The Realm of Disgust in Sexual Behaviour

Sex and sexual behaviour are a core part of life; aside from reproduction, sex can be pleasurable, healthy, and beneficial for developing intimacy. Alongside these desirable features, however, sex also has the clear downside of increasing the chances for contracting infectious diseases. The inherent contagious nature of sexual (by)products and sexual behaviour may help explain why sexual stimuli (e.g., sweat, saliva, and the ejaculate) may also be considered potent disgust elicitors across cultures (Rozin, et al., Journal of Research in Personality 29:318–340, 1995). In this chapter, we describe how sexual behaviours and some sex stimuli may elicit disgust responses and consequently hinder sexual arousal; whereas other sex stimuli, generally those associated with sexual appeal, may generate sexual arousal and weaken the disgust response to contamination-relevant features of sex stimuli and sexual behaviours. We also explore the pathways relevant to understanding how people engage in sexual activity, and how core sex stimuli may signal contagion. Additionally, we explore novel interventions that can be used to accentuate sexual arousal and weaken sexual disgust, as well as to weaken sexual arousal when it is undesired. These disgust-based interventions are outlined to provide a contemporary perspective about their potential application in the context of human sexual expression

Two decades of action on nutrition for the Maltese population

Malta, like many other countries, has experienced significant challenges in nutrition over the past 20 years. Given the increasing prevalence of diet-related diseases and overweight and obesity across all ages, nutrition has been high on the Ministry for Health agenda over the past 15 years. Public Health practitioners in Malta have been drivers of public health nutrition reform throughout this period. The Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate was set up to mainly focus on health promotion and non-communicable diseases including healthy nutrition in 2007. Over the years a number of strategies have been outlined targeting nutrition for the Maltese population including the Non Communicable Disease Strategy, the National Cancer Plan, the National Healthy Weight for Life Strategy, the Food and Nutrition Policy and Action Plan for Malta, Diabetes: A National Public Health Priority – A National Strategy for Diabetes 2016-2020, Whole of School Approach to Healthy Lifestyle: Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Policy and Strategy and the National Breastfeeding Policy and Action Plan 2015 – 2020. With input from WHO and the EU, Malta has participated in many surveys allowing for continuous monitoring and evaluation. In 2015, Malta embarked on a first National Food Consumption Survey, results of which will provide a baseline on eating habits to target priority areas for action, inform policy and monitor trends.peer-reviewe

Emotions, delay, and avoidance in cancer screening:Roles for fear, embarrassment and disgust

Delay and avoidance are massive problems in cancer screening. While work continues to examine demographic and cognitive factors, emotions are central and likely causally implicated. In this chapter, a discrete emotions view of the origins of cancer screening is presented. After characterizing emotions, focus rests on evaluating the evidence regarding how and why three avoidance-promoting emotions (fear, embarrassment, and disgust) are implicated. The chapter describes the symptoms and medical examinations that elicit these emotions and suggests that people fail to screen for breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers because screenings elicit (or are anticipated to elicit) these feelings. It concludes by assessing some of the measurement, design, and interpretative challenges in the area, considers the sexual nature of many screens, and discusses the fact that screenings may elicit multiple emotional responses.<br/

Age‐related differences in self‐reported disgust toward core disgust, sex‐related, and food stimuli

Introduction: While disgust is functional in preventing contagion from pathogens, it also plays a role in various psychopathologies. Disgust responses toward dirt, bodily secretions, certain types of food, and sexual stimuli typically emerge during (early) childhood. However, there is a lack of research on how disgust develops. This cross‐ sectional study investigated whether there are age‐related differences in subjective, self‐reported disgust between early and late adolescence and whether there are differences for distinctive types of disgust (core‐disgust, sex‐related, food‐related). Methods: Using an online survey, 240 Dutch children (116 female, 124 male) aged 9 through 16 years rated the extent to which they found the different types of stimuli disgusting or not on a VAS scale. Results and Conclusions: The results showed that only the disgust responses to sex‐ related stimuli decreased with age, whereas disgust toward the other categories did not show any age‐related differences. Overall girls reported somewhat higher disgust ratings than boys for sex‐related stimuli, but not for the other categories. The present study offers important new angles for future research, which might further disentangle the mechanisms through which the changes occur

The influence of sexual activity on sleep:A diary study

Aiming to promote overall health and well-being through sleep, the present studies examine to what extent sexual activity serves as a behavioural mechanism to improve sleep. The relation between sexual activity, i.e., partnered sex and masturbation with or without orgasm, and subjective sleep latency and sleep quality is examined by means of a cross-sectional and a longitudinal (diary) study. Two hundred fifty-six male and female participants, mainly students, completed a pre-test set of questionnaires and, thereafter, a diary during 14 consecutive days. The cross-sectional study was analysed using analysis of covariance and demonstrated that both men and women perceive partnered sex and masturbation with orgasm to improve sleep latency and sleep quality, while sexual activity without orgasm is perceived to exert negative effects on these sleep parameters, most strongly by men. Accounting for the repeated measurements being nested within participants, the diary data were analysed using multilevel linear modelling (MLM). Separate models for subjective sleep latency and sleep quality were constructed, which included 2076 cases at level 1, nested within 159 participants at level 2. The analyses revealed that only partnered sex with orgasm was associated with a significantly reduced sleep latency (b = −0.08, p

Implicit Measures in Clinical Sex Research:A Critical Evaluation

INTRODUCTION: Current information-processing models of sexual arousal imply that both controlled and automatic affective-motivational processes are critically involved in sexual responding and suggest that dysfunctional automatic processes may be involved in the development and persistence of sexual dysfunctions. Because (dysfunctional) automatic processes and responses cannot be adequately captured by common self-report measures, implicit performance-based measures have been developed to index these processes. OBJECTIVES: This review provides an overview of studies that used implicit tasks in clinical sexual research, and critically evaluates the contribution and promise of these measures to improve our understanding of the mechanisms involved in sexual dysfunctions. METHODS: 6 electronic main databases (AMED, MEDLINE, PsycArticles, Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, and SocINDEX) were searched for studies involving implicit measurement techniques to measure automatic processes in clinical sex research. RESULTS: A series of studies examined if lowered (or heightened) attention for sex stimuli may be involved in low sexual arousal, low desire, and genital pain. Preliminary evidence showed that lowered attention is involved in low sexual arousal. The pattern with regard to desire and genital pain was mixed which may be due to heterogeneity in assessment instruments. A limited number of studies examined automatic memory associations with sexual cues. Preliminary evidence showed negative (sex-threat/sex-disgust) associations in women with genito-pelvic pain or penetration disorder, less positive associations in women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder, and sex-positive and sex-failure associations in men with sexual distress. Thus far, no studies have examined lowered (or heightened) automatic sexual approach tendencies related to sexual dysfunctions. CONCLUSION: Implicit measures showed some promise as tools to index automatic sex-relevant cognitive mechanisms in sexual dysfunctions. Yet, more systematic research and the development of psychometrically sound measures are critical for a more comprehensive evaluation of the relevance of implicit measures in clinical sex research and their usefulness as indices of individual differences in clinical practice. Hinzmann J, Borg C, de Jong PJ. Implicit Measures in Clinical Sex Research: A Critical Evaluation. Sex Med Rev 2020;8:531-541

Disgust Toward Sex-Relevant and Sex-Irrelevant Stimuli in Pre-, Early, and Middle Adolescence

For prepubertal youth, sexual stimuli elicit disgust and avoidance, yet in adolescence this avoidance shifts to sexual approach. One explanation could be that disgust declines in adolescence. This project examined whether disgust is indeed lower in adolescence compared to preadolescence, and whether this difference across age groups would be restricted to sex-relevant disgust elicitors. We also examined whether the strength of disgust would depend on familiarity between participant and source. To examine disgust responses in youths, two cross-sectional studies (N = 248, ages six to 17 years) were conducted using scenario-based measurements. Disgust was overall higher in early adolescence than in preadolescence and relatively weak when the source of disgust was a familiar person. Specifically, when parents were the source, sex-relevant disgust was higher in the groups of early and middle adolescents than in the group of preadolescents. Sex-relevant disgust elicited by a stranger or best friend, however, was lower in middle than in early adolescence. The latter is consistent with the view that repeated confrontation with disgusting stimuli might attenuate disgust, which could contribute to healthy sexual functioning. The heightened sex-relevant disgust in middle adolescents when parents were the source might reflect a functional avoidance mechanism of inappropriate sex mates

Correction:The influence of olfactory disgust on (Genital) sexual arousal in men

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213059.]

Про один метод оцінки впливу параметрів в задачах геотехнічної механіки

Работа посвящена применению метода последовательной аппроксимации для оценки степени влияния параметров в задачах геотехнической механики. Оценка степени влияния параметров состоит в сравнении показателей степеней в представлении функции в окрестности точки произведением степенных функций, каждая из которых зависит лишь от одной переменной. Апробация метода осуществлена на ряде прикладных задач геотехнической механики.The paper devoted to sequence approximation method using for geotechnical mechanic influence parameters evaluating tasks. An anchor influence parameters evaluating consist of univariable function powers comparisons in point vicinity representation as univariable power function product. Method applied to some geotechnical mechanic tasks