College students may be more obsessed with self-esteem than sex. Is this good news, or bad?
“College students love sex, they love to eat – any place there is free food, they are there,” [lead study researcher Brad] Bushman told LiveScience … “And yet they love self-esteem more.”
Is a predilection for promiscuity written into a girl’s DNA? A story at Live Science – “Like to Sleep Around? Blame Your Genes” – suggests the answer is ‘yes’.
A particular version of a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4 is linked to people’s tendency toward both infidelity and uncommitted one-night stands, the researchers reported Nov. 30 in the online open-access journal PloS One.
The same gene has already been linked to alcoholism and gambling addiction, as well as less destructive thrills like a love of horror films. One study linked the gene to an openness to new social situations, which in turn correlated with political liberalism.
In the new study, researchers gathered a detailed history of sexual behavior and relationships from 181 young adults. They also collected DNA samples from the volunteers’ cheeks and analyzed the samples for the presence of the thrill-seeking version of DRD4.
“What we found was that individuals with a certain variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to have a history of uncommitted sex, including one-night stands and acts of infidelity,” study researcher Justin Garcia, a postdoctoral fellow at Binghamton University, State University of New York, said in a statement.
“The motivation seems to stem from a system of pleasure and reward, which is where the release of dopamine comes in,” Garcia said. “In cases of uncommitted sex, the risks are high, the rewards substantial and the motivation variable — all elements that ensure a dopamine ‘rush.’”People with the thrill-seeking gene variant were about twice as likely to report a history of one-night stands as those without the gene variant. Half of those with a love of risk imprinted in their DNA reported committing infidelity in the past, compared with 22 percent of those without the variant.
“The study doesn’t let transgressors off the hook,” said Garcia. “These relationships are associative, which means that not everyone with this genotype will have one-night stands or commit infidelity. Indeed, many people without this genotype still have one-night stands and commit infidelity. The study merely suggests that a much higher proportion of those with this genetic type are likely to engage in these behaviors.”
This raises some interesting questions. If alcohol and gambling are defined addictions, does this DNA correlation suggest that hooking-up should also be defined as an addiction? And if a predilection for infidelity can be screened by a DNA test, could a DNA test become a standard for the smart bride and groom’s pre-marital tests?
The Week had a thoughtful article recently on love in the time of hooking up (full article posted here and here).
“In the dating era, students would go on a date, which might lead to something sexual,” says Kathleen Bogle, a sociologist at Philadephia’s La Salle University. “In the hookup era, students hook up, which might lead to dating.”
Is hooking up harmful? Depends on whether you ask peers or professionals.
Many college kids scoff at that very question. They say they’re just having fun, and that as long as both people understand the terms, it’s win-win. But some health professionals have raised alarms about the spread of sexually transmitted disease, and warn that many young adults are paying a price for learning to divorce sex from feelings and attachments.
“They don’t learn to build that emotional intimacy before they get physically intimate,” says adolescent gynecologist Melissa Holmes. “They may grow up not knowing how to connect with a partner on an intimate level.”
James Cox, director of the counseling center at the University of Pittsburg, says more than a quarter of his clients come in with anxiety, depression, and other emotional problems because their relationships feel superficial and confusing.
“Hooking up is like any other kind of peer pressure,” he says. “We need to encourage students to make independent, healthy choices.” That may be especially true for women.
Why especially for women?