Sex with partners met online: risky sexual behavior among bachelors in rural China

ABSTRACT

In the context of gender imbalance and marriage squeeze in China, this study identifies socio-demographic characteristics of bachelors who reported having sex with partners whom they met online and examines associations between having sex with such partners and other risky sexual behaviors. Data are from a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2017. 735 men who have rural household registration (hukou, in Chinese), and who were at least 28 years old and unmarried were interviewed. 16.5% of the sample had experienced sexual intercourse with a partner met online. After adjustment for socio-demographic characteristics, having sex with such partners was associated with a range of risky sexual behaviors: unsafe sexual intercourse (such as anal sex, group sex, not using a condom) (adjusted OR (aOR) = 5.11, 3.14–8.33, p < 0.001); commercial sex (aOR = 4.42, 2.78–7.02, p < 0.001); having sex in public places (aOR = 3.11, 1.97–4.91, p < 0.001); and multiple sexual partners (> = 6 partners) (aOR = 12.57, 6.55–24.12, p < 0.001). This suggests that bachelors who had sexual intercourse with partners whom they met online are at higher risk for HIV or other STD infections. Future interventions targeted at this population will improve the efficiency of China’s HIV/STD prevention.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet
• risky sexual behaviors
• sexually transmitted diseases
• bachelors
• China

Acknowledgement

We thank Professor Qunying Xiao for developing the survey software and Dr. Huanying Gou for data collection. We also thank Dr. Toluariyo for improving an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [number 71573202].