Sigmund Freud thought gambling was an application of, ahem, self-gratification, if you get our drift, that is perhaps why he was barred from some of the more respectable casinos of Vienna. His concept, evidently, had something related to the notion of impulse and guilt, common to gamblers that are compulsive at least. But like a lot of Freud’s very early theories this will now be consigned to the trash will of psychoanalysis, after a report by scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in nyc which concludes that far from verging in the onanistic gambling is actually all about real intercourse.

Well, sort of.

The study in combination with Johns Hopkins University and published online in the journal Addictive Behaviors sought to determine whether adolescent sexual behavior that lead in unintended consequences such as for instance maternity or STDs is associated with gambling; plus it figured, yes, it is.

Discovering that numerous African-American teens have higher rate of issue gambling than their Caucasian counterparts, the research sought to get any correlations between that reality and other at-risk behaviors.

Teenage Habits Coalesce, Study Finds

Of the 427 youth that is african-American in Baltimore, 49 per cent had gambled one or more times before the age of 18, and more gamblers than non-gamblers had initiated intimate intercourse by 18 also. Crucially, the scholarly study found that more gamblers than non-gamblers had conceive or had impregnated someone. Nine per cent of the youth that is sexually active contracting an STD.

‘Our findings are complementary to previous studies that showed a connection between gambling by having an earlier age of start of intimate activities, but, individuals in these samples were predominantly white,’ said Mailman School professor that is associate of Silvia Martins.

‘Despite evidence that problem gambling is more predominant among African-American adolescents and adults, few adolescent studies included a subgroup that is large of in their samples. This study additionally goes above and beyond prior research as it shows that gambling youth are maybe not only at risk of gambling problems, which are associated with numerous negative interpersonal, economic, criminal, and psychiatric consequences, but also at danger for sex-related behaviors such as adolescent pregnancy/impregnation.’

Ways to Eliminate Suggested

Martins advocates the introduction of programs to concentrate on improving the decision-making skills of adolescents, while educating them about the consequences of gambling and risky sexual behaviour, also as negotiating safer sex with potential partners.

Of course, it isn’t the first time that gambling has been connected with sex. Right Back in 1920, German sociologist, philosopher, and critic Georg Simmel reckoned he had it all identified as he equated a bet with foreplay and winning with circumstances of orgasm, although we think he was creating a somewhat various point than Martins. He also argued that gambling had been ‘a behavioral manifestation of your respective desire for self-insemination’.

Freud is not looking so bad now, is he?

Addictive Behaviors is an international peer-reviewed journal, and focuses on addictive behaviors and disorders. The publication’s scope encompasses behavioral and psychosocial research, as well as articles on subjects including psychology, sociology, psychiatry, epidemiology, social policy, medicine, pharmacology and neuroscience. Created in 1922, the Mailman School of Public Health targets general public health research and education, and the college’s studies range from chronic disease to HIV/AIDS to major healthcare that is public.