Having five or more alcoholic beverages at one time has been linked with risky sexual behaviors such as multiple partners and anal sex. Appearing in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, the study also showed that alcohol bingeing was associated with high rates of gonorrhea.
"The link between binge drinking and risky sexual behavior is complex," explained Heidi E. Hutton, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as well as corresponding author for the study. "We wanted to examine one component of that relationship, whether binge drinking increased the risk of engaging in sexual behaviors and having STDs. We found gender differences in binge drinking among patients at an STD clinic, and also that binge drinking increased STD risk for women."
Over a one-year period, the researchers approached 795 STD-clinic patients being evaluated/ treated for STDs. Of those approached, 671 (322 males, 349 females; 95% African American, 83% heterosexual) agreed to answer questions about their recent alcohol/drug use and risky sexual behaviors. The association between binge drinking and sexual behaviors/STDs was then analyzed, adjusting for age, employment, and drug use.
"We found that binge drinking among women STD-clinic patients is associated with certain risky sexual behaviors," said Hutton. "Across gender, women binge drinkers are more likely to have anal sex than men binge drinkers. Within gender, women binge drinkers are three times as likely to have anal sex, and twice as likely to have multiple sex partners compared to women who do not drink alcohol. Compared to non-drinking women, women binge drinkers are also five times as likely to have gonorrhea."
Hutton said that both binge drinking and risky sexual behaviors are more hazardous to women than men. "If women and men consume the same dose of alcohol, women will have a higher concentration of alcohol in their system, and substantially greater alcohol-caused impairment than men," she said.
She also noted that anatomical differences place women at greater risk than men of contracting some sexually transmitted infections. For example, men are eight to 10 times more likely to transmit HIV to a female partner through repeated, unprotected sexual intercourse than women are to transmit the virus to men.
Hutton and her colleagues recommend that clinicians at STD clinics routinely screen for binge drinking. "While it is standard practice in most STD clinics to discuss behavioral factors for STD risk," said Hutton, "binge drinkers may be harder to identify than alcohol-dependent individuals because the latter have more obvious impairment of function."
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STDs - Chances Are You've Probably Got One
Young Women Underestimate STD Risk
Source: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
