (Table 1), was used to assess the viewing of several scenes and self-reported level of excitement felt viewing them.”
Viewed scenes
The respondents were asked which sexual scenes they had seen on the Internet between the 22 listed in UOSIQ. Overall, participants reported an average of 6.9 scenes viewed (SD6.7), with 73.6% of the sample declaring to have seen at least one of them, and 3.3% all of the scenes considered. Table 3 shows, in a hierarchical order, a descriptive analysis of the scenes viewed sorted by nationality and gender. Scatophilia, gang bang, spermatophagia and spanking were seen by about half of the participants; bondage, stuffing and tattoos by 40—50%; exhibitionism, fisting and fetishism by 30—40%; the other scenes by less than 30% of participants.
[Novelty arousing]
“Results showed that scenes seen by very few participants and with more unusual contents produced the highest scores of felt excitement. Between the 10 most seen scenes, only spermatophagia, fetishism and gang bang were also evaluated very exciting.”
The most sexually exciting scenes almost totally corresponded to the most seen scenes, although with a different hierarchical order. Gangbang appeared to be the most exciting scene, both for Italian and Swedish respondents, followed by spermatophagia and bondage for Italians, and fetishism and exhibitionism for Swedes. Fisting, although being between the 10 most seen scenes, was not considered one of the most exciting
” When analyzing unusual sexual scenes viewed by the two groups, no particular differences appeared between whatItalians and Swedes had chosen to see more, but the Italian group was significantly more likely to see scenes of exhibitionism, gynemimetophilia, sadism and incest than the Swedish one; on the contrary the Swedish group declared to see significantly more scenes of gerontophilia, coprophilia and acrotomophilia.” ” However, these categories represent only one third of the total scenes and, moreover, no differences were found for the most seen scenes. Thus, there is no clear evidence of culture being the only factor determining interests.”
” It also emerged that about half of the analyzed scenes are not so ‘‘unusual’’. In fact, they are seen by more than 30% of our participants and this leads us to suppose they are becoming part of the classic repertoire of erotic social imaginary. Observing the other scenes, specific similarities of contents leap out. Indeed, and romimetophilia, ginemimetophilia and transsexualism could be referred to ‘‘gender-related’’ interests, meanwhile necrophilia, gerontophilia, urophilia, zoophilia, sadism, coprophilia, incest, paedophilia and acromotophilia could be considered ‘‘harder’’ choices because illegal or culturally connected with disgust feelings.”
” The number of scenes seen resulted correlated both to ISST and to SAST-A, although the former showed a much stronger coefficient: this could indicate that the viewing of various unusual porno-graphic stimuli can be more associated with cybersexual problematic behavior than with sexual addiction. On the other hand, the average excitation level appeared significantly and positively correlated with both ISST and SAST-A scores. It seems that high excitement felt for unusual online sexual interests can be a more useful indicator of compulsive sexual behaviors than just viewing.”
Future research
As the excitement level was found to be correlated with sexual compulsivity and Internet sexual behaviors, we can then hypothesize that at least two different profiles of pornographic users exist: on the one hand, those who use the Internet as a tool to enhance their sexual repertoire; on the other hand, those who use it in a more compulsive way, seeking for their ‘‘hard’’ interests, that can be interpreted as fixed preferences. According to this, the first group is moved by curiosity, by a desire to explore which scenes can excite them or not and presents a variety of interests, viewed for sexual arousal, to have fun or for the need to normalize these fantasies. The second group uses Internet more easily for a sexual gratification, not with an explorative modality.”
“In line with prior research on Internet sexuality (Cooper et al., 2003; Daneback et al., 2005; Grovet al., 2011), relationship status was not found to be per se a significant factor in predicting the viewing of unusual pornographic contents. Gender appears to be the most important variable, related both to online seen scenes and to the excitement connected to them. For each scene, there are always more men than women declaring to have seen it at least once and feeling excited by it.”
Conclusion
“Therapists need to recognize the differences between a person who uses online pornography as a simple excitement tool and a person who develops truly online compulsive behavior. As it was discussed above, the contents of the seen pornographic scenes and the felt excitement could be important topics to focus in the psychosexual counseling. They could be considered, in fact, as possible indicators of sexual compulsivity and/or cybersexual problematic behavior.“
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