Abstract
Previous research suggests that women's genital arousal is an automatic response to sexual stimuli but it is partly influenced by several conditions. The study of Chivers (2007) showed low sexual response in women to video stimuli depicting attractive naked man in nonsexual context, but sexual response increased in more sexual condition.
Displaying aroused genitals should be the most important sexual attractant (e.g. Spape et al., 2014).
The goal of the study was to test the difference in female sexual arousal during exposure to erotic photographs displaying men with (1) different level of attractiveness, and (2) different phases of sexual arousal of men presented by erection. Female sexual arousal of 32 heterosexual women, aged 22-45 (M = 31.6, SD = 6.7) were measured by vaginal plethysmograph (BIOPAC system) in reaction to 6 male stimuli (3 attractive/3 unattractive) in three situations: male in underwear, naked male with flaccid penis, and naked men 20 with erected penis.
As control, we used 4 female stimuli in similar conditions and 2 pictures of couples engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse. Mean VPA per category was counted.
Using repeated measures ANOVA, we found significant difference in sexual response between male categories, F(3.671, 155) = 4.403, p =.003. Women showed significant increase in genital arousal to attractive male stimuli (p =. 026), and to stimuli depicting erected penis (p =. 033) compare to attractive men in underwear.
In case of unattractive male stimuli, women showed similar level of genital arousal to men in underwear and naked men with flaccid penis, but genital arousal increased in reaction to men with erected penis. The results suggest that erected penis itself could be a sexual attractant regardless of model's attractiveness.