Sexual Arousal-Delay Discounting: When Condoms Delay Arousal

ABSTRACT

Sexual arousal plays an important role in condom use decisions. However, combined effects of reduced sexual arousal and delay to achieving arousal on condom use decisions remain understudied. This study used a novel sexual arousal-delay discounting (SADD) task to measure individuals’ willingness to use a condom in situations where condom use would (1) delay time to arousal and (2) reduce the level of arousal one could achieve even after the delay (e.g., 5 minutes to reach 50% arousal). In Study 1, U.S. college students (N = 115; M_age = 18.6) reported their willingness to have sex with a condom in hypothetical scenarios where the condom delayed and reduced their partner’s sexual arousal. In Study 2, U.S. college students (N = 208; M_age = 19.6; 99% ≤ 24 years old) completed the same task for two partners–partner perceived as most desirable and partner perceived as least likely to have an STI. In this study, a condom would affect either participants’ own or partner’s arousal. Study 3 replicated Study 2 using a non-college sample in the U.S. (N = 227; M_age = 30.5; 84% ≥ 25 years old). Across studies, willingness to use a condom decreased as the delay to reduced arousal increased. This effect of SADD was stronger when condoms reduced participants’ own (vs. partner’s) arousal, whereas comparisons between most desirable and least likely-to-have-STI partners provided mixed findings. Men had higher discounting rates than women across conditions. Greater SADD was associated with lower condom use self-efficacy, providing initial evidence for the task’s validity. The role of delayed arousal in condom use and implications are discussed.

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. David J. Cox for his advice and suggestions throughout the project. We thank Dr. Gregory D. Webster for his mentorship and supervision.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2023.2239216.

Notes

¹ In some cases, (from less than 1% to 6% of the sample in the three studies), the willingness to use a condom rating (raw value) in the no-delay item was not the highest value, which resulted in AUC higher than 1.0. To keep AUC at or below 1.0, in most cases, we divided all raw values by the highest value within the same trial (Wongsomboon & Cox, 2021). We capped the AUC to 1.0 if (a) all raw values were single digit numbers (i.e., less than 10), (b) the highest value was in the longest or second longest delay item, and (c) all values were the same or almost the same (difference ≤ 5) across delay items (Gebru et al., 2022; Johnson et al., 2021).

² For the most desirable partner, at no delay, zero willingness to use a condom was reported by 7 participants in the 100% arousal, 6 participants in the 50% arousal, and 16 participants in the 10% arousal condition. For the partner least likely to have an STI, at no delay, zero willingness to use a condom was reported by 3 participants in the 100% arousal, 4 participants in the 50% arousal, and 17 participants in the 10% arousal condition.

³ For the most-desirable partner condition, n = 7 in the 100% arousal, n = 7 in the 50% arousal, and n = 25 in the 10% arousal trials reported zero willingness to use condoms at baseline. For the least-STI partner condition, n = 1 in the 100% arousal, n = 11 in the 50% arousal, and n = 30 in the 10% arousal trials reported zero willingness to use condoms at baseline.

Additional information

Funding

Dr. Gebru's time was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [T32 AA07459].