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Sex Differences in Patterns of Genital Sexual Arousal: Measurement Artifacts or True Phenomena?

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Abstract

Sex differences in patterns of sexual arousal have been reported recently. Men’s genital arousal is typically more category-specific than women’s, such that men experience their greatest genital arousal to stimuli depicting their preferred sex partners whereas women experience significant genital arousal to stimuli depicting both their preferred and non-preferred sex partners. In addition, men’s genital and subjective sexual arousal patterns are more concordant than women’s: The correlation between genital and subjective sexual arousal is much larger in men than in women. These sex differences could be due to low response-specificity in the measurement of genital arousal in women. The most commonly used measure of female sexual arousal, vaginal photoplethysmography, has not been fully validated and may not measure sexual arousal specifically. A total of 20 men and 20 women were presented with various sexual and non-sexual emotionally laden short film clips while their genital and subjective sexual arousal were measured. Results suggest that vaginal photoplethysmography is a measure of sexual arousal exclusively. Women’s genital responses were highest during sexual stimuli and absent during all non-sexual stimuli. Sex differences in degree of category-specificity and concordance were replicated: Men’s genital responses were more category-specific than women’s and men’s genital and subjective sexual arousal were more strongly correlated than women’s. The results from the current study support the continued use of vaginal photoplethysmography in investigating sex differences in patterns of sexual arousal.

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Notes

  1. Three participants did not fully meet one of the inclusion criteria but their data were used for analyses. One man reported having a history of mental illness but was not on medication at the time of testing. One man reported being in a monogamous relationship for three months. One woman reported using medication to treat a minor mental illness, but she had been on the same low dose of medication for a very long period of time.

  2. Removal of movement artifacts from all physiological data was conducted by the first author, blind to stimulus categories. On average, the number of trials requiring editing for women (M = 13.6, SD = 5.03) was significantly higher than the number of trials requiring editing for men (M = .5, SD = 1.60), t(38) = 11.09, p < .001, d = 3.51.

  3. Only one woman reported that she had never experienced an orgasm during any form of sexual activity, with or without a partner. She did report slightly increased levels of subjective sexual arousal for both continuous and post-stimulus subjective sexual arousal for some sexual stimuli.

  4. The Greenhouse-Geisser correction was used when necessary (i.e., when the assumption of sphericity was not met) for all ANOVAs and always yielded the same results. Uncorrected values are reported.

  5. The assumption of equality of variances was examined for all t-tests reported in this study. The assumption was not met for one test but the results did not change when using the corrected value. Uncorrected values are reported.

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Acknowledgments

This article is based on research conducted by the first author to fulfill requirements for a master’s degree. Financial support was provided through a Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s) awarded to the first author and a Standard Research Grant awarded to the second author by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We thank Grant Harris, Michael Seto, Vern Quinsey, Doug VanderLaan, Paul Vasey, and Rob Williams for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Also, we would like to thank the participants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada, T1K 3M4

    Kelly D. Suschinsky & Martin L. Lalumière

  2. Law and Mental Health Program, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Meredith L. Chivers

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  1. Kelly D. Suschinsky
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  2. Martin L. Lalumière
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  3. Meredith L. Chivers
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Correspondence to Kelly D. Suschinsky.

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Suschinsky, K.D., Lalumière, M.L. & Chivers, M.L. Sex Differences in Patterns of Genital Sexual Arousal: Measurement Artifacts or True Phenomena?. Arch Sex Behav 38, 559–573 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9339-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9339-8

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