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.

Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports

“…Unlimited high-definition sexual videos streaming via “tube sites” are now free and widely accessible, 24 h a day via computers, tablets and smartphones, and it has been suggested that Internet pornography constitutes a supernormal stimulus, an exaggerated imitation of something our brains evolved to pursue because of its evolutionary salience [ 74 , 75 ]. Sexually explicit material has been around for a long time, but (1) video pornography is significantly more sexually arousing than other forms of pornography [ 76 , 77 ] or fantasy [ 78 ]; (2) novel sexual visuals have been shown to trigger greater arousal, faster ejaculation, and more semen and erection activity compared with familiar material, perhaps because attention to potential novel mates and arousal served reproductive fitness [ 75 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 ]; and (3) the ability to self-select material with ease makes Internet pornography more arousing than pre-selected collections [ 79 ]. A pornography user can maintain or heighten sexual arousal by instantly clicking to a novel scene, new video or never encountered genre.…”

“…This decrease is also behind tolerance [ 70 ], and has been implicated in both substance and behavioral addictions [ 153 , 154 , 155 , 156 ], including other types of Internet addictions [ 157 , 158 , 159 ].Our servicemen’s tolerance to Internet pornography increased fairly quickly, leading to viewing more extreme material. The fact that self-selected pornography video is more arousing than other pornography may contribute to habituation or tolerance [ 27 , 75 , 79 , 81 , 160 ]. For example, men who viewed a sexual film rather than a neutral film later showed less response to sexual images, a possible indication of habituation [ 161 ].…”

An Investigation of the Effects of Testosterone and Behavioral Expressions of Pain on Sex/Gender Differences in Pain Perception

“…After CPT exposure, all participants were shown a 10-minute emotionally neutral travel documentary, previously determined not to affect testosterone (Goldey & van Anders, 2015). During this time filler, they were asked to refrain from using cell phones or speaking to the researcher.…”

Developing a Causally Valid Picture-Story Measure of Sexual Motivation: II. Effects of film clips

“…Film clips have been used frequently and successfully in previous research with PSE-based motive measures (e.g., Wirth & Schultheiss, 2006) and on human sexual motivation (e.g., Both et al, 2004;Goldey & van Anders, 2016).…”