Changes in Sexual Desire and Behaviors among UK Young Adults During Social Lockdown Due to COVID-19.

This study examined self-reported changes in young adults' sexual desire and behaviors during the most significant social restrictions imposed to deal with COVID-19. Drawing on a survey of 565 British adults aged 18-32 collected at the peak of social lockdown restrictions, we document an overall decrease in sexual behaviors consistent with abiding by social restrictions. We found that the levels of sexual desire reported by women (but not men) decreased compared with reports of pre-lockdown levels. Participants in serious relationships reported more increases in sexual activity than people who were single or dating casually, and there were significant differences according to gender and sexual orientation. The perceived impact of subjective wellbeing of people with high sociosexuality scores was disproportionately associated with social lockdown but there was no effect for general health. Thus, the impact on sexuality and general wellbeing should be considered by policymakers when considering future social restrictions related to COVID-19 or other public health emergencies.

Understanding How University Students Use Perceptions of Consent, Wantedness, and Pleasure in Labeling Rape.

While the lack of consent is the only determining factor in considering whether a situation is rape or not, there is sufficient evidence that participants conflate wantedness with consent and pleasurableness with wantedness. Understanding how people appraise sexual scenarios may form the basis to develop appropriate educational packages. We conducted two large-scale qualitative studies in two UK universities in which participants read vignettes describing sexual encounters that were consensual or not, wanted or unwanted and pleasurable or not pleasurable. Participants provided free-text responses as to whether they perceived the scenarios to be rape or not and why they made these judgments. The second study replicated the results of the first and included a condition where participants imagined themselves as either the subject or initiator of the sexual encounter. The results indicate that a significant portion of our participants held attitudes reflecting rape myths and tended to blame the victim. Participants used distancing language when imagining themselves in the initiator condition. Participants indicated that they felt there were degrees of how much a scenario reflected rape rather than it simply being a dichotomy (rape or not). Such results indicate a lack of understanding of consent and rape and highlight avenues of potential educational materials for schools, universities or jurors.

Consent, wantedness, and pleasure: Three dimensions affecting the perceived stress of and judgements of rape in sexual encounters.

Participants conflate consent and wantedness when judging situations as rape (Peterson & Muehlenhard, 2007). Pleasure might also affect how such situations might be appraised by victims, perpetrators, and jurors. In four experiments, participants read vignettes describing sexual encounters that were consensual or not, wanted or unwanted, and pleasurable or not pleasurable. Participants judged whether they thought each situation described rape and how distressing they thought the encounter would be. Wantedness affected perceived distress when consent was given. Wantedness and pleasure also influenced whether participants considered the situation rape in nonconsensual scenarios. In additional experiments, we analyzed the results by gender, manipulated perspective (being the subject or initiator of the encounter), levels of aggression, and compared the results to a group of participants who had viewed an antiabuse campaign. Male participants and those higher in benevolent sexism were more likely than women to utilize pleasure and wantedness in judging whether situations described rape. Perspective and viewing the media campaign did not significantly affect judgments of rape. Our results have implications for models of the consequences of consent, wantedness, and pleasure of sex, and important implications for educational programs aimed at reducing sexual assault and training for those involved in criminal justice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Diagnostic comparison of needle and wedge biopsy specimens of the liver in dogs and cats.

OBJECTIVE: To compare morphologic diagnoses determined from needle biopsy specimens obtained from the livers of dogs and cats with morphologic diagnoses determined from wedge biopsy specimens. DESIGN: Prospective study. ANIMALS: 124 dogs and cats. PROCEDURE: 2 needle biopsy specimens were obtained from each animal; wedge biopsy specimens were obtained from the same liver lobe during laparotomy or postmortem examination. Histologic features were scored independently by 3 individuals; a morphologic diagnosis was rendered after histologic features were scored. Cases were included only if at least 2 of the 3 examiners agreed on the morphologic diagnosis; the definitive diagnosis was considered to be the morphologic diagnosis rendered for the wedge biopsy specimen. Physical characteristics (length, width, surface area, degree of fragmentation, and number of portal triads for needle biopsy specimens and surface area for wedge biopsy specimens) were determined. RESULTS: Definitive diagnoses included hepatic necrosis (n = 10), cholangitis-cholangiohepatitis (13), chronic hepatitis-cirrhosis (12), canine vacuolar hepatopathy (11), portosystemic vascular anomaly-microvascular dysplasia (17), neoplasia (10), miscellaneous hepatic disorders (18), and no hepatic disease (33). For individual examiners, the morphologic diagnosis assigned to needle biopsy specimens agreed with the morphologic diagnosis assigned to wedge biopsy specimens for 56 and 67% of the specimens. All 3 examiners agreed on the morphologic diagnosis assigned to needle and wedge biopsy specimens for 44 and 65% of the specimens, respectively. Morphologic diagnoses assigned to needle biopsy specimens concurred with the definitive diagnosis for 59 of 124 (48%) animals. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Results suggest that needle biopsy specimens of the liver from dogs and cats must be interpreted with caution.