title: Gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal to prepotent sexual features in heterosexual women and men.
abstract: Heterosexual women respond genitally to stimuli featuring both their preferred and nonpreferred genders, whereas men's genital responses are gender-specific, suggesting that gender cues are less relevant to women's sexual response. Instead, prepotent sexual features (exposed and sexually aroused genitals), ubiquitous in audiovisual sexual stimuli, may elicit automatic genital responses, thereby leading to a nonspecific sexual arousal pattern in women. To examine the role of stimulus potency in women's sexual response, we assessed heterosexual women's and men's genital and subjective sexual arousal to slideshows of prepotent stimuli (erect penises and aroused vulvas), non-prepotent stimuli (flaccid penises and female pubic triangles), and sexually neutral stimuli. Contrary to our hypotheses, both women and men demonstrated gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal, such that sexual arousal was greatest to prepotent male and female stimuli, respectively. This is the first study to demonstrate gender-specific genital responding in heterosexual women.
authors: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, 354 Humphrey Hall, 62 Arch Street, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6.
authors: Jessica
authors: J
authors: Spape
authors: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, 354 Humphrey Hall, 62 Arch Street, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6.
authors: Amanda D
authors: AD
authors: Timmers
authors: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, 354 Humphrey Hall, 62 Arch Street, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6.
authors: Samuel
authors: S
authors: Yoon
authors: Section of Sexual Medicine, Medical School, Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
authors: Jorge
authors: J
authors: Ponseti
authors: Department of Psychology, Queen's University, 354 Humphrey Hall, 62 Arch Street, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6. Electronic address: meredith.chivers@queensu.ca.
authors: Meredith L
authors: ML
authors: Chivers
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D020010:Heterosexuality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010410:Penile Erection / Q000502:physiology*; D017156:Photoplethysmography; D010808:Physical Examination; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012737:Sex Factors; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D014621:Vagina / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000502:physiology; D014851:Wakefulness; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Female; Gender; Genital sexual arousal; Heterosexual; Male; Psychophysiology; Sexual arousal; Sexual response; Specificity of sexual arousal; Subjective sexual arousal