Alcohol and the disinhibition of sexual responsiveness

In a balanced placebo design, in which the joint and separate effects of alcohol and expectation of intoxication were investigated, 22 men undergraduate students who were social drinkers listened to an erotic audiotape while penile tumescence was continuously recorded. The intoxicated subjects showed significantly shorter latency to onset of tumescence and to peak level of tumescence than did their sober counterparts. In contrast to previous research, no effect of expectations about drinking was obtained in this study. The findings are interpreted as indicating a specific effect of alcohol in impairing men's ability to inhibit sexual responsiveness. It appears that the sexual response threshold is lowered but that, once the process of arousal begins, tumescence reaches an average level that is unaffected by a small amount of alcohol.