Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to assess women's genital response to the set of erotic texts representing various excitatory and inhibitory contents and to test its association with the subscales of the Sexual Inhibition/Sexual Excitation Scales for Women (SIS/SES; Carpenter et al, 2008). Methods: Genital arousal of 20 women (mean age 1/4 25.4 (SD 1.9)) was measured using plethysmography GETA with clitoral device.
All women were exposed to the set of 10 erotic texts, each text was followed by distractor (cognitive tasks). Stories were chosen with regard to Meuwissen and Over's (1991) 5 dimensions of female sexual fantasies (2 per dimension): genital, sensual, sexual power, sexual suffering and forbidden sexual activity.
Mean and maximum sexual arousal per story/distractor was counted. Participants also fulfilled SIS/SES questionnaire for Women (Carpenter et al, 2008).
Pearson's correlation was used to test the association between genital arousal and dimensions of SIS/SES. Results: The magnitude of genital response to different text contents was significantly associated with SIS/SES subscales.
For example, positive correlations were found between subscale SIS2_3 (Pain/Norms and Values) and erotic text no. 10 (forbidden sexual activity; mean rating per stimuli: r 1/4 .584, p 1/4 .028; mean rating per following distractor: r 1/4 .614, p 1/4 .019), or no. 22 (sexual suffering; mean rating per stimuli: r 1/4 .547, p 1/4 .043; mean rating per distractor: r 1/4 .614, p 1/4 .019). Conclusion: The level of genital sexual arousal is possibly influenced by woman conscious reaction to erotic stimuli which describes the feelings of pain during intercourse, performance concerns or risk of being caught during sexual activities.