Abstract
Studies investigating sexual arousal indicate that men and women respond to erotic stimuli differently. Sexual arousal in men (both subjectively reported and genital) aligns with their sexual orientation.
However, women show genital arousal even to subjectively non-preferred stimuli. Scholars often explain this characteristic of female genital arousal as a) a sexual response to the copulatory movement itself, b) a consequence of anatomical differences of men and women, c) identification with the actress, d) a sign of erotic plasticity, or e) the preparation hypothesis.
This review aims to present in more detail the hypotheses above and explain the low concordance between women's subjective and genital arousal. Further, we will discuss why women show low categorical specificity in their sexual reactivity, i.e., why they respond genitally even to non-preferred stimuli.