Tobacco use in the sexual borderlands: The smoking contexts and practices of bisexual young adults

Abstract

Little is known about why bisexual people use tobacco at higher rates than any other sexual identity group. Non-binary sexualities, such as bisexuality, exist within the socially constructed borderland between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Exploration of the everyday smoking contexts and practices of bisexual individuals may reveal unique mechanisms driving tobacco use. We employed a novel mixed method, integrating real-time, smartphone-administered surveys of (non)smoking situations, location tracking, spatial visualization of participant data, and subsequent map-led interviews. Participants (n = 17; ages 18–26, California) identified as bisexual, pansexual, and/or queer. Most were cisgender women. Survey smoking patterns and situational predictors were similar to other young adults’. However, interviews revealed unique roles of tobacco use in participants’ navigation of differently sexualized spaces in everyday life: 1) stepping away from uncomfortable situations related to bisexual identity; 2) facilitating belonging to LGBTQ+ community; and 3) recovering from bisexual identity perception management. Similar studies can examine the place-embedded practices and spatiotemporal patterns of other substance use and other stigmatized identity experiences.

Tobacco product use and susceptibility to use among sexual minority and heterosexual adolescents

“…Previous research has shown that pod mod products tend to be favored by youth because they can be easily concealed and used discretely (Fadus et al, 2019), whereas normative influence in sexual minority social networks may instead encourage use of products that are more socially visible. For instance, a study of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth identified tobacco use as a mechanism to signal social belonging and conform to normative pressure (Remafedi, 2007), and a study of bisexual young adults reported tobacco use facilitated social interactions with peers and romantic or sexual interests (McQuoid et al, 2019). Thus, more socially visible products may be used by sexual minority adolescents in efforts, conscious or unconscious, to signal belonging and facilitate relationship building and development.…”

Smartphone App–Based Noncontact Ecological Momentary Assessment With Experienced and Naïve Older Participants: Feasibility Study

“…Among the studies which reported mean age and dichotomous male–female gender distribution of the sample, participants tended to be younger (mean 30.9, SD 8.0 years, based on 21 studies) and mostly women (mean 68.7% of the sample, based on 19 studies). The topics of study were smoking [ 16 , 17 ], alcohol consumption [ 18 - 22 ], mental health [ 23 - 29 ], dietary behavior [ 30 - 35 ], drug use [ 36 , 37 ], physical activity [ 38 ], and tinnitus management [ 39 ].…”

Risk, Resilience, and Smoking in a National, Probability Sample of Sexual and Gender Minority Adults, 2017, USA

“…Concordant with recommendations regarding exploratory analyses (Rothman, 1990), we did not use a false discovery rate or adjustment for multiple comparisons as we are interested in identifying potential areas for further research. We present ORs for the overall sample as well as stratified by SGM group classification and age (Matthews, Blosnich, Farmer, & Adams, 2014; McQuoid, Thrul, Ozer, Ramo, & Ling, 2019). For the purposes of the stratified analyses, we classified individuals as either cisgender lesbian, cisgender gay, cisgender bisexual, or transgender/nonbinary; for the age analyses, we classified people as either young adult (18-24 years old) or older adult (25+ years old).…”