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PubMed2004

Partner notification: preferences of Melbourne clients and the estimated proportion of sexual partners they can contact.

This study was conducted to determine the estimated proportion of contactable sexual partners, the most common types of contact information available and the most acceptable contact tracing strategies for our clients. Five hundred 'walk in' clients completed a questionnaire about their total number of sexual partners, the proportion of contactable partners and available contact information. Women had the highest estimated number of contactable partners (89-94%), men who have sex with men had the lowest (51-73%). The preferred contact tracing strategy was to give partners a website address (76%) and the least preferred was provider referral (33%). There was a difference in the type of information available for contacting sexual partners (P <0.001); most commonly clients reported partners contactable by phone or face to face and least commonly through a third person. The currently used method (doctor's letter) is not the preferred choice of these clients and more innovative methods using recent technology may prove more effective.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Anaerobic vaginosis: study of male sexual partners.

One hundred male sexual partners of women with anaerobic vaginosis (AV) were screened for the presence of sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Thirty male partners had evidence of non-gonococcal urethritis (NGU), compared to 5 in the control group (P less than 0.05). Chlamydia trachomatis was isolated from 14 male partners, compared to 3 in the control group. Forty-five male partners required treatment for STDs, compared to 11 in the control group (P less than 0.02). Nine (40%) male partners with chlamydia-negative NGU were successfully treated with metronidazole alone while 10 required Deteclo in addition. There was no significant association between Bacteroides ureolyticus and chlamydia-negative NGU. Screening of male partners resulted in the treatment of STDs in 62 additional patients who would have otherwise not received treatment. The results suggest that examination of male partners of women with AV results in an increased yield of STD diagnoses.

Bacteria, Anaerobic↗

PubMed2002

Development of sexual partner preference in the zebra finch: a socially monogamous, pair-bonding animal.

Zebra finches are group living socially monogamous birds that pair for life. Partner preference is strongly sexually differentiated: males prefer to pair with females and females prefer to pair with males. Where do these preferences come from? What occurs during development that produces adult birds that pair with the opposite sex? There is surprisingly little animal research that addresses such questions, especially in species that form pair-bonds. Our research program focuses on two processes that may be involved in the development of adult sexual-partner preference: (1) early (possibly organizational) hormone actions and (2) social experience. Females treated with estradiol or fadrozole (an estrogen synthesis inhibitor) as nestlings or embryos showed masculinized sexual-partner preference as adults, preferring to pair with other females even when potential male partners were available. Removal of adult males from breeding cages, so that young birds were not exposed to males or to male-female pairs during development, eliminated sex-typical partner preferences; these birds were equally interested in both sexes and were more likely than controls to pair with a same-sex partner. These experiments provide insights into the development of sexual-partner preference that may be applicable to other group living pair-bonding animals with biparental care. They also contribute to the foundation of animal research that is necessary for a biological approach to understanding the pair-bonding component of human sexual orientation.

Animals↗

PubMed1995

Number of sexual partners, condom use and risk of human immunodeficiency virus infection.

BACKGROUND: To analyse the relation between number of sexual partners, selected sexual habits and the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study nested in a cross-sectional survey conducted among subjects attending sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinics in Northern Italy. Eligible for the study were 1711 subjects (1259 males, 452 females) who referred themselves for the first time between September 1988 and March 1993 to three STD clinics in Northern Italy for suspected STD or STD treatment. A total of 145 subjects (113 males and 32 females) were HIV positive. RESULTS: In comparison with subjects reporting no or one sexual partner over the 3 years before the interview, the estimated odds ratios (OR) of HIV serum positivity were 1.2 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.6-2.3), 0.8 (95% CI: 0.4-1.8) and 0.3 (95% CI: 0.4-2.5) in subjects reporting 2-3, 4-5, and > or = 6 partners, respectively. The results were similar considering separately males and females and in men reporting only homosexual partners. Regular condom use decreased the risk of HIV infection: in comparison with subjects reporting no or occasional use of condoms, the OR of HIV infection was 0.5 (95% CI: 0.4-0.8) for regular users. Considering men only, compared with men with no homosexual intercourse, the OR of HIV infection was 2.3 (95% CI: 1.4-3.9) in those reporting bisexual intercourse and 2.2 (95% CI: 1.2-4.2) in men reporting only homosexual intercourse (among homosexuals). There was no relation between HIV infection risk and receptive anal sex. CONCLUSIONS: The risk of HIV infection does not increase linearly with the number of sexual partners in this population. This is reasonable, as the prevalence of HIV infection in this population is essentially determined by drug use. Caution is needed in the interpretation of these results since the analysis of role of number of sexual partners in male intravenous drug users is impaired by low statistical power.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Sexual partners in a rural South African setting.

The study investigated sexual behaviors among 1573 rural South Africans in their early and late adolescents and young adults. The participants reported their number of sexual partners and behaviors related to sexual experience, including age of their first sexual experience, use of contraceptives, use of substances, and anal sex. The data from 630 adolescents with sexual experience (males: 362; females: 268) were analyzed to test three sequential models to predict the number of sexual partners from student characteristics (i.e., demographics, use of substances, sexual behaviors). Teenagers with early sexual experience and a history of substance-use tended to have multiple sexual partners, confirming the need for targeted HIV prevention interventions for young people in South Africa.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Same-sex sexual partner preference in hormonally and neurologically unmanipulated animals.

Proximate and ultimate biological theories for understanding sexual behavior predict that sexual dimorphism in sexual partner preference should be ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. A review of the literature found evidence for same-sex sexual partner preference in a small number of species (female pukekos, cows, domestic rams, female Uganda kobs, female Japanese macaques). Thus, theoretical predictions concerning the development and evolution of sexual partner preference appear to hold true except for a handful of exceptional species. Why individuals in some animal species exhibit same-sex sexual partner preference remains the object of debate. At a proximate level, domestic rams that exhibit same-sex sexual partner preference have been shown to differ in certain aspects of their neurobiology and physiology from rams that do not exhibit such a preference. It remains unclear, however, as to whether these differences are produced by sex-atypical perinatal exposure to androgens and their estrogenic metabolites. At an ultimate level, numerous functional hypotheses for same-sex sexual partner preference have been tested in female Japanese macaques but have failed to receive support. Understanding why same-sex sexual partner preference evolves in some species may involve abandoning a strictly functional perspective and, instead, approaching the issue from the perspective of each species' unique evolutionary history.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

Sexual partner preference requires a functional aromatase (cyp19) gene in male mice.

Sexual motivation, sexual partner preference, and sexual performance represent three different aspects of sexual behavior that are critical in determining the reproductive success of a species. Although the display of sexual behavior is under strict hormonal control in both sexes, the relative roles of androgen and estrogen receptors in activating the various components of male sexual behavior are still largely unknown. A recently developed mouse model that is deficient in estradiol due to targeted disruption of exons 1 and 2 of the Cyp19 gene (aromatase knockout (ArKO) mice) was used here to analyze the role of estradiol in the control of all three aspects of male sexual behavior. When tested in a Y-maze providing volatile olfactory cues, male ArKO mice did not show a preference for the odors from an estrous female over those from an intact male, whereas wild-type (WT) and heterozygous (HET) males clearly preferred to sniff estrous odors. When provided with visual and olfactory cues, male ArKO mice also failed to show a preference for an estrous female when given a choice between an estrous female and an empty arm. However, sexual partner preferences of male ArKO mice were not sex-reversed: they did not prefer to investigate an intact male over an estrous female or empty arm. Thus, male ArKO mice seemed to have general deficits in discriminating between conspecifics by using olfactory and visual cues. Male coital behavior was also severely impaired in male ArKO mice: they displayed significantly fewer mounts, intromissions, and ejaculations than WT and HET males. Latencies to first mount or intromission were also significantly longer in ArKO males compared to WT and HET males, in addition to them showing less interest in investigating olfactory and visual cues in a Y-maze, suggesting that they were sexually less motivated. However, three out of seven male ArKO mice were capable of siring litters provided they were housed with a female for a prolonged period of time. In conclusion, aromatization of testosterone to estradiol appears to be essential for sexual motivation and sexual partner preference. By contrast, estradiol may play only a limited role in the expression of male coital behaviors.

Animals↗

PubMed1992

Women with multiple sexual partners: united states, 1988.

Women who have multiple sexual partners in a short time period are appropriate targets for sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention. We analyzed survey data collected in 1988 from a nationally representative sample of 8450 American women aged 15 to 44 to identify markers of such behavior. Among sexually active persons, 0.4% of married women and 8.4% of unmarried women had two or more sexual partners in the 3 months preceding the interview; unmarried marital status, early age at first sexual intercourse, lack of religious affiliation, and young age were associated with this behavior. All except young age were predictive after multivariate analysis. Such factors may help define women at elevated STD risk and allow better targeting of STD prevention.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Adolescent females with a substance use disorder: affiliations with adult male sexual partners.

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that low socioeconomic status (SES), a disturbed parent-daughter relationship, early sexual development, and antisocial behavior are risk factors in adolescent females affiliating with adult male sexual partners. To determine whether the relation between these risk factors and affiliating with adult male sexual partners is stronger in females with greater, rather than fewer, substance use disorders (SUD). METHOD: Subjects were 180 adolescent females with SUD and 87 normal controls (14-18 years of age). RESULTS: The SUD group had a lower SES and more negative parent-daughter interactions, and exhibited greater antisocial tendencies. Also, the SUD group showed a more frequent affiliation with adult male sexual partners. Chronological age, age of menarche (sexual development), antisocial behavior, and quality of the parent-daughter relationship were significantly associated with affiliation with adult male sexual partners. Moreover, the number of SUD diagnoses enhanced the relation between the quality of the parent-daughter relationship and antisocial behavior with affiliation with adult male sexual partners. CONCLUSIONS: From a prevention perspective, interventions directed at enhancing child rearing practices, communication skills, and involvement in children's needs and activities might result in improved parent-child attachments that may attentuate young women's propensities to become involved in antisocial behavior and affiliate with adult sexual partners. Also, the risk imposed by an early sexual maturation may be offset by enhancing the female adolescent's social skills to select non-deviant and supportive male partners.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Intimate partner sexual abuse among women on methadone.

This article reports findings on the prevalence and correlates of intimate partner sexual abuse (using the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale) among a sample of women in methadone treatment in New York City. Results indicate that, during the course of the intimate relationship, approximately 15% of women had experienced intimate partner sexual assault and 47% were sexually assaulted and/or coerced. Nine percent had experienced intimate partner sexual assault and 38% intimate partner sexual coercion in the past year of the relationship. Bivariate analyses revealed that women who were sexually abused in the 12 months prior to the interview tended also to be physically abused by intimate partners. Women who were unemployed, poor, crack-cocaine or injecting-drug users, and were physically and/or sexually abused as children, were at increased risk of experiencing intimate partner sexual abuse in adulthood. In multivariate models, only extreme poverty and sexual abuse in childhood emerged as risk factors for intimate partner sexual abuse in adulthood.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

He said, she said: concordance between sexual partners.

BACKGROUND: Most studies of sexual behavior and risk are based on self-reports of individuals. GOAL: The goal of this study was to assess interpartner concordance on self-reported sexual behavior, condom use, and relationship characteristics; and agreement between individuals' perceptions of their partners' sexual risks and the partners' actual reports. STUDY DESIGN: Interviews were conducted separately but concurrently with 112 heterosexual couples at increased risk for HIV/sexually transmitted infections recruited through women at clinics and community locations. RESULTS: Couples were concordant on reports of relationship characteristics (kappa > or = 0.84), sexual behavior, and condom use (r > or = 0.62), but disagreed on who has more power and sexual decision-making dominance (kappa < or = 0.26). We found substantial agreement between men's perceptions and their partners' reported risky behavior (kappa = 0.62), but only fair agreement between women's perceptions and their partners' reports (kappa = 0.30). CONCLUSION: Individual self-reports could be reliable measures of sexual behavior. Additionally, prevention interventions need to address women's misperceptions about their partners' risky behaviors.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Family and friend closeness to adolescent sexual partners in relationship to condom use.

PURPOSE: The role of closeness of sexual partners to family and friends (i.e., how well the participant's family and friends knew their primary sexual partner) to a variety of relationship and sexual behavior measures was explored. METHODS: A sample of 151 adolescent females (aged 14-17 years) was assessed. Areas assessed include family and friend closeness, relationship intimacy, length of sexual relationship, and condom use. RESULTS: Bivariate correlations indicated that the integration of the sexual partner into the family and friend networks was related to greater relationship intimacy. Lowered condom use was related to a number of measures, including increased relationship intimacy and increased family closeness. A path analysis was conducted to assess for direct and indirect effects of family closeness, friend closeness, relationship length, and relationship intimacy on condom use. Social network closeness in family and friend networks was implicated in lowered condom use through higher relationship intimacy within adolescent dyads. CONCLUSIONS: Social network theory is useful in understanding adolescent health-related behavior. In particular, the integration of adolescent sexual partners into both family and friend networks is related to the expression of adolescent sexual behavior.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1993

Number of sexual partners and age at first intercourse in subsequent generations of Italian males and females.

Trends in the number of sexual partners and in age at first intercourse were analyzed using data on 706 men and 1206 women drawn from the hospital control groups of two case-control studies conducted since 1981 in Northern Italy. The overall lifelong mean number of sexual partners was 7.5 +/- 12.8 for men and 1.4 +/- 1.8 for females. The mean number of sexual partners was 6.0 for men born between 1910 and 1919, and 7.3, 9.0, 6.3 and 5.5 for subsequent 10 year birth cohorts. Mean age at first intercourse was 20.7 for the cohort born in 1910-19 and was fairly stable in men born after 1919, ranging from 18.4 to 18.8. Women had a substantially lower number of sexual partners than men in each subsequent birth cohort. However, the mean number of sexual partners increased from 1.1 in the 1910-19 cohort to 1.2, 1.2, 1.4 and 2.3 in subsequent birth cohorts, and the mean age at first intercourse decreased from 23.6 years to 23.1, 22.7, 21.3 and 19.7. These figures should be considered with caution, on account of the non-representativeness of the sample and of a possible under-reporting of number of partners by women. Still, Italian women, although not necessarily men, report substantially fewer sexual partners than northern European on American ones.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Hormonal influences on sexual partner preference in rams.

Domestic rams display a naturally occurring variation in sexual partner preference, such that 6-10% of range-bred populations prefer male sexual partners (male-oriented) in contrast to the majority of rams that prefer female sexual partners (female-oriented). Male-oriented rams exhibit hormone profiles and stress responses distinctly different from their heterosexual counterparts. These differences include reduced circulating levels of testosterone that arise after anesthetization. Lower levels of aromatase activity in the medial preoptic area and estrogen receptor in the amygdala were also measured in male-oriented versus female-oriented rams and may represent an important link to sexual behavior that should be investigated. It is anticipated that the male-oriented ram model will be useful for studies aimed at identifying both the activational and organizational components and the neuronal substrates of male sexual partner preferences.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Choice of sexual partner according to rate of partner change and social class of the partners.

Models for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, rely on sexual partner mixing patterns in the population. From data acquired through partner notification for infection with Chlamydia trachomatis among young people in Gothenburg, Sweden, it was possible to construct contact matrices for the variables 'rate of partner change' and 'social class' of the partners in pair formations. These matrices show a restricted mixing between these two variables for young heterosexual women. Therefore random mixing models will probably overestimate rate of spread and possibly final size of an epidemic of a sexually transmitted disease.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Lifetime prevalence of suicide symptoms and affective disorders among men reporting same-sex sexual partners: results from NHANES III.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined lifetime prevalence of suicide symptoms and affective disorders among men reporting a history of same-sex sexual partners. METHODS: In the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, men aged 17 to 39 years were assessed for lifetime history of affective disorders and sexual behavior patterns. The study classified this subset of men into 3 groups: those reporting same-sex sexual partners, those reporting only female sexual partners, and those reporting no sexual partners. Groups were compared for histories of suicide symptoms and affective disorders. RESULTS: A total of 2.2% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.3%, 3.1%) of men reported same-sex sexual partners. These men evidenced greater lifetime prevalence rates of suicide symptoms than men reporting only female partners. However, homosexually/bisexually experienced men were no more likely than exclusively heterosexual men to meet criteria for lifetime diagnosis of other affective disorders. CONCLUSIONS: These data provide further evidence of an increased risk for suicide symptoms among homosexually experienced men. Results also hint at a small, increased risk of recurrent depression among gay men, with symptom onset occurring, on average, during early adolescence.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Acute self-limiting hepatitis C after possible sexual exposure: sequence analysis of the E-2 region of the infected patient and sexual partner.

We describe a case of symptomatic acute infection with HCV in a woman whose sexual partner had chronic hepatitis C. The patient cleared HCV RNA 8 weeks after the onset of acute hepatitis and was found to be persistently HCV-RNA negative during 90 weeks of follow-up. Part of the E-2 region of HCV was directly sequenced in the patient and her sexual partner. Four local controls with subtype-1a infection and 9 1a isolates obtained from GenBank were analyzed. The average nucleotide divergence between the sequences of the infected patient and her sexual partner was 5.1%, compared with an average nucleotide divergence of 19.4% (range 16.6-21.8%) between the sequences of the patient and those of controls. Comparison of the phylogenetic trees in the partial E-2 region showed that the sequence of the patient was closely related to that of her sexual partner. Our findings suggest that the infection was transmitted to the patient from her sexual partner. The resolution of acute hepatitis C in this case was probably related to the host rather than to intrinsic characteristics of the HCV genome.

Acute Disease↗

PubMed1994

Human papillomavirus infection and its relationship to recent and distant sexual partners.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the relation between the detection of genital human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA and the number of new sexual partners in the last year, 1-5 years, and 5-10 years. METHODS: In a cross-sectional study, 298 women collected tampon specimens and completed self-answer questionnaires on the known risk factors for HPV infection, including the number of sexual partners during the last 1, 5, and 10 years. The tampons were analyzed for the presence of HPV DNA by polymerase chain reaction using L1 consensus primers. RESULTS: Ninety-two (30.9%) tampons were positive for HPV DNA. In univariate analysis, the presence of HPV DNA was associated with a younger age, single marital status, a previously abnormal or currently abnormal Papanicolaou smear, and one or more new sexual partners in the last year, 1-5 years, and 5-10 years. The presence of HPV DNA was not associated with education level, past pregnancy, current or past oral contraceptive use, or the age at first intercourse. In multivariate analysis, only the number of sexual partners during the last year and 1-5 years, and a previously abnormal Papanicolaou smear were associated with HPV. CONCLUSION: The presence of HPV DNA is best predicted by the number of new sexual partners in the last 5 years. Transiently detectable HPV DNA is one possible explanation for this observation.

Adolescent↗