Online Sexual Activity

Krystelle Shaughnessy and I have an on-going program of research  investigating online sexual activity (OSA). We suggest that OSAs fall into three categories of activities: non-arousal (e.g., seeking sexual information online), solitary-arousal (e.g., viewing sexually explicit pictures/videos online), and partnered-arousal (e.g., exchanging sexually explicit scenarios via email or instant messenger). The latter two categories are types of arousal-oriented OSA. We also have argued that cybersex is a subcategory of partnered-arousal OSA (see Shaughnessy & Byers, 2013). This division of OSA allows us to examine online sexual experiences within the framework of gender socialization.

In our first study, we found that a similar number of men and women reported non-arousal OSA experience and at a similar frequency (Shaughnessy, Byers, & Walsh, 2011). However, more men than women reported experience with solitary-arousal OSA and partnered-arousal OSA. These results are in keeping with the traditional sexual script that encourages sexual expression for men. We also found that men's more positive attitudes toward OSA but not their sexual attitudes in general partially accounted for their more frequent arousal-oriented OSA experiences. These findings suggest that men's more frequent arousal-oriented OSA experience is not related to differential gender sexual socialization. 

In  follow-up studies, we assessed  the attitudes toward, experiences with, and outcomes from a wide variety of OSAs of both university students and  community participants. The results of these studies are in various stages of publication. Almost all respondents reported  at least one non-arousal OSA. Most also reported experience with solitary- and partnered-arousal OSA. More sexual minority than heterosexual men and women reported that they had engaged in these activities. However, all participants reported  doing so fairly infrequently in the previous three months. Additionally, all groups reported  very few, if any, negative outcomes, and few positive outcomes from these activities (Shaughnessy, Byers, Clowater, & Kalinowsky, 2013).  In terms of attitudes, partcipants reported relatively neutral attitudes to all types of OSAs, although their attitudes toward non-arousal OSAs were somewhat more positive. Men reported significantly more positive attitudes for solitary-arousal OSA than did women. Overall, these findings suggest that although recreational OSA is common, users are relatively neutral in their evaluation of these activities and in their perceptions of their impact.  Additionally, the findings provide additional support for the distinction between non-arousal and arousal-oriented OSAs. 

Krystelle's dissertation reserach was focused on mixed-sex cybersex.  In a series of studies, she developed empirically supported conceptual and operational definitions of cybersex (Shuaghnessy & Byers, 2013). She then used these definitions to examine men's and women's cybersex experiences with three types of partners. The first study revealed that cybersex is a subgroup of partnered-arousal OSA and that  people vary in the behaviours that they include in their definitions of cybersex. In the second study, she found that people who engage in cybersex only with their primary partner were less likely to label their experience as cybersex than wer people who engaged in these activities with a non-partner. In a third study using people who reported at least one cybersex experience, she found that the prevalence, frequency , and desired freqeuncy of cybersex was greatest for a primary romantic partner followed by someone known who was not a partner, and finally by a stranger.  In fact, over 80% of men and women reported cybersex experience with their primary partner. Moreover, consistent with the traditional sexual script, men and women differed in their cybersex experience outside of a romantic relationship but not with a romantic partner. Within the context of this research, we also collected data on sexual minority individuals'' cybersex experiences as well as on people's motivations for engaging in cybersex.

We also are in th process of examining results from a multi-national project on OSA with Nicola Doering of the Ilmenau University of Technology in Germany, Kristian Daneback of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and Christian Grov of Brooklyn College. We have one publication based on these data.

The following  publications are based on this work:

Doring, N., Daneback, K., Shaughnessy, K., Grov, C., & Byers, E. S. (in press). Online sexual activity experiences among college students: A four-country comparison. Archives of Sexual Behavior.

Byers, E. S., & Shaughnessy, K. (2014). Attitudes toward online sexual activities. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 8(1),  http://cyberpsychology.eu/view.php?cisloclanku=2014030603&article=10

Shaughnessy, K., & Byers, E. S. (2014). Contextualizing cybersex experience: Heterosexually identified men and women's desire for and experience with cybersex with three types of partners.  Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 178-185. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.005 

Shaughnessy, K., Byers, E. S., Clowater, S.L., & Kalinowski, A. (2014). Outcomes of arousal-oriented online sexual activities: Perspectives of college, community, and sexual minority samples. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43, 1187-1197. doi: 10.1007/s10508-013-0115-z

Shaughnessy, K., & Byers, E. S. (2013). Seeing the forest through the trees: Using cybersex as a case study of single versus multi-item measures of sexual behaviour. Canadian Journal of Behaviour Science. 45, 220 – 229. doi: 10.1037/a0031331

Shaughnessy, K.,  Byers, E. S ., & Thornton, S. J. (2011). What is cybersex?: Heterosexual students definitions. International Journal of Sexual Health, 23, 79-89. doi: 10.1080/19317611.2010.546945

Shaughnessy, K., Byers, E. S., & Walsh, L. (2011) Online sexual activity experience in heterosexual students: Gendere similarities and differences. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40, 419-427. doi: 10.1016/10.1007/s10508-010-9629-9