Differential patterns of arousal in sexually functional and dysfunctional women: physiological and subjective components of sexual response

Abstract

Physiological and subjective patterns of sexual arousal were compared for sexually functional and dysfunctional women. Previous studies revealed seemingly contradictory findings: Some found significant group differences on physiological but not on subjective responses to erotic stimuli, whereas others found the opposite. To reconcile this discrepancy, subjects were presented with edited versions of the three erotic videotapes used in previous studies. Sexual arousal was measured physiologically with a vaginal photoplethysmograph, and subjectively with a self-report rating scale. Previous methodology was systematically replicated and extended by developing alternate physiological data collection and reduction techniques, employing alternate methods of subjective assessment, evaluating the arousal-eliciting capacity of the erotic stimuli, and designing scripts to reduce social demand. Results indicated that dysfunctional women exhibited significantly less physiological and subjectively experienced sexual arousal than functional women in all three stimulus conditions. Dysfunctional women also reported significantly less autonomic arousal. Results (i) replicate several seemingly contradictory findings in the literature, (ii) reconcile and provide evidence supporting an explanation for the apparent discrepancy, and (iii) reveal that subjective experience and genital vasocongestion are two primary components of sexual arousal that reliably discriminate dysfunctional from functional patterns of sexual response in women.