Sexual Ageism or Sexual Stigma? Sexual Double Standards and Disgust Sensitivity in Judgments of Sexual and Romantic...

As the U.S. population continues to age, it becomes critical to understand the sexual and romantic needs of older adults. Sexual ageism, or negative attitudes toward the sexuality of older adults, can serve as a barrier to sexual and relationship quality. This stigmatization is often dismissed, minimized, or denied altogether - like many aspects of older adults' lives. This experimental study examined interpersonal evaluations and risk perceptions of target adults that varied in age, gender, and sexual or romantic expression and the role that participants' disgust sensitivity, a key variable related to social attitudes and stigmatization, played in these perceptions. Across two studies (total N = 678), participants read one of four flyers introducing a 25- or 65-year-old woman (Study 1) or man (Study 2) with information on the target's sexual or romantic lives. Although results were nuanced, sexual women and men of both age groups were rated more negatively and as riskier compared to their romantic counterparts. In Study 1, respondents' disgust sensitivity was related to more negative interpersonal evaluations and heightened risk perceptions of the sexually open women, but in Study 2 was related to more positive interpersonal evaluations of the sexually open men, with no relationship to how risky the men were rated. Overall, negative evaluations of the sexual targets were not limited to older adults, providing support for sexual stigma rather than sexual ageism. Disgust sensitivity was differentially related to perceptions based on the target's gender, advancing evolutionary perspectives on the gendered nature of disgust.