(Posted after consultation with the Mods & with their blessing)
The conventional wisdom states that as one goes from ‘normal’ mood up through hypomania and into mania, overt sexual behavior tends to increase (along with appearance of more inappropriate sexual behavior).
And as mood plummets from normal into greater and greater states of depression, overt sexual behavior tends to diminish.
Clinically, that model doesn’t fit reports we’re getting from a lot of our incarcerated patients, both male and female, about their pre-incarceration (& sometimes post-incarceration) behavior. There’s a definite trend towards more sexual behavior early into depressive symptoms, as a way of relieving them. And while sexual behavior does increase during hypomania, it often is reported as diminishing when the mood slips further into a more manic picture.
It also seems thus far that males tend to fit the ‘conventional’ model a bit more closely, while females do not.
If you have a diagnosed bipolar disorder, is this true for you? If you’re willing, could you provide general details about how your sexual behavior changes with your mood? Please include your gender and age.
This whole query is being driven by the Prison Rape Elimination Act, PREA, a federal law which mandates all jails and prisons must do all they can to minimize sexual abuse and rape of incarcerated individuals.
We won’t be publishing a study, I’ll just be providing anonymized anecdotal information to our teams of clinical psychologists and psychiatrists.
I’m also open to getting Private Messages on the topic, if one doesn’t wish to go on record about their own circumstances. All info will be, as per my usual standard, held in strict confidence.
Thanks!
QtM, Max Security MD