The effects of sympathetic activation on physiological and subjective sexual arousal in women

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Abstract

This investigation was designed to examine the effects of acute exercise on physiological and subjective sexual arousal in women. In Experiment 1, Ss participated in two experimental sessions in which they viewed a neutral film followed by an erotic film. In one of these sessions, Ss were exposed to 20 min of intense exercise prior to viewing the films. Subjective sexual arousal was measured with a self-report rating scale and physiological sexual arousal was measured with a vaginal photoplethysmograph. Acute exercise significantly decreased vaginal pulse amplitude responses to a neutral stimulus and significantly increased vaginal pulse amplitude responses to an erotic stimulus. Exercise marginally increased vaginal blood volume responses to an erotic film but had no significant effect on subjective perceptions of sexual arousal. In Experiment 2, Ss viewed two consecutive neutral stimuli preceded by 20 min of intense exercise. There were no significant differences in either vaginal blood volume or vaginal pulse amplitude between the two neutral films. Together, the data from Experiments 1 and 2 provide indirect support for a facilitatory role of sympathetic activation in female sexual arousal.

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      This method allows for the extraction of 2 signals: vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA), which represents phasic changes in vaginal blood flow, and vaginal blood volume (VBV), considered being an index of total blood volume.2 Although both signals are responsive to erotic stimuli, they tend to be weakly correlated with each other.3,4 Because the construct validity of VPA has been better established than that of VBV and VPA has been found to be more specific to sexual stimuli, most publications that rely on the use of vaginal photoplethysmography only report VPA.

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