Recalled Childhood Separation Anxiety Differs by Anal Sex Role among Gay Men

ABSTRACT

Male androphilia (i.e., male sexual attraction to adult males) is considered an evolutionary paradox because it is partially influenced by genes and associated with decreased reproduction. Traits associated with attachment to genetic relatives (i.e., kin) could prompt increased kin-directed altruism, thereby offsetting decreased reproduction by helping kin reproduce. These traits include childhood separation anxiety and adulthood neuroticism, which have been associated with feminine gender expression. In prior research, gay men with a receptive (Bottom or Versatile) anal sex role (ASR) reported greater childhood gender nonconformity (GNC) than those with an insertive (Top) ASR. We examined whether ASR groups also differed on recalled childhood separation anxiety and adulthood neuroticism. The Separation Anxiety Scale-Revised and Big-Five Personality Inventory - short form were completed by 350 gay and 146 heterosexual men. For neuroticism, ASR preference groups differed from heterosexual men but not from one another. Gay men who preferred a Bottom or Versatile ASR reported higher recalled childhood separation anxiety than Tops and heterosexual men. Recalled childhood GNC mediated ASR group differences with heterosexual men on childhood separation anxiety. These results indicate that subgroups of gay men delineated by ASR differ on an evolutionarily relevant developmental trait, childhood separation anxiety.

Acknowledgments

We thank all our volunteers who assisted in participant recruitment at the Toronto Pride Festival (Mary Loka, Lindsay Melhuish, Phil Nguyen, Lauren Oakley, Martha Pokarowski, Firyal Ramzan, Anna Takagi, and Robert Wither).

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Data Availability Statement

Data are available upon reasonable request.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ The effect sizes range from d= 0.19– 0.61, with comparisons of more gender-nonconforming androphilic males and heterosexual men making up the larger of the effect sizes reported in the literature: d = 0.61 for muxe gunaa versus d= 0.31 for muxe nguiiu compared with gynephilic men of Istmo Zapotec (Gómez et al., 2017); similarly, d= .41 for fa’afafine vs gynephilic men of Samoa (Vasey et al., 2011), whereas in Western cultures, where all gay men are grouped together and compared to heterosexual men, d= 0.19– 0.3 (VanderLaan et al., 2011a, 2015).

² The recent meta-analysis (Allen & Robson, 2020) estimates the effect size for neuroticism between heterosexual and gay men as d= .41; however, the range reported is d= −.40 to +1.05.

³ Marušić and Bratko (1998) reported a negative correlation between a measure of masculinity (i.e., Bem’s Sex Role Inventory) and neuroticism among heterosexual males, r= −.37, and among heterosexual females, r= −.27. Lippa (2010) found a negative correlation between neuroticism and male-versus-female-typical occupational preferences, r= −.48, in a large sample of predominantly heterosexual males and females. Lippa (2008) reported a positive correlation for neurotic traits (“anxious and easily upset”) with childhood GNC in heterosexual men, r= .16, and gay men, r = .22, and a negative correlation for ratings of “calm and emotionally stable” with childhood GNC in heterosexual men, r= −.17, and gay men, r= −.15.

⁴ For example, (Swift-Gallant et al., 2018) reported the effect size on an adulthood measure of GNC between ASR Tops and Bottoms, d= 0.47, and on a recalled childhood measure, d= 0.43 (see Del Giudice, 2015, for estimates of overlap in relation to effect size).

⁵ In a Western sample, Moskowitz and Hart (2011) reported 29.1% of gay men identified their anal sex role as Bottom, 47.6% as Versatile, and 23.3% as Top. In a sample from China, Zheng et al. (2012) reported 34.5% of gay men identified their anal sex role as Bottom, 37.3% as Versatile, and 27.2% as Top.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship and a doctoral Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship to ASG, as well as by NSERC Discovery Grants to ASG [RGPIN-2019-04999]; DAM [RGPIN-2016-06302] and DPV [RGPIN-2016-06446].