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Disgust, Sexual Cues, and the Prophylaxis Hypothesis

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Abstract

Women’s susceptibility to infection has been found to vary across the menstrual cycle. During the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, when progesterone levels are at their peak, women experience a downregulation in inflammatory immune responses to tolerate the presence of foreign paternal genetic material. The prophylaxis hypothesis holds that, during such periods of physiological immune vulnerability, women will engage in increased prophylactic behavior in response to cues associated with pathogen transmission (like sexual cues) to guard against infection. The current study examined disgust and other proposed prophylactic responses (i.e., attention and desire for solitary and dyadic sexual activity) in response to sexual and nonsexual films among naturally cycling women (N = 21) during the follicular and luteal phases of their menstrual cycles. No significant differences were found during the follicular and luteal phase on disgust, attention, or desire for solitary or dyadic sexual activity. Strong negative associations were found between feelings of disgust to sexual stimuli and proposed prophylactic behaviors (attention, desire for sexual activity with a partner) that were most prominent during the luteal phase of women’s menstrual cycles, suggesting that they may have served as a prophylactic mechanism, protecting women’s bodies from infection during a period of immune vulnerability. However, contrary to hypothesis, no significant associations were found between progesterone (the hormone that regulates changes in immune functioning) and proposed prophylactic responses. Further research examining prophylactic effects in response to sexual stimuli is warranted.

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Notes

  1. Desire for dyadic sexual activity and solitary sexual activity were analyzed as distinct constructs in lieu of a contrast score for ease of interpretation.

  2. A similar pattern emerged when z- and log-transformed values were used instead of raw progesterone data.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks are given to the study participants for their invaluable assistance in completing this study.

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant No. 386198-10) and the Queen’s Senate Advisory Research Council, awarded to M. L. Chivers and an Ontario Women’s Health Scholar Award (funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care) and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship awarded to the first author.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    Amanda D. Timmers & Meredith L. Chivers

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Jennifer A. Bossio

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  1. Amanda D. Timmers
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Correspondence to Meredith L. Chivers.

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Study procedures were approved by our Health Sciences and Affiliated Teaching Hospitals Research Ethics Board. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Timmers, A.D., Bossio, J.A. & Chivers, M.L. Disgust, Sexual Cues, and the Prophylaxis Hypothesis. Evolutionary Psychological Science 4, 179–190 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-017-0127-3

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