Relationships between cyber sex consumption patterns, inhibitory control and level of sexual satisfaction in men (2021)

January 2021, Revista Espanola de Drogodependencias 46(1):58-74

ABSTRACT

The use of Cybersex can generate addiction in internet users and may be related to their executive functioning and sexual satisfaction. The objective is to analyze the relationship be­tween cybersex consumption, inhibitory control and sexual satisfaction in 120 men between 20 and 29 years old, through the Internet Sex Screening Test, the Stroop test and a Sexual Wellbeing Questionnaire. The results indicated a high level of risky (20.8%) and addictive (6.7%) consumption. A positive relationship was obtained between inhibitory control and sexual well-being (rho =2.94; p <.001) and a negative relationship between sexual well-being and cybersex consumption (rho =-0.21; p <.019). There was no association between ad­dictive patterns of cybersex consumption and inhibitory control. When comparing cybersex consumption patterns, significant differences in emotional well-being (H = 8.15; p <.043) were observed, with recreational consumers presenting greater satisfaction. The results allow us to report on topics scarcely studied in Chile, highlighting the high consumption of cybersex and the absence of a relationship between inhibitor

EXCERPT:

Regarding sexual satisfaction, the results indicated poorer satisfaction in subjects with higher cybersex consumption through a statistically negative correlation significant, plus scores lowered in terms of well-being emotional. The above, second hypothesis of this study, agrees with data provided by Brown et al. (2016) and Short et al. (2012) who report low levels of sexual satisfaction in men with higher consumption of pornography. Similarly Stewart and Szymanski (2012) report that young women with male partners who frequently consume pornography report a diminished relationship quality strengthening the theory that satisfaction sexual is particularly impaired in the excessive consumption of cybersex (Voon et al., 2014; Wérry et al., 2015). It is hypothesized that this can be explained by an increase in the excitation threshold due to increased dopamine release experienced by the subjects during the cybersex consumption (Hilton & Watts, 2011; Love et al., 2015), so there would be development of greater tolerance and a consequent increase in the prevalence of addictive cybersex use in some subjects (Giordano et al., 2017).