Cosmetic Expressions and Sexuality

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Cosmetic Expressions and Sexuality

• The Relationship between Body Modifications and
  Promiscuity
• By James Gentry, Charla Chailland, and Jared
  Smith

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Introduction

• Why would there be a correlation?
• How are body modifications related to sexual
  behavior?
• Is there a correlation?
• Our definition is limited to tattoos and/or
  piercings.

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Literature Review

• A number of the studies found significant
  relationships (p lt .001) of body modifications in
  the form of tattoos and/or piercings on the
  participation in sexual intercourse
• Carrol, S. T., Riffenburgh, R. H., Roberts, T.
  A., Myhre, E. B. (2002).
• Roberts, T.A., Auinger, P., Ryan, S. A. (2004).
  
• Roberts, T. A., Ryan, S. A. (2002).

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Hypothesis

• Participants with more piercings and/or tattoos
  are more likely to engage in more sexual
  experiences, and have a greater number of sexual
  partners.

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Methods

• 115 participants filled out a questionnaire
  regarding various sexual activities, frequency of
  sexual activities, and number of body
  modifications.
• Participants were 63 female, ages ranged btw.
  18-25. Our participants were predominantly
  Caucasian.

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Likert Scale

• 0 Never
• 1 Once
• 2 Once a year
• 3 Once a month
• 4 Once a week
• 5 2-6 times per week
• 6 Daily
• 7 Multiple times daily

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• Questions regarding sexual behavior on a Likert
  scale
• 1. Kissed?
• 2. Fondled with clothes on?
• 3. Fondled with clothes off?
• 4. Manually (with hand) stimulated someone
  sexually?
• 5. Been manually stimulated by someone sexually?
• 6. Gave oral stimulation?
• 7. Received oral stimulation?
• 8. Participated in vaginal sexual intercourse?
• For this eight-item scale, the Cronbachs alpha
  was a .9510.

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Results

• No significance found between body modifications
  and sexual activities/partners (p .159) as a
  whole.
• Upon splitting gender
• No significant correlation among males, r(42)
  .142, p .370. We threw them out.

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Results (cont.)

• Females had more body modifications (M 3.4247)
  than males (M .2857), t(113) 8.484, p lt .005.
  
• Significant positive correlation between number
  of female body modifications and frequency of
  sexual behavior r(73) .278, p .017.
• This includes all body modifications, but we
  wanted to exclude one piercing in each ear.

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For females we found a significant main effect of
number of body modifications on frequency of
sexual acts, p .016.
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For females there was a significant main effect
of number of body modifications on number of
sexual partners, p .02.
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For females we found a marginally significant
main effect of number of body modifications on
number of one-night stands, p .06.
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Discussion

• Results show significant relationships among
  females.
• Results do not yield any significant correlations
  between male body modifications and sexual
  behaviors. There was a floor effect for male body
  modification.

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Discussion (cont.)

• Results give more insight into the relation
  between female body modifications on sexual
  behaviors.
• Females with 4 or more body modifications were
  more likely to participate in more sexual
  activities and have more sexual partners.

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Interpretation

• We found that females with body modifications are
  more likely to participate in sexual behaviors.
• We also found that females with 4 or more body
  modifications are more likely to
• participate in one night stands.
• participate in greater frequency of sexual acts.
• have sexual relations with many more partners.

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Limitations

• Age group- Young adults have limited sexual
  experiences.
• Homogenous population
• Few tattoos reportedFew body modifications for
  males.
• Only certain groups of people had direct access
  to questionnaire link (Greek house emails)

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Future Directions

• How do age differences affect sexual experiences?
• Why are females more likely to have body
  modifications than males?
• Do body modifications and frequency of sexual
  activities have any relationship with
  socioeconomic class?
• Run similar study, focusing solely on piercings
  (use a larger sample size).

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Questions
?
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Thank You

• Bill seriously Lookin for a 100