Karen Griffee

Sister-brother Incest: Data from Anonymous Computer Assisted Self Interviews

Retrospective data were entered anonymously by 1,178 adult men using computer-assisted self-interview. Twenty-seven were victims of sister-brother incest (SBI), 119 were victims of child sexual abuse by an adult female (CSA-AF) before 18 years of age, 1,032 were controls. SBI was often the first sexual experience for the victim. Our findings were consistent with other reports of early and persistent hyper-eroticization of incest victims. SBI increased the likelihood of engaging in behaviors as an adult consistent with a co-existing or primary male-male sexual orientation, and SBI and CSA-AF had deleterious impacts on adult mens sexual adjustment with their adult partners.

Human Sexual Development is Subject to Critical Period Learning: Implications for Sexual Addiction, Sexual Therapy, and for Child Rearing

A novel orientation-neutral Hypersexuality and Risky Sexual Behaviors Scale provided evidence consistent with the idea that both sexual addiction and a low interest in sex as an adult have their origins during childhood and adolescence. Adult interest in sex and the likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behaviors tended to be increased if participants first experiences with masturbation and partner sex had occurred early in life. Conversely, adult interest in sex tended to be lowest when neither masturbation nor sex with a partner had occurred prior to 18 years of age. Both findings were consistent with critical period learning.

Human Sexual Development is Subject to Critical-Period Learning: Paradigm-Shifting Implications for Sexual Therapy and for Child-Rearing

ABSTRACT. Objectives: Our study was designed to study the origins of the variation in sexual interest in normal adult human beings. Methods: Retrospective data were entered anonymously by 2,201 female participants and 1,242 male participants using computer-assisted self-interview. Results: In both sexes, participants who began sexual behaviors before age 13 had the highest interest in sex as adults as measured by frequencies of masturbation and partner sex. Our findings were consistent with learning to function sexually being subject to critical-period learning. Conclusions: Critical-period learning provided a theoretical basis for understanding variation in interest in sex among adult individuals of both sexes. These results have implications for understanding the origins of hypoactive sexual desire, and they also have implications for child-rearing practices.

Brother-brother Incest: Data from an Anonymous Computerized Survey

Retrospective data were entered anonymously by 1,178 adult men using computer-assisted self-interview. Twenty-five were victims of brother-brother incest (BBI), 26 were victims of child sexual abuse by an adult male (CSA-AM) before 18 years of age, 1,127 were controls. BBI was often the first sexual experience for the victim. Our findings were consistent with other reports of early and persistent hyper-eroticization of incest victims. BBI and CSA-AM increased the likelihood of engaging in behaviors as an adult consistent with a co-existing or primary male-male sexual orientation, and both had deleterious impacts on adult mens sexual adjustment with their adult partners.

Sister-sister incest: data from an anonymous computerized survey

Retrospective data were entered anonymously by 1,521 adult women using a computer-assisted self-interview. Thirty-one participants were victims of sister–sister incest, 40 were victims of brother–sister incest, 19 were victims of father–daughter incest, 8 were victims of sexual abuse by an adult female (including one mother), and 232 were victims of sexual abuse by an adult male other than their father before reaching 18 years of age. The rest (1,203) served as controls. The victims of sister–sister incest had significantly more problematic outcomes than controls on many measures as adults. Victims of sister–sister incest were more depressed and more likely than controls to be distant from the perpetrator-sister and to have traded sex for money, experienced an unplanned pregnancy, engaged in four different types of masturbation, and engaged in 13 different same-sex behaviors. Our findings were consistent with other reports of early eroticization and persistent hypereroticization of incest victims.

Etiological Risk Factors for Sibling Incest Data From an Anonymous Computer-Assisted Self-Interview

Retrospective data from 1,821 women and 1,064 men with one or more siblings, provided anonymously using a computer-assisted self-interview, were used to identify risk factors for sibling incest (SI); 137 were participants in SI. In order of decreasing predictive power, the risk factors identified by the multiple logistic regression analysis included ever having shared a bed for sleeping with a sibling, parent–child incest (PCI), family nudity, low levels of maternal affection, and ever having shared a tub bath with a sibling. The results were consistent with the idea that SI in many families was the cumulative result of four types of parental behaviors: (a) factors that lower external barriers to sexual behavior (e.g., permitting co-sleeping or co-bathing of sibling dyads), (b) factors that encourage nudity of children within the nuclear family and permit children to see the parent’s genitals, (c) factors that lead to the siblings relying on one another for affection (e.g., diminished maternal affection), and (d) factors that eroticize young children (e.g., child sexual abuse [CSA] by a parent). Thirty-eight of the 137 SI participants were participants in coerced sibling incest (CSI). In order of decreasing predictive power, risk factors for CSI identified by multiple logistic regression analysis included ever having shared a bed for sleeping with a brother, PCI, witnessing parental physical fighting, and family nudity. SI was more likely to have been reported as CSI if the sibling had touched the reporting sibling’s genitals, and less likely to have been reported as CSI if the siblings had shared a bed.

Childhood and adolescent sexual behaviors predict adult sexual orientations

Abstract Anonymous retrospective data were provided by 3,443 adult participants via computer-assisted self-interview. This was the first study focused on determinants of adult sexual orientation to adjust for the effects of same-sex sibling incest. Five measures of adult sexual orientations (ASOs) provided evidence consistent with the theory that ASOs result from early sex-specific romantic attachment, conditioning caused by early sexual experiences with partners, and other experiences, such as early masturbation using human images, acting synergistically with critical period learning, and sexual imprinting. Early same-sex crushes were the most powerful predictor of ASOs, and they also increased the likelihood of engaging in early same-sex partnered and masturbation behaviors. Incestuous experiences with same-sex siblings affected the ASOs of the incest participants. And, lesbian, gay, and bisexual participants tended to have an earlier onset of puberty than heterosexual controls within sexes. However, statistical analyses showed that the incest and puberty effects were mathematically explained by the participant’s early sexual experiences with partners and other experiences such as masturbation using human images. Early same-sex crushes were predicted by nuclear family variables implying that same-sex crushes were more likely when the opposite-sex parent modeled an unsatisfactory heterosexual romantic partner.

Genital Piercing: Childhood and Adolescent Behaviors That Serve as Predictors and Scores on Scales Measuring Hypersexuality and Risky Sexual Behavior, Sexual Orientation, Depression, Conflict, Intimacy, and Sexual Satisfaction

ABSTRACT Groups of 62 women and 25 men with genital piercings were compared to same-sex controls without genital piercing (2,549 women and 1,427 men, respectively) on measures of sexual orientation, intimacy, conflict, sexual satisfaction, depression, numbers of sexual partners, and numbers of times they engaged in sexual behaviors with female and male partners as adults. As adults, both women and men with genital piercings scored higher on the measures of same-sex orientation, hypersexuality, and risky sexual behavior and had more adult male partners and same-sex partners than controls. Women with genital piercings were more likely than controls to endorse being sexually addicted.

Exhibitionism and Sex with Underage Males in Adult Women

Abstract Data from 2,607 female participants in an anonymous computerized study were entered by the participants themselves: 276 (10.6%) had exposed themselves in public, 134 (5.1%) reported having urges to expose themselves in public, 153 (5.9%) had engaged in some sort of sex with underage males, and 100 (2.4%) reported they had sexual intercourse with underage males. As predicted by conditioning, modeling, and critical period learning theories, exposure to nudity within the nuclear family and partnered early sexual experimentation involving breast or genital exposure significantly increased the likelihood of participants exposing themselves in public and having such urges.

Conditioning by Orgasm Produced by Heterosexual Oral Sex during the Critical Period

ABSTRACT Data from 965 female and 661 male study participants were used to evaluate the effect of an orgasm experienced during oral sex prior to the age of 18. Both men and women who had experienced an orgasm before 18 were significantly more likely (than controls) to have experienced an orgasm during oral sex after the age of 18 after adjustment for innate differences in individuals ability to reach orgasm during oral sex. Women who had experienced an orgasm before 18 were significantly more likely to report that oral sex was the easiest way to reach orgasm as an adult.