The Psychology of Sexual Arousal

Capitalism Magazine ^ | December 18, 2003 | Michael J. Hurd

[presidio9]

Q: Why do men seem to enjoy viewing women naked (e.g., in photos, real life, etc.) much more than women seem to enjoy looking at naked men? It seems men are much more "turned on" romantically/sexually by the visual aspects of the opposite sex, than the other way around. Do you agree? And what accounts for this?

A: I have not done and do not intend to do a scientific study on the subject. However, I can share with you my fifteen years of experience talking to people about all kinds of personal matters, including sex. It is my experience that a general trend exists in which men are much more likely to be aroused by the visual and the physical than are women. However, I also see loads of evidence that men are just as capable of responding to values as well--intelligence, shared interests, sense of humor, sense of life, etc.--as opposed to the exclusively physical.

It appears that the most fulfilling sexual response, for both men and women, is inevitably a merging of the two: values and physical attributes. For whatever reason, many men get more caught up in repressing the one while many women become more preoccupied with repressing the other. It's interesting to note that any attempt to shut out either one--physical or values--whether by a man or a woman, results in some degree of romantic unhappiness. For both men and women, sex without love is as meaningless as love without sex is phony.

Although physiological factors can be involved, since there are obvious differences between men and women physically, I don't assume it's the primary explanation for this observed difference. I don't vote either "nature" or "nurture" as an explanation. Instead, I'm interested in why certain individuals end up choosing to value some attributes over others, and what the consequences of those value choices are.

My experience teaches that both men and women can make errors (most certainly do in romance); and both men and women can make choices that serve their interests and bring sustained happiness. In the area of romance, both men and women have a lot to learn when it comes to integrating their sexuality.

[cyborg]

IT WAS THIS WAY IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS. I think these arm chair social psychologists should read it more often.

[Mark17]

IT WAS THIS WAY IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS.

Well, this is just my opinion. I have nothing to back it up, just my opinion, but I think Adam followed Eve, when she ate the fruit, because he did not want to lose the most beautiful female ever created. Just MHO.

[The Westerner]

You don't like looking at a statue like the David by Michelangelo?

[King Prout]

oh, sure... but I'd rather be looking at a naked live Beyonce Knowles than that under-equipped piece of marble. Wouldn't you?

[The Westerner]

No. I'd rather have a picture of the David hanging in my living room than one of Beyounce.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Wow....When I meet people, for the first time, who speak like this guy - carefully over-qualifying everything...using 4 paragraphs to explain 4 word concepts.....taking every care to meter their statements so as not to draw definitive lines - I go to great lengths to avoid meeting them a second time.

[bdeaner]

Magnetic Resonance Imagining (MRI), you might be thinking. Yes, that could be done. Very expensive, though.

[bdeaner]

I think these arm chair social psychologists should read it more often.

I'm not an "arm chair" psychologist, my friend. I am an actual psychologist, with a PhD, and my area is emotion and motivation, as well as clinical psych.

Also, keep in mind, as scientists, we must observe without preconceptions, Biblical or otherwise. We do not presume Biblical truth in science, we simply observe the empirical evidence. If the Bible is true, then the evidence will bear it out eventually, that is, if you truly believe what you profess with your faith.

[bdeaner]

My understanding is that you may be somewhat out of date in some of your excellent analysis. I understand that MRI's and PET scans of infants presented with different types of stimuli and monitoring the different portions of male vs female brains which "light up" has shown quite a bit of what I said earlier in extremely young infants. But, as I said, I haven't read much professional literature on it recently.

I just did a search in PsychINFO (research database of psychological research), and I found no research on neurological gender differences in infants.

The research that has been done with infants in neuroscience are looking at very basic cognitive tasks, such as attention to certain stimuli.

There is a good reason for this, I think. Infants do not yet have the cognitive ability to engage in complex cognitive tasks such as mental rotation and verbal spatial skills, which is where we find the gender differences.

Autopsy of infants might point out differences in brain structure, e.g. thicker corpos callosum in females, which indicates greater brain lateralization. But I couldn't find any research on this either.

In any case, as a scientist, I am skeptical about any claim that is not empirically supported. And, at this point, we just don't have the evidence to claim whether or not gender differences in cognitive abilities is biological or learned. We don't know.

[Syncro]

LOL

[Dan from Michigan]

%##@ you. That's just wrong. DAMN wrong.

[quietolong]

bump

[Quix]

You MUST be right. Your reading is far more extensive and recent than mine.

I can certainly get the wrong impression from my scanning, at times.

I do think there is more about early physiological diffs on the visual vs verbal brain areas than you seem to have turned up, though.

But, again, I could easily be wrong.

[cyborg]

I wasn't referring to you. I was referring to the personn who wrote the article.


When someone finds a human emotion/trait that is NOT in the Bible then I really think that social scientists know more than God.

[Servant of the 9]

There not enough botox in the world to help that sourpus.

Unfortunately you are partially wrong.
I look for her to have a complete "Gretta" or maybe even the "Full Michael" about mid 2006 when she starts publicly campaigning for the '08 nomination.

So9

[presidio9]

But women tend more than men to be attracted to attributes that signal that the man is willing to commit to a long-term relationship.

Based on my own observations, the exact opposite tends to be true.

[Prime Choice]

No. I'd rather have a picture of the David hanging in my living room than one of Beyounce.

But he's so...tiny.

[King Prout]

and unpleasant, too.
(gnggg!gnggg!gnggg!gnggg!gnggg!.... for 90 minutes. ack.)
not sure an infant would cotton to such an auditory assault.

[King Prout]

surely, you jest?

[King Prout]

oh. living room. that makes more sense. never mind.
however, this is a topic concerning male sexual arousal, not public-access aesthetics.
with that clarified, what would you rather look at: Beyonce in the flesh and in the nude, or Mikey's David in stone?