Study: Internet May Increase Risky Sex

B O S T O N, July 26 -- Are you looking for love in all the wrong places? You might be, if you’re cruising cyberspace for sex partners.

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that those who seek sexual partners online are at a higher risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, including HIV, than those who seek partners in more traditional ways.

“They have more sex partners, more risky sex, and more history of sexually transmitted disease,” says Mary McFarlane, a research psychologist at the CDC in Atlanta who conducted the study.

Not Like Online Dating Services

This population is “a lot different” from people looking for romance online, emphasizes McFarlane, and should not be applied to the general public’s flirting in chat rooms and on matchmaking Web sites.

The study, published in today’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined a highly specific group not typical of the general population — 856 people who showed up at a Denver clinic to be tested for AIDS. About two-thirds of those being tested were heterosexual males.

Eighty-five percent of this population, the so-called offline group — did not seek sex with people on the Internet. Fifteen percent — 122 men, 13 women — admitted that they had sought out sexual partners on the Internet. Of the group that was successful in finding a sex partner online, 90 percent were men and 67 percent were homosexual.

7-Plus Partners Per Year

Of this “online” sex group, 59 percent had more than seven sexual partners in the past year, compared with only 18.5 percent of the offline group, and 33 percent had a history of sexually transmitted diseases compared with only 20 percent of the “offline” group.

This group was also twice as likely to have had anal sex and to have had sex with an HIV-positive partner, both risk factors for acquiring AIDS.