Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have linked the clinical diagnosis of alcohol dependence and conduct disorder among 18 - 25 year olds with having a high number of sex partners, according to a study published in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Stating the obvious, first author Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, Ph.D., research instructor at the Washington University Department of Psychiatry said:

Some participants in the study reported 50 or 100 partners, and research shows — and common sense tells you — that the more sex partners you have, the more likely you’ll encounter someone with an STD, chances also increase for unintended pregnancies and other health complications.

Alcohol dependence was defined as an excessive use of alcohol, harmful to physical and mental health; Similar to binge drinking commonly found in adolescents and young adults. While Conduct disorder was classed as a disruptive disorder, like ADHD or oppositional defiant disorder.

Cavazos-Rehg said:

To my knowledge, most research in young adults has used a standard of ‘up to six’ sex partners when examining risk. But the average number of partners for the people in this study was 9.26.

So, the academics quickly revised their experimental definition of “high risk” upwards to ten partners, and unsurprisingly, they discovered a link between alcohol and sex. Reporting that, of people in the study who the researchers had classed as alcohol dependent, 45% reported having 10 or more sexual partners, and additionally, 37% of people with a conduct disorder diagnosis had at least 10 partners.

The researchers also conducted personal interviews with 601 unmarried people, all 18 to 25 years old, who were related to alcohol-dependent individuals that participated in the national Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA), an ongoing project involving interviews and DNA samples from more than 10,000 individuals.

Dr. Cavazos-Rehg, continuing to point out the blatantly obvious (and now revealing a somewhat puritanical anti-sex stance) said:

We categorized these subjects according to three levels of alcohol involvement — non-dependent, problem drinking and alcohol dependent — and demonstrated how a stepwise increase from non-dependence to problematic alcohol use to alcohol dependence is associated with a higher number of sexual partners, we found that 22 percent of the non-dependent people had 10 or more partners, compared to 31 percent of problem drinkers and 45 percent of those who were alcohol dependent.

We also found a risk [?] for a high number of sexual partners among persons with conduct disorder, independent of their level of alcohol involvement. In addition, individuals with co-occurring alcohol dependence and conduct disorder are at even greater risk [??] of multiple sex partnerships.

Unfortunately, the rather too strait-laced researchers seem to have forgotten that many people actually enjoy sex, and thus their results seem to imply that for someone looking to increase their “risk” of having more sex, they should drink more alcoholic beverages, and try to develop a conduct disorder.

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Posted by Jonathan in Psychology, Sociology