"You want another drink, handsome?" : Objectification and alcohol use in sexual minority men
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Evidence suggests sexual minority men are at greater odds than heterosexual counterparts of reporting problematic alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. Though originally developed to provide context for body image and disordered eating in women, objectification theory (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997) has also been applied to better understand substance use in both heterosexual women and men broadly, but limited evidence has applied these tenets to alcohol use among sexual minority men specifically. The current study examined how interpersonal experiences of objectification are associated with alcohol-related harm, drinking quantity, and recent alcohol-related consequences in a sample of 171 sexual minority men. Utilizing a path model based on the tenets of objectification theory, findings indicate that experiences of objectification did not have a direct relation with any alcohol-related outcomes, but body shame had an indirect relation on alcohol-related harm and drinking quantity but not alcohol-related consequences. Additionally, experiences of objectification had no relation to body surveillance or body shame. An exploratory path model was also tested, with results from this model finding both sexual objectification and body shame had a direct relation to alcohol-related consequences. Overall, these findings point to these tenets having a significant relation to alcohol use in sexual minority men, though this relation varies across alcohol-related outcomes and may require further research to better tailor objectification theory to the unique experiences of this population.
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Ph. D.