The high degree of statistical and conceptual overlap between factors coupled with the good reliability between all the items encouraged us to keep the scale whole. Confirmatory factor analysis of the eight items comprising the erotic cyber-communication scale. The precise text and order of each item used in the survey is represented.
Items 5, 6, and 8 were reverse coded. The current study used a seven-point system of agreement: Items that have asterisks Items 3 and 7 meet the criteria for inclusion in both of the factors. For the city size independent variable, we recoded and created dummy variables. Cities were classified by size according to their population.
Hypotheses
Relying upon Seasons's and Simard and Simard's classifications of mid-size cities as being between 50, and , inhabitants, we recoded our variable accordingly. Therefore, for small city, we combined less than 10, and 10, to 50, people.
For mid-size city, we combined 50, to , people with , to , For large city, we combined , to 1 million and over one million. For the sexuality independent variable, we also created dummy variables. We used gay as the referent category and entered bisexual and heterosexual into the model. Men were asked for their age, creating a continuous independent variable with a mean of Men were asked to select their level of education from six different choices. They could only choose one of the following options: We left this as an ordinal independent variable.
We left this as an interval variable. Descriptive characteristics of the variables were examined within the software in order to investigate the distributions and forms of the data. From there, ordinary least squares OLS multiple linear regression was implemented to assess how sexuality, city size, age and education predicted those who found Internet cruising and emailing to be an erotic act.
Success rate of hookups was also in the model as a control because previous literature with this data set suggested that this variable could theoretically have a negative relationship with finding Internet cruising and emailing as erotic Moskowitz and Seal To correct for heteroskedasticity, which was found during the examination of the OLS model, HC3 robust standard errors were used see Long and Ervin ; Wooldridge As described in Table 2 , the sample showed a fairly normal distribution for education, age and ECCS.
Most men in the sample were between 30 and 50 years old and most had graduated from or had some college education. For city size, the sample of men was least likely to live in small cities Those living in large cities fell in between The majority of the sample also identified as homosexual A small minority identified as heterosexual 4. The men reported a low success rate of hook up from placing advertisements on craigslist.
They only were successful in about 3 out of 10 attempts.
The model was significant in predicting the men's eroticism associated with Internet cruising and emailing, explaining about As the whole model was significant, the individual independent variables within the OLS model and their associations with the dependent variable were explored to accurately assess the hypotheses:. Older men seeking men found Internet cruising and emailing to be less erotic compared to younger men seeking men. Education was not found to be significant and, as such, we could not rule out the null hypothesis.
Residing in a mid-size city when compared to a smaller city was positively associated with finding Internet cruising and emailing more erotic. This meant that our hypothesis was incorrect. Residing in a large city when compared to a smaller city was positively associated with finding Internet cruising and emailing to be more erotic. Again, this disproved our hypothesis. Being bisexual homosexual compared to being was positively associated with finding Internet cruising and e-mailing to be more erotic. Being heterosexual compared to being homosexual was positively associated with finding Internet cruising and emailing more erotic.
Incidentally, this finding may speak towards the validity of ECCS. For if the scale were not accurately measuring men's erotic attitudes towards cruising and email i.
Online forums
To some degree, this is not the case. This study aimed to examine the characteristics of men seeking men who find Internet cruising and emailing to be self-contained erotic acts. Consistent with the initial hypothesis, younger men tended to find Internet cruising and emailing to be more erotic compared to older men. Younger men additionally could be using Internet cruising to explore their same-sex desires i. If fantasy is influential over psychosexual development for young individuals Rosario et al.
Legal age-limits prevent younger men from entering gay bars and bathhouses. Offline sexual encounters usually require some form of transportation and space, which may be impossible to acquire. In the end, the confluence of all of these social, cognitive, and structural factors may overwhelm the desire to leave the computer screen and make masturbating alongside Internet cruising behaviours sufficient. Our second hypothesis, which focused on education, could not be confirmed. This study assessed eroticism as a self-contained behaviour, where previous studies e. It may be that education tends to affect specific online behaviours, such as chatroom use or sexual information acquisition, but not necessarily perceptions of eroticism surrounding the use of Internet communication features.
We still believe that future studies should continue to explore the role education plays, if any, in the lives of men seeking men and their Internet cruising behaviours. As a corollary, we expected erotic feelings towards Internet cruising to develop as a means to replace the erotic stimuli traditionally offered by actual partner encounters. This was not the case. Rather, it seemed more likely that for men living in rural areas, cruising remained an intermediate behaviour that facilitated offline encounters.
In speculation, Internet cruising may not be viewed as erotic itself because successful cruising for rural men is actually quite difficult. The behavioural condition i.
Jilly Cooper: married men are having gay affairs because they're 'terrified of women'
As a result, the eroticism association is not learned nor felt. In contrast, men living in more populated areas, but who still cruise online for sex, have easy access to social e. Simply, it is easier to have sex. More positive outcome efficacy attitudes develop towards computer-mediated sexual communication and the eroticism felt towards the online behaviours are really expectancies. Future cognitive psychological studies will have to explore the relationship between Internet use, social learning, expectations and erotic attitudes.
Perhaps most intriguing, and consistent with the earlier literature and hypotheses, sexual identity did greatly impact finding the self-contained act of Internet cruising as erotic. We posited bisexual- and heterosexual-identified men seeking men would find Internet cruising to be more erotic than gay-identified men seeking men — and for similar reasons as younger men seeking men i.
Brown, Maycock, and Burns ; Lever et al. Bisexual and heterosexual men seeking men may see gay public places as more related to a gay identity Ross ; Tikkanen and Ross and, therefore, they turn to the Internet to cruise and find eroticism. Also, Rosario and colleagues showed that sexual identity development could change over time, where a bisexual identity may just be a transition to a gay or lesbian identity. In seeking to explore and experiment instead of enacting their desires offline, bisexual and heterosexual men seeking men might find Internet cruising and emailing to be an erotic tool for sexual self-expression, satisfaction and possible identity development.
As Peterson discovered in his research on bisexual and gay heterosexually married men online, the Internet served as a tool for these men to feel good about themselves through making connections with other men. These men, without ever meeting the other online men, could experience high levels intimacy through just their online interactions, and it was not rare for these men to fall in love with other men online Peterson Gay men also use the Internet more than bisexual men for seeking partners Daneback, Ross, and Mansson , which could leave bisexual men as less experienced in having sex with other men — especially men met online.
In line with Brown and colleagues , Lever and colleagues and Ross , online eroticism as a self-contained behaviour may serve as a bridge between fantasy and offline action for these bisexual and heterosexual men who may fear developing a stigmatising identity see also Fisher and Barak These men may feel embarrassed for not knowing information about sexuality and, hence, they use the Internet to explore these issues with other men, getting aroused in the process Daneback et al.
Therefore, further studies should investigate why bisexual and heterosexual men seeking men find Internet cruising more erotic compared to homosexual men seeking men online.
There are a few limitations to this study that should be acknowledged. The data were limited to men seeking men who were posting only on craigslist. Likewise, all the men in this sample had at least posted an advertisement on craigslist. Again, the response rate was low, which may have produced a sampling bias. Having a large sample size mitigated this potential. Finally, with respect to the literal data, there was a heteroskedasticity problem, which was corrected by robust standard errors. In turning to limitations of the measures, there may be issues surrounding how the data were assessed.
The question on the men's success rate might have been too vague or open to interpretation. Yet more importantly, the men's self-selected sexual orientation also might have been underdeveloped in measurement as an independent variable. Obviously, there is some dissonance between self-identifying as heterosexual and the parameters of being included in this study i. Read about our editorial guiding principles and the enforceable standard our journalists follow. Galloping across the turf at Royal Randwick, the majestic mare Winx showed the athleticism and spirit she's become known for.
If only similar grace and skill was at play in the election campaign. By Siobhan Hegarty. Strip back the violence, incest and throne-hungering, and you're left with some pretty timeless questions around what constitutes a family, and how much we owe our blood relatives. In a glittering hometown debut, a NSW man has claimed the crown of Bega's first drag queen — but for Elijah Mortlock, it's more than just a personal achievement.
By James Hancock.
Michael O'Hanlon left his corporate job to become a visual artist. ABC News: James Hancock. The DALE website includes forums for men to share their experiences. A journal like this one was how his wife learnt about his same-sex attraction.