Psychosexual stimulation: Sex differences¹

Abstract

The most extensive material regarding specific sex differences with regard to psychosexual stimulation was up to now presented by Kinsey et al. (1953). Their results, which were derived from questionnaires, show the following trends: 1. Men more often than women were stimulated through isolated stimuli (naked or clothed persons of the opposite sex, genitals of both the same and of the other sex, and pictures of sexual scenes). 2. Women were aroused by continuous stimuli (commercial moving pictures; literary material, e.g. novels, essays, poetry) practically as often as men. These stimuli must be assumed to be more romantic than sexual in nature. One main difficulty in obtaining unbiased results regarding sex specific differences in psychosexual stimulations consisted in the impossibility to exactly define or control the stimuli. So for example, the answer to the question if one was never, seldom, or often stimulated through literature would depend on what type of literature one had read. The results of Kinsey et al. therefore may reflect less the sex specific differences in psychosexual stimulation as the difference in extent and type of experience with psychosexual stimuli. It could be argued that in Western civilization women have fewer possibilities of obtaining experiences with psychosexual stimuli: Due to the traditional picture of woman as sexually passive, the supply of sexual stimuli is mainly oriented to men. A definition and control of psychosexual stimuli is possible only under experimental conditions. We are aware of twelve relevant experiments where both men and women subjects were examined. Of these twelve experiments, eight do not need to be considered in this connection because no information regarding sex was given (Brehm, 1966; Eliasberg, 1961; Koegler 1965); they were based on too few subjects (Clark, 1950; Hess, 1960); there were only two women and