Demographic & Developmental Differences in the Content & Sequence of Adolescents' Ideal Romantic Relationship Behaviors

This study utilizes data from 18,392 respondents (aged 12-19) in Wave 1 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to provide a detailed descriptive analysis of U.S. adolescents' desired behaviors in their ideal romantic relationships. Age, gender, and ethnic group differences in the desire for-and preferred sequence of-a set of activities that could occur in a hypothetical romantic relationship were explored within subsets of heterosexual (n = 17,274) and sexual minority adolescents (n = 1118). 

Non-sexual behaviors were more commonly desired compared to sexual behaviors. The typical desired behavioral sequence was: holding hands, going out alone, telling others they were a couple, kissing, saying "I love you," sexual touching, and finally having sex. Overall, more similarities than differences emerged across groups, with some notable differences in the percentages who desired sexual behaviors. 

Results provide a nuanced picture of adolescent relationship scripts, with implications for education and prevention.

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By:   Choukas-Bradley S1, Goldberg SK2, Widman L3, Reese BM2, Halpern CT2.

• 1University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Psychology, United States. Electronic address: schoukas@gmail.com.
• 2University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Maternal and Child Health, Gillings School of Global Public Health, United States; Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States.
• 3North Carolina State University, Department of Psychology, United States. 

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Epidemiology of Human Papillomavirus Detected in the Oral Cavity and Fingernails of Mid-Adult Women

Oral and fingernail human papillomavirus (HPV) detection may be associated with HPV-related carcinoma risk at these nongenital sites and foster transmission to the genitals. We describe the epidemiology of oral and fingernail HPV among mid-adult women.

Between 2011 and 2012, 409 women aged 30 to 50 years were followed up for 6 months. Women completed health and behavior surveys and provided self-collected oral, fingernail, and vaginal specimens at enrollment and exit for type-specific HPV DNA testing. Concordance of type-specific HPV detection across anatomical sites was described with κ statistics. Using generalized estimating equations or exact logistic regression, we measured the univariate associations of various risk factors with type-specific oral and fingernail HPV detection.

Prevalence of detecting HPV in the oral cavity (2.4%) and fingernails (3.8%) was low compared with the vagina (33.1%). Concordance across anatomical sites was poor (κ < 0.20 for all comparisons). However, concurrent vaginal infection with the same HPV type and vaginal HPV viral load were each associated with fingernail HPV detection. Abnormal Papanicolaou history, lifetime number of male vaginal sex partners at least 10, and lifetime number of open-mouth kissing partners at least 16 were each associated with oral HPV detection.

Although our findings support HPV DNA deposition or autoinoculation between anatomical sites in mid-adult women, the rarity of HPV in the oral cavity and fingernails suggests that oral/fingernail HPV does not account for a significant fraction of HPV in genital sites.

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By:  Fu TJ1, Hughes JP, Feng Q, Hulbert A, Hawes SE, Xi LF, Schwartz SM, Stern JE, Koutsky LA, Winer RL.

• 1From the Departments of *Epidemiology and †Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; ‡FIDALAB, Seattle, WA; §Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA; and Departments of ¶Pathology and ∥Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. 

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What’s in a Kiss? The Effect of Romantic Kissing on Mate Desirability

Via: http://ht.ly/PaEk3  HT @UniofOxford

Past research suggests that various courtship rituals, such as romantic kissing, may convey useful mate quality information. Two studies were carried out to examine how purported romantic kissing abilities, as a potential cue to some form of mate information, affect appraisals of potential mating partners. In Experiment 1, 724 participants were presented with vignette descriptions of potential mating partners and were asked to rate partner desirability for various mating-related situations. The primary result of this experiment was that purported kissing ability increased mate desirability in “casual sex” mating situations for women to a greater extent than for men. Experiment 2 repeated the same procedure with another 178 participants, this time including visual information alongside vignette descriptions containing kissing-related information to examine the relative effects of these two modalities. It was found that the presence of a picture alongside a descriptive vignette negated the effect of kissing-related information only when rating potential partners on attractiveness or desirability for further courtship, though not when evaluating partners for casual sex or long-term relationship scenarios. Visual information containing “attractive” photos of potential partners was also found to have a greater effect on men’s ratings of partner desirability than on women’s ratings of partner desirability. The results are discussed in light of romantic kissing’s potential function of conveying important mate quality and desirability information, and its relative role in the presence of additional visual mate cues.

Below:  Effect of sex and kissing condition on interest in casual sex

Menstrual Cycle Effects on Attitudes toward Romantic Kissing

Via:   http://ht.ly/PaELB  HT @UniofOxford

Hormonal changes associated with the human menstrual cycle have been previously found to affect female mate preference, whereby women in the late follicular phase of their cycle (i.e., at higher risk of conception) prefer males displaying putative signals of underlying genetic fitness. Past research also suggests that romantic kissing is utilized in human mating contexts to assess potential mating partners. The current study examined whether women in their late follicular cycle phase place greater value on kissing at times when it might help serve mate assessment functions. Using an international online questionnaire, results showed that women in the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle felt that kissing was more important at initial stages of a relationship than women in the luteal phase of their cycle. Furthermore, it was found that estimated progesterone levels were a significant negative predictor for these ratings.

Below:  Importance of kissing during initial relationship stages (grey markers, dashed line) versus established relationship phases (black markers, solid line) across the menstrual cycle. Day 0 represents reverse-day-count estimated day of ovulation, trend curves fitted using Loess curve estimation, 65% points fit, Epanechnikov kernel