Sexual motivation.

Whalen, Richard E.

doi:10.1037/h0023026

Cited by 100 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Whalen, 1966;also Bancroft, 1989, who considered sexual arousability, or ''central arousability,'' to be one of the dimensions of sexual appetite).…”

Section: Defining Sexual Desirementioning

confidence: 97%

Attention and Emotional Responses to Sexual Stimuli and Their Relationship to Sexual Desire

2007

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Little is known about why individuals vary in their levels of sexual desire. Information processing models, like Barlow's (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 54:140-148, 1986) model of sexual functioning, suggest that individuals with higher sexual desire attend more and respond with more pleasant emotions to sexual cues than individuals with lower levels of sexual desire. In this study, 69 participants (36 women, 33 men) completed a dot detection task measuring attention capture by sexual stimuli and a startle eyeblink modulation task indexing the valence of emotional response to affective stimuli. Participants with high levels of sexual desire were slower to detect targets in the dot detection task that replaced sexual images but did not differ in startle eyeblink responses to sexual stimuli. The results suggest that the amount of attention captured by sexual stimuli is a stronger predictor of a person's sexual desire level than the valence of the emotional responses elicited by such stimuli.

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“…Whalen, 1966;also Bancroft, 1989, who considered sexual arousability, or ''central arousability,'' to be one of the dimensions of sexual appetite).…”

Section: Defining Sexual Desirementioning

confidence: 97%

Attention and Emotional Responses to Sexual Stimuli and Their Relationship to Sexual Desire

2007

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“…In Study 1, the self-identified asexuals reported engaging in behaviors that they recognized were considered sexual by most people (e.g., genital touching), but that they themselves did not associate with pleasurable sexual arousal. Sexual arousability has been defined as an individual"s characteristic rate of approach to orgasm as a result of sexual stimulation (Whalen, 1966). If asexuals have a higher threshold to experience sexual arousal, their scores on scales assessing sexual arousability and related constructs should be significantly lower than non-asexual individuals.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Asexuality: Classification and Characterization

2007

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The term "asexual" has been defined in many different ways and asexuality has received very little research attention. In a small qualitative study (N = 4), individuals who self-identified as asexual were interviewed to help formulate hypotheses for a larger study. The second larger study was an online survey drawn from a convenience sample designed to better characterize asexuality and to test predictors of asexual identity. A convenience sample of 1,146 individuals (N = 41 self-identified asexual) completed online questionnaires assessing sexual history, sexual inhibition and excitation, sexual desire, and an open-response questionnaire concerning asexual identity. Asexuals reported significantly less desire for sex with a partner, lower sexual arousability, and lower sexual excitation but did not differ consistently from non-asexuals in their sexual inhibition scores or their desire to masturbate. Content analyses supported the idea that low sexual desire is the primary feature predicting asexual identity.

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“…In order to have sex, we must first be able to respond to hormonal and neurochemical changes that signal our own sexual desire and arousal and distinguish it from other sympathetic activation, such as anxiety. This ability underlies our moment-to-moment level of sexual arousability (as conceived by Whalen, 1966) and defines a large part of the internal state that is commonly referred to as ''sex drive.'' Second, we must be able to make sense of external cues that signal sexual attraction and receptivity in others (e.g., Salu, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who, What, Where, When (and Maybe Even Why)? How the Experience of Sexual Reward Connects Sexual Desire, Preference, and Performance

et al. 2012

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Although sexual behavior is controlled by hormonal and neurochemical actions in the brain, sexual experience induces a degree of plasticity that allows animals to form instrumental and Pavlovian associations that predict sexual outcomes, thereby directing the strength of sexual responding. This review describes how experience with sexual reward strengthens the development of sexual behavior and induces sexually-conditioned place and partner preferences in rats. In both male and female rats, early sexual experience with partners scented with a neutral or even noxious odor induces a preference for scented partners in subsequent choice tests. Those preferences can also be induced by injections of morphine or oxytocin paired with a male rat's first exposure to scented females, indicating that pharmacological activation of opioid or oxytocin receptors can "stand in" for the sexual reward-related neurochemical processes normally activated by sexual stimulation. Conversely, conditioned place or partner preferences can be blocked by the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone. A somatosensory cue (a rodent jacket) paired with sexual reward comes to elicit sexual arousal in male rats, such that paired rats with the jacket off show dramatic copulatory deficits. We propose that endogenous opioid activation forms the basis of sexual reward, which also sensitizes hypothalamic and mesolimbic dopamine systems in the presence of cues that predict sexual reward. Those systems act to focus attention on, and activate goal-directed behavior toward, reward-related stimuli. Thus, a critical period exists during an individual's early sexual experience that creates a "love map" or Gestalt of features, movements, feelings, and interpersonal interactions associated with sexual reward.

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Sexual motivation.

Cited by 100 publications

References 16 publications

Attention and Emotional Responses to Sexual Stimuli and Their Relationship to Sexual Desire

Attention and Emotional Responses to Sexual Stimuli and Their Relationship to Sexual Desire

Asexuality: Classification and Characterization

Who, What, Where, When (and Maybe Even Why)? How the Experience of Sexual Reward Connects Sexual Desire, Preference, and Performance

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