The valence of sex: Automatic affective associations in erotophilia and erotophobia

Abstract

Sexual stimuli may elicit positive and negative emotions that can impact sexual thoughts, responses, and behavior. To date, most research on affect and sexuality has focused on conscious processes and affective states. Less is known about how automatic and trait-level affective processes influence our reactions to sexual stimuli. This study used a priming task with backward masking and a trait measure of erotophobia-erotophilia – the tendency to respond to sex on a negative-to-positive continuum – to improve our understanding of the role of automatic and affective processes in response to sexual stimuli. Erotophilic individuals demonstrated automatic associations between sexual primes and positively-valenced targets, whereas erotophobic individuals classified negatively-valenced targets faster regardless of whether primes were sexual or neutral. The findings suggest that the valence of sexual stimuli can be processed automatically and is associated with trait-level affective responses to sex. Implications for research on risky sexual behavior and sexual dysfunction are discussed.

Implicit and Explicit Associations with Erotic Stimuli in Women with and Without Sexual Problems

“…Moreover, it posited that erotic stimuli, even when they are not consciously perceived, would be capable of automatically initiating the efferent physiological process underlying the genital sexual response. Experimental research (Macapagal & Janssen, 2011;Spiering, Everaerd, & Janssen, 2003;Spiering, Everaerd, Karsdorp, Both, & Brauer, 2006) provided the first empirical support for the model in both men and women.…”

Fifty shades of unsaid: Women’s explicit and implicit attitudes towards sexual morality

“…For example, sex may include both the negative emotions of moral judgments and painful recollections of earlier sexual experiences, and positive feelings, fantasies, desires and pleasant reminiscences (Macapagal & Janssen, 2011; Peterson & Janssen, 2007). The dimension of personality broadly used to assess sex-related emotions and attitude is the erotophobia-erotophilia dimension (Fisher, Byrne, White, & Kelley, 1988).…”

“…Nevertheless, a few studies have investigated the possibility that sex-related affective attitudes may involve automatic processes which occur outside an individual's conscious awareness and are engaged immediately and without conscious effort when sexual stimuli are given (Brauer, de Jong, Huijding, Laan, & ter Kuile, 2009; Oliver, Watson, Gannon, & Beech, 2009; Macapagal & Janssen, 2011). This is indeed the open issue which drives our pilot study: Do women who explicitly evaluate themselves as sexually liberal, emancipated and revolutionary, implicitly conceptualize sexual perversions (such as Bondage-Domination-Sadism-Masochism practices) as not being morally guilty and dirty?…”

Prevalencia, comorbilidad y correlatos psicológicos de la compulsividad sexual

“…Que una persona se sitúe en uno u otro extremo depende de su tendencia a acercarse o evitar situaciones y estímulos de contenido sexual: las personas que se sitúan en el extremo erotofílico del continuo suelen mostrarse abiertas y cercanas hacia todo aquello que les despierte interés sexual mientras que en el extremo contrario, las personas erotofóbicas rechazan y evitan todo lo relacionado con el sexo y la sexualidad (Macapagal & Janssen, 2011). En cuanto a su topografía, se la considera a medio camino entre una actitud, una dimensión de personalidad y una creencia cognitiva profunda (Rye, Meaney, Yessis, & Mckay, 2012).…”

“…Los chicos y chicas erotofílicos tienden a iniciarse más tempranamente en la actividad sexual, hacerlo con un mayor número de parejas, mantener una frecuencia sexual mayor (tanto de masturbación como de sexo en pareja) e incluir entre su repertorio sexual mayor variedad de prácticas sexuales (para una revisión, Rye, 2013 Asimismo, esta dimensión influye sobre la vivencia de la sexualidad. Las personas erotofóbicas experimentan vergüenza y culpabilidad cuando mantienen relaciones sexuales, sobre todo cuando éstas se alejan de los cánones tradicionales (p.e., cuando mantienen relaciones sexuales con una persona a la que acaban de conocer), de modo que generalmente acaban desarrollando una peor autoestima sexual (Macapagal & Janssen, 2011). Se ha demostrado también que las personas erotofílicas están más predispuestas a aceptar hábitos y prácticas sexuales alejadas de lo habitual (como por ejemplo el bondage), mientras que al contrario, las erotofóbicas raramente desarrollan este tipo de preferencias sexuales.…”