“GWM Looking for Sex—SERIOUS ONLY”: The Interplay of Sexual Ad Placement Frequency and Success on the Sexual Health of “Men Seeking Men” on Craigslist

Abstract

Over the past few years, researchers have begun to explore the use of the personals section on Craigslist.org as it applies to the sexual behaviors and partner accrual of men who have sex with men (MSM). Yet, the exact ramifications of such a free sexual advertisement service on MSM's sexual health and sexual risk-taking behaviors are just being documented. As such, we surveyed 535 men by responding to their sexual ads placed on Craigslist.org to assess their sexual health and sexual health behaviors. Using Self-Efficacy Theory as our foundation, we posited that MSM who placed more ads and reported more success from these ads would also report more negative health behaviors (e.g., lowered condom use) and sexually transmitted diseases. Testing confirmed this hypothesis. This study has two important implications. (1) The behavior of Internet cruising, on its own, insufficiently impacted MSM health. It was the interaction of number of ads (self-efficacy) and the success of those ads (outcome-efficacy) that ultimately contributed to negative health behaviors. (2) MSM may have had different intentions for cruising. The anti-theoretical tendency for some men to continually place high numbers of ads while also reporting very low success suggested that the outcome of merely placing the ads might be sufficiently erotic for some men.

KEYWORDS:

• Craigslist
• MSM
• self-efficacy
• outcome-efficacy
• Internet cruising
• condom use

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

Preparation of this article was supported, in part, by center grant P30-MH52776 from the National Institute of Mental Health (PI: J. A. Kelly) and by NRSA postdoctoral training grant T32-MH19985 (PI: S. Pinkerton).