Genital and Subjective Sexual Arousal in Androphilic Women and Gynephilic Men in Response to the Copulatory Movements of Different Animal Species

TL;DR

The study found that human sexual arousal does not respond to sexual behaviors of non-human animals, regardless of gender preference.

Contribution

It introduces a novel comparison of human sexual arousal to animal copulation across different phylogenetic distances.

Findings

Neither men nor women showed genital or subjective arousal to non-human sexual stimuli.

Arousal patterns were highly specific to human sexual cues.

Animal copulation movements did not elicit human sexual responses.

Abstract

Research has repeatedly shown marked differences in men’s and women’s sexual response patterns; genital response in men tends to be elicited by cues that correspond to their sexual preference (preferred gender), while women’s genital response is less sensitive to gender cues and more sensitive to the presence and intensity of other sexual cues (e.g., sexual activities). We tested whether the cue of copulatory movement in a general sexual context elicited a genital response in androphilic women but not in gynephilic men. If so, women should react to stimuli depicting not only the non-preferred gender but also other animal species differing in phylogenetic distance to humans. We studied the genital and self-reported arousal of 30 gynephilic men and 28 androphilic women to two sexual videos depicting penetrative human sexual intercourse (female-male and female-female) and nine videos depicting animal copulation. Neither women nor men showed genital or subjective sexual arousal to non-human sexual stimuli. Moreover, both sexes demonstrated a highly cue-specific pattern of arousal. Our results suggest that copulatory movement displayed in non-human species is not a sexual cue that can elicit genital or subjective sexual arousal in humans.

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