Pilot study about the relationship between body perception and sexuality using the DAS59

The idea of this study stemmed to understand if sexuality can be a factor that affects the perception of one’s body and can be a feature that makes the subject more inclined to undergo esthetic surgery.

A total of 51 male subjects participated in this study by filling out the Italian version of the DAS59 consisting of 59 items, which took approximately 35 min, under the supervision of a research assistant who did not interfere with the privacy of the patient. The data was entered in SAS version 8.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA). The reliability of the scale was tested by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the correlation coefficient. Retest reliability was also tested using Spearman’s correlation coefficient between items and the total scale score. Analysis of variance was performed between the two groups. Differences between the homosexual and heterosexual subjects were assessed using the Mann–Whitney test of discriminant validity.

Adult homosexual male patients without a personal history of esthetic procedures were recruited. We enrolled 26 adult homosexual male patients aged 18–42 years old and 25 male heterosexual adults aged 18–43 years. Any subject had personal history of esthetic procedures. We analyzed direct and indirect indicators of “esthetic concern,” the number of answers given by each subject accuracy, the attention to the questionnaire, and the effect on age on accuracy between the two groups. We confirmed that there are many differences between the two groups. Nevertheless, the greater attention to esthetics and concern for appearance is much more present in the homosexual group than in the heterosexual group, and its relationship with age in the homosexual group is a strong indication of an important and essential phenomenon in development. The absence of such a relationship in the heterosexual group leads instead to think that the esthetic concern is in this group a phenomenon of local type and much less fundamental than the personality.

The DAS59, used in a homogeneous study group, has shown that esthetic sensibility may depend on emotional and psychological factors within a homogeneous social dimension that does not create a difference. This pilot study is the first to introduce the importance of the role of sexuality in the perception of the esthetics of one’s body.

Level of evidence: Not ratable.