Men and women exhibit differential neural activation to photographs of human sexual activity with males showing increased amygdale activation (Hamman, et al., 2004). We don’t know whether men and women look at the same aspects of the sexual stimuli. We investigated sexual stimuli viewing patterns in men and women using eye-tracking, and whether women’s interest in sexual stimuli varied with her hormonal condition (Rupp and Wallen, 2007).
Fifteen men, 15 normally cycling (NC) women, and 15 oral contracepting (OC) women viewed 72 sexually explicit photos at each of three sessions separated by at least a week. Subjects controlled their pace of viewing the sexual stimuli. NC womens’ sessions occurred during the follicular periovulatory, and luteal phases. OC women and men’s sessions occurred at comparable intervals. NC women were counterbalanced by cycle phase such that 1/3 started in each phase.
Men and women differed in where they first looked at the sexual stimuli with men looking first at the stimulus women’s face. NC women first looked at genitals, and OC women looked first at context items. There was no overall effect of cycle phase on interest because the phase in which the NC women first viewed the stimuli predicted their interest on subsequent trials. Women first viewing sexual stimuli in the periovulatory phase showed continued high interest at the other phases, whereas luteal-first women showed reduced interest at all phases. Thus womans’ hormonal state when first experiencing sexual stimuli affects her subsequent response to such stimuli.
Conflict of Interest: None disclosed
Financial Support/Funding: None disclosed
The 19th WAS World Congress for Sexual Health - Sexual Health & Rights: A Global Challenge Göteborg (Sweden) - June 21 – 25, 2009
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