OpenLB
Open Library of Bioscience
Advanced Search
Archives of sexual behavior
02, 2022;51 (2): 743-749.

Female Genital Arousal: A Focus on How Rather than Why.

Marieke Dewitte
Author Information
  1. Marieke Dewitte: Department of Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel, 40, 6229 ER, Maastricht, The Netherlands. marieke.dewitte@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
PMID: 32671500 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-020-01792-x

Abstract

No abstract text available.

References

  1. Bancroft, J. (2005). The endocrinology of sexual arousal. Journal of Endocrinology, 186, 411–427.
  2. Bloemers, J., Gerritsen, J., Bults, R., Koppeschaar, H., Everaerd, W., Olivier, B., & Tuiten, A. (2010). Induction of sexual arousal in women under conditions of institutional and ambulatory laboratory circumstances: A comparative study. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 7, 1160–1176.
  3. Both, S., Everaerd, W., & Laan, E. (2007). Desire emerges from excitement: A psychophysiological perspective on sexual motivation. In E. Janssen (Ed.), The psychophysiology of sex (pp. 327–339). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  4. Brauer, M., Laan, E., & ter Kuile, M. M. (2006). Sexual arousal in women with superficial dyspareunia. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 35, 191–200. [PMID: 16752121]
  5. Brom, M., Both, S., Laan, E., Everaerd, W., & Spinhoven, P. (2014). The role of conditioning, learning, and dopamine in sexual behavior: A narrative review of animal and human studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 38, 38–59. [PMID: 24211372]
  6. Bush, S. I. (2001). Implicit and explicit memory of neutral, negative emotional, and sexual information. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 30, 615–631. [PMID: 11725459]
  7. Chivers, M. L. (2005). A brief review and discussion of sex differences in the specificity of sexual arousal. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 20, 377–390.
  8. Chivers, M. L., Rieger, G., Latty, E., & Bailey, J. M. (2004). A sex difference in the specificity of sexual arousal. Psychological Science, 15, 736–744. [PMID: 15482445]
  9. Chivers, M. L., Seto, M. C., & Blanchard, R. (2007). Gender and sexual orientation differences in sexual response to sexual activities versus gender of actors in sexual films. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 1108–1121. [PMID: 18072857]
  10. Chivers, M. L., Seto, M. C., Lalumiere, M. L., Laan, E., & Grimbos, T. (2010). Agreement of self-reported and genital measures of sexual arousal in men and women: A meta-analysis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 5–56. [PMID: 20049519]
  11. Chivers, M. L., & Timmers, A. D. (2012). Effects of gender and relationship context in audio narratives on genital and subjective sexual response in heterosexual women and men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 185–197. [PMID: 22406875]
  12. Confer, J. C., Easton, J. A., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, C. D., Lewis, D. M. G., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2010). Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations. American Psychologist, 65, 110–126.
  13. Conley, T. D., Moors, A. C., Matsick, J. L., Ziegler, A., & Valentine, B. A. (2011). Women, men, and the bedroom: Methodological and conceptual insights that narrow, reframe, and eliminate gender differences in sexuality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 296–300.
  14. Dawson, S. J., & Chivers, M. L. (2018). The effect of static versus dynamic stimuli on visual processing of sexual cues in androphilic women and gynephilic men. Royal Society Open Science, 5. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172286 .
  15. Dawson, S. J., Fretz, K. M., & Chivers, M. L. (2017). Visual attention patterns of women with androphilic and gynephilic sexual attractions. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46, 141–153. [PMID: 27542080]
  16. Dewitte, M. (2014). On the interpersonal dynamics in sexuality. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 40, 209–232. [PMID: 24102171]
  17. Dewitte, M. (2015). Gender differences in liking and wanting sex: Examining the role of motivational context and implicit versus explicit processing. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44, 1663–1674. [PMID: 25388302]
  18. Dewitte, M. (2016). Gender differences in implicit processes of sexual stimuli. European Journal of Personality, 30, 107–124.
  19. Dewitte, M., Schepers, J., & Melles, R. (2018). The effects of partner presence and sexual stimulation on the appraisal of vaginal pressure and sexual arousal. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 15, 539–549.
  20. Everaerd, W. (1988). Commentary on sex research: Sex as an emotion. Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 1, 3–15.
  21. Everaerd, W., Jannsen, E., & Spiering, M. (2003). Priming the sexual system: Implicit versus explicit activation. Journal of Sex Research, 30, 134–145.
  22. Freeman, W. J. (2000). Emotion is essential to all intentional behaviors. In M. D. Lewis & I. Granic (Eds.), Emotion, development and self-organization (pp. 209–235). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  23. Frijda, N. H., & Mesquita, B. (1998). The analysis of emotions: Dimensions of variation. In M. F. Mascolo & S. Griffin (Eds.), What develops in emotional development? Emotions, personality, and psychotherapy (pp. 273–295). New York: Plenum Press.
  24. Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 224–237. [PMID: 9457784]
  25. Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39, 281–291. [PMID: 12212647]
  26. Handy, A. B., & Meston, C. M. (2018). Interoception and awareness of physiological sexual arousal in women with sexual arousal concerns. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 44, 398–409. [PMID: 29166215]
  27. Handy, A. B., Stanton, A. M., Pulverman, C. S., & Meston, C. M. (2018). Differences in perceived and physiologic genital arousal between women with and without sexual dysfunction. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 15, 52–63.
  28. Hankin, B. L. (2013). Critical reflections on evolutionary psychology and sexual selection theory as explanatory account of emergence of sex differences in psychopathology: Comment on Martel (2013). Psychological Bulletin, 139, 1260–1264. [PMID: 24188421]
  29. Hoffmann, H. (2017). Situating human sexual conditioning. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46, 2213–2229. [PMID: 28698969]
  30. Hyde, J. S. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60, 581–592.
  31. Janssen, E. (2011). Sexual arousal in men: A review and conceptual analysis. Hormones and Behavior, 59, 708–719. [PMID: 21397602]
  32. Janssen, E., Everaerd, W., Spiering, M., & Janssen, J. (2000). Automatic processes and the appraisal of sexual stimuli: Toward an information processing model of sexual arousal. Journal of Sex Research, 37, 8–23.
  33. Khera, M. (2015). Testosterone therapy for female sexual dysfunction. Sexual Medicine Review, 3, 137–144.
  34. Laan, E., & Everaerd, W. (1995). Determinants of female sexual arousal: Psychophysiological theory and data. Annual Review of Sex Research, 6, 32–76.
  35. Laan, E., van Driel, E. M., & van Lunsen, R. H. W. (2008). Genital responsiveness in healthy women with and without sexual arousal disorder. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 5, 1424–1435.
  36. Lalumière, M. L., Sawatsky, M. L., Dawson, S. J., & Suschinsky, K. D. (2020). The empirical status of the preparation hypothesis: Explicating women’s genital responses to sexual stimuli in the laboratory. Archives of Sexual Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01599-5 . [DOI: 10.1007/s10508-019-01599-5]
  37. Levin, R. J. (2003). The ins and outs of vaginal lubrication. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 18, 509–513.
  38. Melles, R. J., Dewitte, M., Ter Kuile, M. M., Bonnemayer, C., & Peters, M. M. L. (2018). The vaginal pressure inducer: A new device to test the (un)pleasurableness and tolerance of vaginal pressure and the influence of sexual stimuli. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 44, 189–200. [PMID: 28686528]
  39. Öhman, A. (1993). Fear and anxiety as emotional phenomena: Clinical phenomenology, evolutionary perspectives, and information-processing mechanisms. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 511–526). New York: The Guilford Press.
  40. Petersen, J. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2010). A meta-analytic review of research on gender differences in sexuality, 1993–2007. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 21–38. [PMID: 20063924]
  41. Prause, N., Barela, J., Roberts, V., & Graham, C. (2013). Instructions to rate genital vasocongestion increases genital and self-reported sexual arousal but not coherence between genital and self-reported sexual arousal. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 10, 2219–2231.
  42. Rodriguez-Nieto, G., Emmerling, F., Dewitte, M., Sack, A. T., & Schuhmann, T. (2019). The role of inhibitory control mechanisms in the regulation of sexual behavior. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48, 481–494. [PMID: 30671876]
  43. Rosenbaum, T. Y. (2007). Pelvic floor involvement in male and female sexual dysfunction and the role of pelvic floor rehabilitation in treatment: A literature review. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 4, 4–13.
  44. Rupp, H. A., & Wallen, K. (2007). Sex differences in viewing sexual stimuli: An eye-tracking study in men and women. Hormones and Behavior, 51, 524–533. [PMID: 17362952]
  45. Smith, C. A., & Konik, J. (2011). Feminism and evolutionary psychology: Allies, adversaries, or both? An introduction to a special issue. Sex Roles, 64, 595–602.
  46. Snowden, R. J., & Gray, N. S. (2013). Implicit sexual associations in heterosexual and homosexual women and men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 42, 475–485. [PMID: 22350127]
  47. Strack, F., & Deutsch, R. (2004). Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 220–247. [PMID: 15454347]
  48. Suschinsky, K. D., Huberman, J. S., Maunder, L., Brotto, L. A., Hollenstein, T., & Chivers, M. L. (2019). The relationship between sexual functioning and sexual concordance in women. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 45, 230–246. [PMID: 30898058]
  49. Suschinsky, K. D., & Lalumière, M. L. (2011). Prepared for anything? An investigation of female genital arousal in response to rape cues. Psychological Science, 22, 159–165. [PMID: 21189352]
  50. Timmers, A. D., Dawson, S., & Chivers, M. L. (2018). The effects of gender and relationship context cues on responsive sexual desire in exclusively and predominantly androphilic women and gynephilic men. Journal of Sex Research, 55, 1167–1179. [PMID: 29677455]
  51. Toates, F. (2009). An integrative theoretical framework for understanding sexual motivation, arousal and behavior. Journal of Sex Research, 46, 168–193. [PMID: 19308842]
  52. Van der Velde, J., Laan, E., & Everaerd, W. (2001). Vaginismus, a component of a general defensive reaction. An investigation of pelvic floor muscle activity during exposure to emotion-inducing film excerpts in women with and without vaginismus. International Urogynecology Journal, 12, 328–331.
  53. van Lankveld, J., Martin, A., Hubben, D., Creutz, N., & Verboon, P. (2013). The effects of autobiographic sexual memory recall on the sexual response of sexually functional men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 42, 973–983. [PMID: 23519590]

MeSH Term

Arousal
Female
Genitalia, Female
Humans
Journal Article Comment
Article has an altmetric score of 19

Word Cloud

Created with Highcharts 10.0.0FemaleGenitalArousal:FocusRatherWhy

Similar Articles

Cited By