Sexual arousal/sexual excitement, describes the physiological and psychological responses in preparation for sexual intercourse or when exposed to sexual stimuli.
A number of physiological responses occur in the body and mind in preparation for sexual intercourse, and continue during intercourse.
Male sexual arousal will lead to an erection, and in female arousal, the body’s response is engorged sexual tissues such as nipples, clitoris, vaginal walls, and vaginal lubrication.
Mental stimuli and physical stimuli such as touch, and the internal fluctuation of hormones, can influence sexual arousal.
Sexual arousal has several stages and may not lead to any actual sexual activity beyond a mental arousal and the physiological changes that accompany it.
Given sufficient sexual stimulation, sexual arousal reaches its climax during an orgasm.
Sexual arousal also be pursued for its own sake, even in the absence of an orgasm.
A person can be sexually aroused by a variety of factors, both physical and mental.
People may be sexually aroused by another person or by particular aspects of that person, or by a non-human object.
The physical stimulation of an erogenous zone or acts of foreplay can result in arousal, especially if it is accompanied with the anticipation of imminent sexual activity.
Sexual arousal may be assisted by a romantic setting, music or other soothing situation, and can come from porn or other sexual material.
The potential stimuli for sexual arousal varies from person to person, and from one time to another, as does the level of arousal.
Stimuli can be classified as: somatosensory (touch), visual, and olfactory (scent).
Auditory stimuli are also possible, though they are generally considered secondary in role to the other three.
Erotic stimuli which can result in sexual arousal can include conversation, reading, films or images, or a smell or setting, any of which can generate erotic thoughts and memories.
These erotic stimuli may lead to the person desiring physical contact, kissing, cuddling, and petting of an erogenous zone.
These erotic stimuli may make the person desire direct sexual stimulation of the breasts, nipples, buttocks and/or genitals, and further sexual activity.
Erotic stimuli may originate from a source unrelated to the object of subsequent sexual interest (nudity, erotica or pornography).
Such stimuli may generate a general sexual interest that is satisfied by sexual activity.
When sexual arousal is achieved by or dependent on the use of objects, it is referred to as sexual fetishism, or in some instances a paraphilia.
There is no considerable difference for the time men and women require to become fully aroused.
The average women and men take almost the same time for sexual arousal — around 10 minutes:method of thermal imaging to record baseline temperature change in genital area to define the time necessary for sexual arousal.
The time needed for foreplay is very individual and varies from one occasion to the next depending on circumstances.
Sexual arousal for most people is a positive experience.
Sexual arousal an aspect of sexuality that is often sought.
Individuals can normally control how they will respond to arousal, and know what things or situations are potentially stimulating, and may at their leisure decide to either create or avoid these situations.
A person’s sexual partner will normally also know their partner’s erotic stimuli and turn-offs.
Sexual arousal may make some feel embarrassed and some are sexually inhibited.
Some do not feel aroused on every occasion that they are exposed to erotic stimuli, nor do they act in a sexual way on every arousal.
A person can take an active part in a sexual activity without sexual arousal.
When a person fails to be aroused in a situation that would normally produce arousal and the lack of arousal is persistent, it may be due to a sexual arousal disorder or hypoactive sexual desire disorder.
Reasons why a person fails to be aroused, include: a mental disorder, such as depression, drug use, or a medical or physical condition.
The lack of sexual arousal may be due to a general lack of sexual desire or due to a lack of sexual desire for the current partner.
A person may always have had no or low sexual desire or the lack of desire may have been acquired during the person’s life.
A person may be hypersexual, considered abnormally high in relation to normal development or culture, or suffering from a persistent genital arousal disorder, which is a spontaneous, persistent, and uncontrollable arousal, and the physiological changes associated with arousal.
Sexual arousal causes various physical responses, most in the sex organs.
Sexual arousal for a man is usually indicated by the erection of the penis when blood fills the corpus cavernosum, and is usually the most prominent and reliable sign of sexual arousal in males.
In a woman, sexual arousal leads to increased blood flow to the clitoris and vulva, as well as vaginal transudation.
Transudation is the seeping of moisture through the vaginal walls, which serves as lubrication.
In both sexes, pupil dilation is an involuntary physiological response to sexual arousal.
Male sexual arousal.
The penis is erect and the scrotum is tense.
Erection of nipples
Penile tumescence and erection
The veins in the penis may become more prominent
Tightening and/or retraction of the foreskin often exposing the glans penis
Emission of pre-ejaculatory fluid
Swelling of the testicles
Ascension of the testicles
Tensing and thickening of the scrotum
Pupil dilation
Female sexual arousal
Erection of nipples
Vaginal lubrication
Vasocongestion of the vaginal walls
Tumescence and erection of the clitoral glans and labia
Elevation of the cervix and uterus
Tenting-expansion of the inner ⅔ of the vagina
Change in shape, color and size of the labia majora and labia minora
Pupil dilation
Widening of the areola
It is normal to correlate the erection of the penis with male sexual arousal, and physical or psychological stimulation, or both, lead to vasodilation and the increased blood flow engorges the three spongy areas that run along the length of the penis:n the two corpora cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum.
The penis grows enlarged and firm, the skin of the scrotum is pulled tighter, and the testicles are pulled up against the body.
The relationship between erection and arousal is not one-to-one: After their mid-forties, some men report that they do not always have an erection when they are sexually aroused.
Male erection can occur during sleep, nocturnal penile tumescence, can occur without conscious sexual arousal or due to mechanical stimulation alone. A young man may experience enough sexual arousal for an erection to result from a passing thought, or just the sight of a passerby.
With sexual arousal is continued stimulation continues, the glans or head of the erect penis will swell wider and, as the genitals become further engorged with blood, their color deepens and the testicles can grow up to 50% larger.
As the testicles continue to rise, a feeling of warmth may develop. around the perineum.
Continued sexual stimulation, results in heart rate increases, blood pressure rises and breathing becomes quicker.
With orgasm muscles of the pelvic floor, the vasa deferentia, the seminal vesicles and the prostate gland itself contract in a way that forces sperm and semen into the urethra inside the penis.
If sexual stimulation stops before orgasm, the physical effects of the stimulation, including the vasocongestion, will subside in a short time.
Repeated or prolonged stimulation without orgasm and ejaculation can lead to discomfort in the testes (blue balls).
After orgasm and ejaculation, men usually experience a refractory period.
The refractory sexual period in men characterized by loss of their erection, a subsiding sex flush, less interest in sexual activity, and a feeling of relaxation that can be attributed to the neurohormones oxytocin and prolactin.
The intensity and duration of the refractory period can be very short in a young men in a highly arousing situation.
The refractory sexual period can be as long as a few hours or days in middle-aged and older men.
Other changes include an increase in heart rate as well as in blood pressure, feeling hot and flushed and perhaps experiencing tremors.[15] A sex flush may extend over the chest and upper body.
If sexual stimulation continues, then sexual arousal may peak into orgasm.
After orgasm, some women do not want any further stimulation and the sexual arousal quickly dissipates.
Some women have experienced multiple orgasms quite spontaneously.
There are physical and psychological changes to women’s sexual arousal and responses as they age.
Older women produce less vaginal lubrication and changes to degrees of satisfaction, frequency of sexual activity, to desire, sexual thoughts and fantasies, sexual arousal, beliefs about and attitudes to sex, pain, and the ability to reach orgasm in women in their 40s and after menopause.
Other factors including socio-demographic variables, health, psychological variables, partner variables such as their partner’s health or sexual problems, and lifestyle variables often have a greater impact on women’s sexual functioning than their menopausal status.
While reduced estrogen levels may be associated with increased vaginal dryness and less clitoral erection when aroused, it is not directly related to other aspects of sexual interest or arousal.
In older women, decreased pelvic muscle tone may take longer for arousal to lead to orgasm, may diminish the intensity of orgasms, and cause more rapid resolution.
The uterus typically contracts during orgasm and, with advancing age, those contractions may actually become painful.
Psychological sexual arousal involves appraisal and evaluation of a stimulus, categorization of a stimulus as sexual, and an affective response.
The combination of cognitive and physiological states elicits psychological sexual arousal.
Physiological responses in men such as heart rate, blood pressure, and erection, are often discordant with self-reported subjective perceptions of arousal.
Psychological or cognitive aspects also have a strong effect on sexual arousal.
Cognitive factors, such as sexual motivation, perceived gender role expectations, and sexual attitudes, contribute to sex differences observed in subjective sexual arousal.
The differences in brain activation to sexual stimuli: men showing higher levels of amygdala and hypothalamic responses than women.
The amygdala plays a critical role in the processing of sexually arousing visual stimuli in men.
Research suggests that cognitive factors like sexual motivation, perceived gender role expectations, and sexual attitudes play important roles in women’s self-reported levels of sexual arousal.
A model of sexual response suggests that women’s need for intimacy prompts them to engage with sexual stimuli, which leads to an experience of sexual desire and psychological sexual arousal.
Sexual cognitions impact hormone levels in women, such that sexual thoughts result in a rapid increase in testosterone in women who were not using hormonal contraception.
Women self-reported higher sexual arousal than men, but experienced lower levels of amygdala responses.
Singer’s model of sexual arousal conceptualized human sexual response to be composed of three independent but generally sequential components.
The first stage, aesthetic response, is an emotional reaction to noticing an attractive face or figure.
This emotional reaction produces an increase in attention toward the object of attraction, typically involving head and eye movements toward the attractive object.
The second stage, approach response, progresses from the first and involves bodily movements towards the object.
The final genital response stage recognizes that with both attention and closer proximity, physical reactions result in genital tumescence.
The genital response is the most reliable and convenient to measure in males.
The human sexual response cycle begins with desire, followed by arousal, orgasm, and finally resolution,
An alternative model begins with women feeling a need for intimacy, which leads her to seek out and be receptive to sexual stimuli; women then feel sexual arousal, in addition to sexual desire: the cycle results in an enhanced feeling of intimacy.
A basic incentive-motivation model of sex suggests that incentive cues in the nervous system, results in sexual motivation.
Positive sexual experiences enhance motivation, while negative experiences reduce it.
An external stimulus may excite sexual arousal and motivation below a conscious level of awareness.
An internal cognition can elicit the same effects indirectly, through the conscious representation of a sexual image.
There is a normal individual variation in sexual arousal and inhibition.
On average, males score higher on sexual excitation and lower than females on facets of sexual inhibition.
Age of masturbatory onset is much more variable in girls than boys, whose tend to be close to puberty.
There is no state of physiological deficiency responsible for the periodical appearance of sexual arousal.
Sexual arousal in women is characterized by vasocongestion of the genital tissues, including internal and external areas-vaginal walls, clitoris, and labia.
Methods used to assess genital sexual arousal in women:
Vaginal photoplethysmography can measure changes in vaginal blood volume or phasic changes in vasocongestion associated with each heartbeat.
Clitoral photoplethysmography measures changes in clitoral blood volume, rather than vaginal vasocongestion.
Thermography provides a direct measure of genital sexual arousal by measuring changes in temperature associated with increased blood flow.
Labial thermistor clips measure changes in temperature associated with genital engorgement.
Laser doppler imaging (LDI) has been used as a direct measure of genital sexual arousal in women.
The most obvious response involved with sexual behavior in males is penile erection, and the use of the volume change during penile erection is a measure of sexual arousal: penile plethysmography a commonly measured using a strain gauge, a simple mercury strain gauge encompassed in a ring of rubber.
The ring surrounds the penis, but does not constrict or cause discomfort.
It is a reliable and valid measurement of male arousal.
Heterosexual men experience much higher genital and subjective arousal to women than to men: This pattern is reversed for homosexual men.
Sexual arousal results in a combination of physiological and psychological factors, like genital sexual response and subjective experience of sexual arousal.
Concordance refers to the degree to which genital and subjective sexual responses correspond.
There is a reliable gender difference in concordance of sexual arousal, such that men have a higher level of concordance between genital and subjective sexual responding than women do.
Effects of hormones on sexual motivation:
Testosterone is the most commonly studied hormone involved with sexuality.
It plays a key role in sexual arousal in males, with strong effects on central arousal mechanisms.
Testosterone levels increase as a result of sexual thoughts in females that do not use hormonal contraception.
Women who participate in polyandrous relationships have higher levels of testosterone.
It is unclear whether higher levels of testosterone cause increased arousal and in turn multiple partners or whether sexual activity with multiple partners cause the increase in testosterone.
Testosterone may play a role in the sexuality of some women, its effects can be obscured by the co-existence of psychological or affective factors in others.