title: Identification with Stimuli Moderates Women's Affective and Testosterone Responses to Self-Chosen Erotica.
abstract: Sexual thoughts are sufficient to increase testosterone (T) in women, yet erotic films are not. A key confound in past studies is autonomy in stimulus selection: women choose the content of their sexual thoughts but films have been selected by researchers. We hypothesized that self-chosen erotic films, compared to researcher-chosen erotic films, would (1) increase women's self-reported arousal, enjoyment, and identification with stimuli, and decrease negative affect; and (2) increase T. Participants (N = 116 women) were randomly assigned to a neutral documentary condition or one of three erotic film conditions: high choice (self-chosen erotica from participants' own sources), moderate choice (self-chosen erotica from films preselected by sexuality researchers), or no choice (researcher-chosen erotica). Participants provided saliva samples for T before and after viewing the film in the privacy of their homes. Compared to researcher-chosen erotica, self-chosen erotica increased self-reported arousal and enjoyment, but also unexpectedly disgust, guilt, and embarrassment. Self-chosen erotica only marginally increased identification with stimuli compared to researcher-chosen erotica. Overall, film condition did not affect T, but individual differences in identification moderated T responses: among women reporting lower levels of identification, the moderate choice condition decreased T compared to the no choice condition, but this difference was not observed among women with higher identification. These results highlight the importance of cognitive/emotional factors like identification for sexually modulated T. However, self-chosen erotica results in more ambivalent rather than unequivocally positive cognitive/emotional responses, perhaps because stigma associated with viewing erotica for women becomes more salient when choosing stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Goldey
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychology and Women's Studies; Programs in Neuroscience and Reproductive Sciences; Science, Technology, and Society Program; Biosocial Methods Collaborative, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA. smva@umich.edu.
authors.forename: Sari M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: van Anders
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions; D004882:Erotica / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry; D057566:Self Report; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D012752:Shame; D013739:Testosterone / Q000378:metabolism*; D013850:Thinking
chemical_list: D013739:Testosterone
keywords: Erotica; Identification; Sexual arousal; Testosterone; Women