The Impact of Sexual Attitudes, Guilt, Knowledge, and Propensity for Sexual Arousal on Self-Reported Sexual Response to a Sexually Explicit Stimulus

Abstract

In order to determine whether response to a sexually explicit stimulus could be predicted by demographic, attitudinal, knowledge, and religiosity factors, this study invited individuals to the Psychophysiology of Sexual Health lab at the University of Guelph for testing. Fifty-five participants visited the lab on one occasion where they answered a number of questionnaires and watched a series of video stimuli while continuously monitoring their sexual arousal. Participants reported being sexually aroused by the stimuli, however, this arousal was not predicted by the above factors. Several between group differences in sexual response outcomes were found on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, level of sex guilt and religiosity. This study contributes to existing research on factors that impact sexual response. Contrary to prior research, results of this study indicate no significant differences in self-reported sexual arousal to a sexual stimulus between males and females.