The Spice Drawer

The purpose of the study was to collect data on how different characteristics of sexual images and videos are evaluated. These data will help us to determine which of the images and videos will be used in future sexuality studies.

Little research has looked at how the race of the actors in sexual images and videos influence sexual response, like sexual arousal. Research shows that there is a lack of racial diversity in the sexual images and videos used in sexuality research studies, such that the majority depict White actors. By collecting ratings we aim to improve the quality of materials used in sexuality research.

Publications In Progress

The purpose of this study was to better understand how men and women process sexual stimuli. Previous research suggests that people can detect adaptive target categories (e.g., faces, animals) with increased speed and accuracy than neutral categories (e.g., landscapes, objects). A gender difference has also been observed in the way that women and men respond to sexual stimuli. In general, women fixate toward both preferred (relative to their sexual orientation) and nonpreferred genders with the same speed, whereas men fixate much more quickly toward persons of their preferred gender.

For this study, we w reinterested in whether people can detect sexually-relevant human stimuli faster and with more accuracy than clothed stimuli. In addition to this, we examined whether men and women identify sexually-relevant stimuli of their preferred gender more quickly and accurately than their non-preferred gender.

Publications In Progress

The study involved measuring physical and mental sexual arousal responses to nonsexual and sexual videos. Sexual arousal is a complex process involving psychological and physiological responses to sexual stimuli. Most men experience high sexual concordance – synchrony between physiological and psychological sexual responses. This is not the case for many women: sexual concordance is, on average, substantially lower in women than men, meaning that if a woman experiences physical sexual arousal, she may not feel sexually aroused.

To examine this association in more depth, we studied women’s and men’s sexual responses as well as their personality characteristics, to see if certain personality characteristics or sexual history variables influence sexual concordance. We were also interested in learning more about how the body generally responds to sexual versus non-sexual stimuli. The results of this study will help researchers understand more clearly the relationship between different aspects of arousal in women and men and can be used to later develop more effective treatments for sexual dysfunction in women and men, based on gender differences observed in the lab.

We were interested in the relationship between physical and emotional sexual arousal in women and men. We were particularly interested in why women seem to have lower sexual concordance (i.e., a lower relationship between physical and emotional sexual arousal) when compared to men. Previous research indicates that women and men’s responses to questions about their sexuality are sometimes biased when provided in a lab setting; responses are sometimes biased to conform to what they think is normal for their gender. We were interested to learn if women’s and men’s sexual response patterns might also be explained by participants responding to sexual stimuli based on what they consider to be more appropriate or typical for members of their gender. We wanted to see if the responses provided are different when people are monitored by the polygraph as they are watching the videos, a condition that has been shown to reduce self-report biases. Therefore, we will compared the responses of participants who were being monitored to those who were not.

We made use of the polygraph in order to promote honesty during one of the testing conditions. Some participants were connected to the polygraph before the videos and told that we could determine if they were responding honestly. Some participants were connected to the polygraph before the videos but were told that we were measuring other aspects of how the body responds to sexual stimuli. We cannot actually tell when someone is providing dishonest responses based on the equipment that we were using.

Publications:

• Suschinsky, K., Maunder, L., Fisher, T., Hollenstein, T., & Chivers, M. L. (2020). Use of the bogus pipeline increases sexual concordance in women but not men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49, 1517–1532. doi: 10.1007/s10508-020-01737-4

Publications:

• Bouchard, K., Timmers, A. D., & Chivers, M. L. (2016). Gender-specificity of genital response and self-reported sexual arousal in women endorsing facets of bisexuality. Journal of Bisexuality, 15, 180–203. doi: 10.1080/15299716.2015.1022924

• Chivers, M. L., Bouchard, K., & Timmers, A. D. (2015). Straight but not narrow; Withingender variation in the gender-specificity of women’s sexual response. PLoS One, 10(12), e0142575. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142575

• Chivers, M. L. (2014, April). Straight but not narrow; sexual responses of heterosexual women. Invited presentation for the Social Psychology Brown Bag Series, Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON.

The purpose of the study is to explore factors influencing women’s sexual responses, including women’s own self-concepts and how these are structured.

According to the Incentive Motivation Model (IMM) of sexual response, incentives, and the cues associated with them, influence the nervous system and trigger sexual responding, behaviour, and motivation. Particular stimuli become incentivized when they are accompanied by reinforcements and are labeled as sexual; subsequent stimuli are then compared with memories of earlier experience to determine their incentive value. The IMM is a compelling model, however, we know relatively little regarding how incentives and the cues associated with them affect the nervous system, including how sexual information is stored. It is possible that individual differences in the organization of sexual self-concepts or sexual schemas contribute to individual variability in sexual responsivity and sexual functioning. By comparison, depression researchers have found that the interconnectedness of positive and negative self-schemas relate to depression scores and differentiate depressed individuals and healthy controls. Research in sexuality has revealed that women with positive sexual schemas report more sexual experience, openness, arousability, and desire than those with negative sexual schemas; however, no study has examined the theoretical structure of these schemas (i.e., organization of a woman’s sexual self-concept), which may be derived from sexual experience and relevant for sexual response and motivation.

The current study used novel methodology to develop a method of assessing the structure and valence of women’s sexual schemas and examined the utility and validity of this measure. Specifically, we examined the relationship between sexual self-schema structure and sexual experience, along with other sexuality variables.

Publications:

• Huberman, J.S., & Chivers, M. L. (2020). Development of a novel measure of women's sexual self-schema organization. Personality and Individual Differences, 155, 109665. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.109665

The purpose of the study was to explore the factors that influence sexual responses and evaluation of sexual cues when the videos and images depict people whose race/ethnicity is the same as, or different from the viewer. Research suggests that sexual response is influenced by the gender and attractiveness of the actors in sexual images and videos, but few studies have investigated how the race of the actors can influence sexual response, like sexual arousal.

There is a lack of racial diversity in the images and videos used in sexuality research studies, such that the majority depict White actors. This is consistent with what is typically seen in mainstream sexually explicit media. Sadly, sexually explicit media depicting Black actors often portray the actors in racially stereotypical or degrading ways. The images and videos used in this study were deliberately chosen to avoid racial stereotypes that are commonly seen in sexually explicit materials.

In this study, we examined responses to images and videos of Black and White people to determine if race influences self-reported sexual arousal and attractiveness ratings. We were also interested in how sexual responses are influenced by the racial and sexual attitudes of the viewer, how much participants identify with the actors in the films, and if identification with the actors is influenced by race congruence (i.e., whether the actor is racially similar to the viewer). We hope to include more Black people in sexuality research, as they are often underrepresented in sexuality studies, and to better understand the factors influencing sexual response among Black people.

Publications In Progress

The purpose of this current study was to evaluate gender differences in sexual arousal responses to preferred and non-preferred sexual stimuli using thermography.

Considerable research suggests a gender difference in sexual arousal such than men’s genital responses to sexual stimuli in the laboratory typically correspond with their stated sexual attractions (category specific sexual arousal), whereas heterosexual women typically exhibit genital responses to a range of sexual stimuli (category non-specific sexual arousal). Category specificity of sexual arousal has been studied primarily using two methods of measuring genital response – vaginal photoplethysmography in women and penile plethysmography in men. These methods have been criticized for not allowing direct gender comparisons as different apparati are used to assess genital response in men and women. An alternate method for measuring genital response, thermography, has recently been validated and may be used with both men and women. Thermography has never been used to assess genital response to a variety of sexual stimuli; therefore, the current study evaluated gender differences in sexual arousal responses to preferred and non-preferred sexual stimuli using thermography. If our hypotheses are supported, this research will provide converging evidence with a new methodology that men and women differ in category specificity of sexual arousal. Given that thermography may be a more sensitive measure of men’s genital responses than penile plethysmography, we also predict that men will show a genital response to non-preferred sexual stimuli. This would support the idea that automatic processes are involved in both men and women’s sexual responses. Along with other emerging work, this project will enhance our understanding and conceptualization of male and female sexuality and will inform on future research areas.

Publications:

• Huberman, J. S., Dawson, S. J., & Chivers, M. L. (2017). Examining the time course of sexual response in women and men with concurrent plethysmography and thermography. Biological Psychology, 129, 359–369. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.09.006

• Maunder, L., Micanovic, N., Huberman, J., & Chivers, M. L. (2022). Orgasm consistency and its relationship to women’s self-reported and genital sexual response. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality.

• Huberman, J. S., & Chivers, M. L. (2015). Evaluating gender-specificity of sexual arousal in women and men using thermography. Psychophysiology, 52, 1382–1395. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12466

The purpose of this study was to better understand how men and women process sexual stimuli.

Recent evidence suggests a gender difference in the specific features of a sexual stimulus that elicit a genital response. Specifically, men exhibit a gender specific pattern of response, such that stimuli depicting their preferred gender elicit a significantly greater genital response than do stimuli depicting their nonpreferred gender. Women on the other hand exhibit much less differentiation (nonspecificity) between stimuli depicting preferred and nonpreferred genders, with both eliciting similar degrees of genital arousal. It has been proposed that gender differences in attention to sexual cues or the processing of sexual stimuli may contribute to the observed gender differences in genital arousal. In this study, explore early and late attentional processes involved in viewing pairs of images that differ in terms of gender and attractiveness depicted. Early attentional processing will be assessed using the initial orienting response (e.g., number of first fixations) and late attentional processing will be assessed using relative fixation time. We expected to find that men’s gaze patterns are gender-specific, such that both early and late attentional processes will be biased towards preferred gender. Among women, we expected a fundamentally different pattern of visual attention. We expected that early attentional processing will be gender-specific towards their preferred sexual target, but that late attentional processing will be gender non-specific.

Publications:

• Dawson, S., & Chivers, M. L. (2019). The effect of task demands on gender-specificity of visual attention biases in androphilic women and gynephilic men. Personality and Individual Differences, 146, 120–126. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.04.006.

• Tassone, D., Dawson, S., & Chivers, M. L. (2019). The impact of homonegativity on gynephilic men's visual attention toward non-preferred sexual targets. Personality and Individual Differences, 149, 261–272. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.05.062

• Dawson, S. J., & Chivers, M. L. (2018). The effect of static versus dynamic stimuli on visual processing of sexual cues in androphilic women and gynephilic men. Royal Society Open Science, 5(6), 172286. doi: 10.1098/rsos.172286

• Dawson, S., Fretz, K. M., & Chivers, M. L. (2017). Visual attention patterns of women with androphilic and gynephilic sexual attractions: An initial study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(1), 141–153. doi: 10.1007/s10508-016-0825-0

• Dawson, S., & Chivers, M. L. (2016). Gender-specificity of initial and controlled visual attention to sexual stimuli in androphilic women and gynephilic men. PLoS One. 11(4), e0152785. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0152785.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of sensitivity to sexual cues and visual attention on sexual arousal, with the goal of increasing our understanding of how stimulus processing impacts sexual functioning in women.

Up to 46% of Canadian women suffer from sexual arousal and desire difficulties, yet safe and effective treatments do not exist (Brotto, 2010; Brotto et al., 2010). The lack of efficacious treatments is due, in part, to the lack of research that tests models of sexual arousal and desire in women. Recently, two models have been proposed for understanding women’s sexual arousal and desire difficulties. The first model emphasizes cognitive factors, suggesting that sexual arousal and desire difficulties are the result of distraction and low sensitivity to sexual cues. The second model proposes that sexual desire and arousal are not distinct processes, but rather sexual desire emerges from sexual arousal. Together, these models theorize that inefficient or impaired processing of sexual stimuli contributes to weaker sexual responses and subsequently lower sexual desire in women. To date, neither one of these models have been tested empirically to determine the direct effects of attention and sensitivity to sexual cues on sexual arousal and subsequent sexual desire. The primary objective of this research was to elucidate the relationship between attention to sexual cues on sexual arousal and sexual desire in women with and without sexual difficulties. We assessed the sexual response patterns of women with and without sexual arousal and desire difficulties using multiple physiological and psychological measures. Understanding the relationship between attentional mechanisms, sexual arousal, and sexual desire will create gender-specific knowledge about women’s sexuality and about the causes of women’s sexual dysfunctions. This outcome is vital given the lack of efficacious therapies for large proportion of women who have sexual arousal and desire difficulties. The proposed research will have direct implications for identifying risk factors for sexual arousal and desire problems, as well as aid in the development of empirically based treatments for these women.

Publications:

• O’Kane, K., Milani, S., Chivers, M. L., & Dawson, S. J. (2022). Gynephilic men’s and androphilic women’s visual attention patterns: The effects of gender and sexual activity cues. Journal of Sex Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2022.2033675

• Tassone, D., Dawson, S., & Chivers, M. L. (2019). The impact of homonegativity on gynephilic men's visual attention toward non-preferred sexual targets. Personality and Individual Differences, 149, 261–272. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2019.05.062

• Dawson, S. J., & Chivers, M. L. (2018). The effect of static versus dynamic stimuli on visual processing of sexual cues in androphilic women and gynephilic men. Royal Society Open Science, 5(6), 172286. doi: 10.1098/rsos.172286

The aims of this study were to examine the relationship between sexual arousal and desire in women with and without sexual difficulties.

Recently, scientists have reconceptualized sexual desire as being triggered by sexual cues and emerging from sexual arousal, instead of a drive, like hunger, that motivates people to seek out sex. This new model of sexual response more accurately captures women’s experiences and may better characterize women’s sexual difficulties, but it has not been scientifically tested. Our primary objective was to understand the relationships among neural and cognitive processing of sexual cues, sexual arousal, and sexual desire. Understanding the relationships between sexual arousal and desire will create gender-specific knowledge about women’s sexuality and about the causes of women’s sexual difficulties, will have direct implications for identifying risk factors for sexual arousal and desire problems, will inform treatment decisions, and will decrease the burden of sexual difficulties and its negative impacts for Canadian women.

Publications In Progress

The purpose of this study is to understand how men and women process sexual stimuli.

Previous research suggests there is a gender difference in the way that women and men respond to sexual stimuli. Women respond to both preferred (relative to her sexual orientation) and nonpreferred persons, whereas men respond much more to persons of their preferred gender. We expected that a similar pattern will be observed for cognitive processing of sexual stimuli; women’s reaction times will be equally facilitated by female and male sexual stimuli and men’s reactions times will be facilitated by subliminal primes consistent with their sexual orientation.

Publications In Progress

The purpose of this study was to measure physical and mental sexual arousal responses to nonsexual and sexual stories.

Previous research suggests that women and men respond differently to sexual stimuli. Women respond to both preferred (relative to her sexual orientation) and nonpreferred persons, whereas men respond much more to persons of their preferred gender. Men also show greater sexual arousal to stimuli that portray their preferred sexual activities, such as sadomasochism. We do not, however, know whether women show greater physical and mental sexual arousal to preferred sexual activities. To examine these possibilities, we examined the sexual responses of women who do and do not prefer sadomasochistic activities. The results of this research will contribute to a growing body of research on gender differences in sexuality. The results of this study will help researchers understand more clearly how sexual arousal relates to women’s sexual preferences, and the role that sexual arousal plays in women’s sexual choices.

Publications:

• Chivers, M. L., Roy, C., & Grimbos, T., Cantor, J. M., Seto, M. C. (2014). Specificity of sexual arousal for sexual activities in men and women with conventional and masochistic sexual interests. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43(5), 931—940. doi: 10.1007/s10508-013-0174-1.

The purpose of the study was to explore the factors that are associated with an individual’s willingness to participate in a variety of sexuality studies that use different devices to assess genital responses to sexual stimuli.

A concern regarding the external validity of most research in human sexuality is ascertainment bias, the idea that volunteers differ from non-volunteers leading to biased samples and findings that are not necessarily generalizable to the population. The term "volunteer" refers to individuals who indicate that they would indeed participate in the sexuality studies described in vignettes, whereas "non-volunteers" refers to individuals who indicate that they would not participate in the different sexuality studies described. Volunteers and non-volunteers should not be confused with those individuals who may not be eligible for the current study or that chose not to participate by not giving consent. Compared to individuals identified as non-volunteers, volunteers in sexuality studies tend to report: stronger positive sexual attitudes, more sexual experience, greater exposure to erotic material, less sexual guilt, less concern regarding sexual performance, and less sexual inhibition. Studies have found that fewer individuals were willing to participate in sexuality studies that involved more invasive procedures including viewing erotica as opposed to participating in a survey, and even fewer were willing to participate in a study that involved psychophysiological assessment of sexual arousal. Ascertainment bias in sexuality research has received limited research attention in the past 15 years despite a growing number of researchers investigating sexual arousal patterns. Researchers often note the relative invasiveness of the various psychophysiological measures of genital response, without empirical evidence to support these claims.

This study had three main goals: a) to assess whether volunteers differ from non-volunteers on measures that have previously differentiated these groups (e.g., sexual attitudes, sexual guilt, sexual experience) and on novel measures (e.g., sexual functioning, genital self-image, sexual inhibition/excitation); b) to assess individuals’ willingness and comfort to participate in various types of sexual arousal studies, including the effects of compensation on willingness to participate, c) to evaluate gender differences in the aforementioned questions. This research will further elucidate ascertainment bias in sexuality research and will identify measures of genital response that may minimize such bias and may enhance the external validity and generalizability of sexual arousal research.

Publications:

• Chivers, M. L. (2020). Prepared for pleasure? An alternative perspective on the Preparation Hypothesis (commentary). Archives of Sexual Behavior. DOI 10.1007/s10508-020-01841-5

• Huberman, J. S., McInnis, M., Dawson, S. J., Bouchard, K. S., Pukall, C. F., & Chivers, M. L. (2019). Exploring comfort levels with and the role of compensation in sexual psychophysiology study participation. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(8), 2389–2402. doi: 10.1007/s10508-019-1458-x

• Dawson, S. D., Huberman, J., Bouchard, K., McInnis, M., Pukall, C., & Chivers, M. L. (2019). Effects of individual difference variables, gender, and exclusivity of sexual attraction on volunteer bias in sexuality research. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 48(8), 2403–2417. doi: 10.1007/s10508-019-1451-4.

Despite advances in the study of female sexuality, we have a limited understanding of women’s early processing of sexual information, including the rapid neural responses that sexual cues elicit. According to leading models of sexual response, specific cues become incentivized through rewarding experiences (e.g., pleasure, intimacy), and subsequent stimuli are compared with memories of earlier experiences (Toates, 2009). Future sexual stimuli are matched with sexual elements in memory and appraised as sexual, directing attention towards the sexual cues and ultimately feeding into genital and subjective sexual responses (Janssen, Everaerd, Spiering, & Janssen, 2000). The current investigation sought to elucidate important gaps in our knowledge of women’s early processing of sexual information with three main goals: 1) To examine neural responses to distinct sexual stimuli versus similar stimuli depicting other non-sexual body parts, 2) To investigate how women’s sexual self-schemas (i.e., enduring views of themselves as sexual, derived through experience) relate to sexual history, neural responses, and subjective sexual arousal, and c) To investigate how the valence and theoretical structure of women’s sexual self-schemas relate to women's subjective and neural responses to sexual stimuli.

Results of this study will contribute to the development of a comprehensive, empirically-supported model of women’s sexual response. Our findings will also reveal areas for future investigations, including examining the observed effects in a more diverse sample of women (i.e., a range of ages and sexual attractions).

Publications:

Huberman, J., Mangardich, H., Sabbagh, M., & Chivers, M. L. (2023). ERP responses to sexual cues among young women attracted to men. Psychophysiology. doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14162

The purpose of this study was to understand how the menstrual cycle is related to sexual arousal and to women’s sexual preferences.

Studies have documented psychological shifts in women’s mate preferences over the menstrual cycle. When probability of conception is high, women show a preference toward mates who exhibit masculine traits (signifying heritable markers of genetic quality) that are not observed at other times in the menstrual cycle. If changes in mate preference are associated with the underlying hormonal mechanisms driving the menstrual cycle, then sexual psychophysiology parameters may be similarly affected. Studies investigating specificity of female sexual responses have included women at different stages of the menstrual cycle, thus hormonal changes in the menstrual cycle may be obscuring a specificity effect. The current study will examine whether specificity of sexual response emerges during the fertile phase of a woman’s menstrual cycle. The “Ovulatory-Shift Hypothesis” (Gangestad, Thornhill & Garver-Apgar, 2005) predicts that when the likelihood of conception is high, women will prefer mates displaying phenotypic markers of heritable fitness – traits of high masculinity (Folstad & Karter, 1992) – but when the likelihood of conception is low, their preference will shift to favor traits associated with the provision of resources – low masculinity (Gangestad& Simpson, 2000). Studies in mate preference have confirmed that during times of high fertility (late follicular phase of the menstrual cycle) women prefer more masculine mates, and prefer more feminine mates during times of low fertility (luteal phase). This study investigated whether specificity of sexual arousal undergoes a similar mid-cycle shift. Studies investigating patterns of female sexual arousal have shown that, unlike men who show highest genital arousal to his preferred gender relative to his sexual orientation, called category-specific arousal (e.g., heterosexual men show genital arousal towards women), women’s genital responses are nonspecific, meaning she responds to both preferred and nonpreferred genders. If physiological arousal is governed by the same mechanism underlying shifts in mate preferences throughout the menstrual cycle, then the finding of nonspecificity of arousal in naturally cycling heterosexual women may be the result of including women at different stages of the menstrual cycle, obscuring a specificity effect. This study had two main objectives: (i) Determine if female genital arousal is category specific during times of high fertility; (ii) Determine if subjective arousal is category specific during times of high fertility. The results of this study will help researchers understand more clearly how sexual arousal relates to women’s sexual preferences, the role that sexual arousal plays in women’s sexual choices, and the role that the menstrual cycle plays in female sexual arousal.

Publications:

• Timmers, A. T., Bossio, J., & Chivers, M. L. (2018). Disgust, sexual cues, and the prophylaxis hypothesis. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 4, Volume 4, 179–190. doi: 10.1007/s40806-017-0127-3

• Shirazi, T. N., Bossio, J. A., Puts, D., & Chivers, M. L. (2018). Menstrual cycle phase predicts women’s hormonal responses to sexual stimuli. Hormones and Behavior, 103, 45–53. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2018.05.023

• Bossio, J. A., Suschinsky, K. D., Puts, D. A., & Chivers, M. L. (2014). Does menstrual cycle phase influence the gender specificity of heterosexual women’s genital and subjective sexual arousal? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 43(5), 941—952. doi: 10.1007/s10508-013- 0233-7.

• Suschinsky, K. D., Bossio, J. A., & Chivers, M. L. (2014). Women’s genital sexual arousal to oral versus penetrative heterosexual sex varies with menstrual cycle phase at first exposure. Hormones and Behavior, 65(3), 319—327. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2014.01.006.

The purpose of the study was to obtain average attractiveness ratings for sexual images of women and men.

Previous research has found that while cues of gender are an important determinant of men’s sexual arousal (e.g., Chivers et al., 2007; Freund, 1963; Freund, 1967; Freund et al., 1989), contextual cues other than gender (such as relationship context or sexual activity level; Chivers et al., 2007; Chivers & Timmers, 2012) may be more important for androphilic women’s (women who are attracted to men) sexual responses. We propose that physical attractiveness is one such contextual cue. Indeed, a great deal of research exists to suggest that our nervous system may have been shaped through selection to respond preferentially to cues of attractiveness (e.g., men and women look longer at attractive than unattractive faces, as attractiveness cues have been shown to provide meaningful cues of health and reproductive viability of potential sexual partners; see Gallup & Frederick, 2010) and that androphilic women may experience cyclic changes in their preference for cues of attractiveness (such that women exhibit a stronger preference for cues of attractiveness during high-fertility relative to low-fertility days of their menstrual cycle; Gildersleeve et al., 2014). To date, no one has examined the effects of attractiveness on men and women’s sexual arousal patterns. This pilot study examined men and women’s ratings of the physical attractiveness of sexually explicit images.

Publications:

• Timmers, A. D., Blumenstock, S., DeBruine, L., & Chivers, M. L. (2023). The role of attractiveness in gendered response patterns to sexual stimuli. Journal of Sex Research.

The aims of this study were to examine physiological and self-reported sexual response to sexual and nonsexual images among sexually healthy men and women.

Previous research has found that men’s sexual responses are strongly dependent upon cues of gender (e.g., men who are sexually attracted to women have greater sexual responses to sexual images of women than sexual images of men). For women, however, (particularly for women who are attracted to men) contextual cues other than gender (like the attractiveness of the sexual target) may be more important for sexual responses. Indeed, research suggests that our nervous system responds preferentially to cues of attractiveness (e.g., we look longer at and prefer attractive relative to unattractive faces). Women may also experience changes in their preference for cues of attractiveness across their menstrual cycle (such that women exhibit a stronger preference for cues of attractiveness during high-fertility relative to low-fertility days of their menstrual cycle). The current study is examining the effects of attractiveness and gender cues on men and women’s sexual responses and gaze patterns. The results of this study will help researchers develop a stronger understanding of the determinants of men and women’s sexual responding and how women’s sexual arousal patterns may vary across the menstrual cycle.

Publications:

• Timmers, A. D., Blumenstock, S., DeBruine, L., & Chivers, M. L. (2023). The role of attractiveness in gendered response patterns to sexual stimuli. Journal of Sex Research.

The current study attempted to understand the association between sexual concordance and sexual functioning in a diverse sample of women with or without sexual arousal and desire disorders.

Previous research suggests there may be an important link between the agreement of a woman’s self-reported and physiological arousal, and her sexual functioning. That is, through processes that are as of yet unclear, women without sexual functioning problems tend to have higher levels of agreement between their self-reported and physiological arousal than women with sexual arousal or desire difficulties. To examine this association in more depth, we are studying the effects of sexual functioning on women’s sexual responses to sexual and nonsexual videos. Previous research has also relied on physiological measurements of genital response using a vaginal gauge; we wish to determine if the same relationships between arousal and sexual functioning are observed using a clitoral gauge. Because the clitoral gauge is a relatively new instrument, we were also interested in determining if measures only a sexual response or if it responds to non-sexual videos as well. The results of this study will help researchers understand more clearly how sexual arousal relates to women’s sexual functioning and help develop better treatments for women’s arousal and desire problems.

Publications:

• Maunder, L., Micanovic, N., Huberman, J., & Chivers, M. L. (2022). Orgasm consistency and its relationship to women’s self-reported and genital sexual response. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality.

• Suschinsky, K. D., Dawson, S. J., & Chivers, M. L. (2020). Assessing gender-specificity of clitoral responses. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 29, 57–64. doi: 10.3138/cjhs.2019-0061

• Suschinsky, K. D., Huberman, J. S., Maunder, L., Brotto, L. A., Hollenstein, T., & Chivers, M. L. (2019). The relationship between sexual functioning and sexual concordance in women. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 45(3), 230–246. doi: 10.1080/0092623X.2018.1518881.

• Suschinsky, K. D., Shelley, A. D., Gerritsen, J., Tuiten, A., & Chivers, M. L. (2016). The clitoral photoplethysmograph; response specificity and construct validity. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 12(12), 2324–2338. doi: 10.1111/jsm.13047

Women and men display a wide range of subjective (self-reported), physiological (genital response), and emotional responses to sexually explicit stimuli, and, overall, women show more variation in their sexual response patterns relative to men (Chivers, 2017). Sexual response patterns are often assessed using quantitative methodologies, such as subjective reports or using physiological measures, such as genital plethysmography (Janssen & Prause, 2017). However, little is known about what women and men think after watching erotic content, or how they respond to sexually arousing stimuli, outside of using quantitative methodologies. Qualitative data can corroborate quantitative data and reveal novel information and avenues for discovery for understanding gendered variations in patterns of sexual arousal. Yet, no other studies have examined qualitative data on sexual response from individuals of various genders, sexual functioning, and sexual orientations. Accordingly, the current study conducted a thematic content analysis to examine women and men’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions to various sexual stimuli

Publications:

• Busch, T., Penniston, T., Conrads, G.S., Dempsey, M.R., Wilson, S.M, & Chivers, M. L. (2022). A penny for your (sexual) thoughts: Qualitative analysis of women’s and men’s selfdescribed reactions to sexual and nonsexual stimuli. Archives of Sexual Behavior.10.1007/s10508-022-02325-4

The aim of the current study was to explore different attentional processes of sexual cues.

Recent evidence suggests a gender difference in the specific features of a sexual stimulus that elicit a genital response. Specifically, men exhibit a gender specific pattern of response, such that stimuli depicting their preferred gender elicit a significantly greater genital response than do stimuli depicting their non preferred gender. Women on the other hand exhibit much less differentiation (nonspecificity) between stimuli depicting preferred and non preferred genders, with both eliciting similar degrees of genital arousal (reviewed in Chivers 2005;2010). The information-processing model proposed that gender differences in attention to sexual cues or the processing of sexual stimuli may contribute to the observed gender differences in genital arousal (Janssen et al., 2000). The aim of the current study was to explore different attentional processes: sensitivity to sexual cues, attentional capture, and incentivization of sexual cues using four different cognitive tasks and to examine any gender differences and similarities in these attentional patterns as a means to test predictions from the information processing model of sexual arousal. We are also interested in examining how individual difference variables (garnered through questionnaires; e.g., sexual desire) influence attentional processing of sexual cues. We expect to find stronger attentional biases towards the detection of sexual stimuli in men compared to women, given that men show greater differentiation in their genital response patterns. We also expect that individual differences in attention capture by sexual stimuli will be influenced by individual differences in trait constructs like sexual desire and sexual excitation/inhibition. These findings will help to elucidate gender differences in sexual response patterns and to gain greater understanding of the role of attention and information processing in the facilitation of sexual arousal.

Publications In Progress

This study aimed to understand whether implicit processing of prepotent sexual features is category-specific; does brief exposure to prepotent features of the preferred gender, versus the nonpreferred gender, facilitate categorization of sexual target stimuli?

A sexually competent stimulus is one that evokes a sexual response; what constitutes a sexually-competent stimulus may, however, differ for women and men. Research on physiological and psychological sexual arousal suggests that men and women differ in their responses to sexual stimuli. Men’s responses demonstrate category specificity, in other words, men’s arousal patterns, both genital and subjective, match their sexual orientation (Chivers, et al., 2004). Women’s genital responses have been found to be nonspecific in that women respond to both their preferred and non-preferred gender (Chivers et al, 2004; Chivers, Seto, & Blanchard, 2007; Petersen, Laan, & Janssen; 2010), and nonpreferred species (Chivers & Bailey, 2005), whereas women’s subjective responses are more strongly related to their sexual preferences. These data suggest that women’s genital response is automatically evoked by a broader range of sexual stimuli than men’s.

Another way to study competency of sexual stimuli is to examine cognitive processing. Two mechanisms are thought to underlie processing of sexual stimuli; one which is implicit and automatic, and associated with genital responses, and one that is explicit, leading to mental elaboration and subjective states of sexual arousal (Janssen et al., 2000). Implicit processing of sexually competent stimuli facilitates categorization of an image as sexual whereas explicit processing delays this categorization. It is unknown, however, if processing preferred versus nonpreferred sexual stimuli facilitates performance on a cognitive task.

Results from previous research suggest that, for women, sexually-competent stimuli are not related to gender cues. Instead, general sexual cues, such as exposed genitals, may function as prepotent sexual features. That is, visual sexual stimuli that evoke an automatic genital response in women (Chivers, Seto, & Blanchard, 2007; Ponseti & Bosinski, 2009). This could explain women’s nonspecific genital response; all studies included stimuli depicting prepotent sexual features – exposed genitals. Results of this study will further our understanding of gender differences in sexual response and cognitive processing of sexual stimuli.

Publications In Progress

The aims of this study were to examine the relationship between sexual arousal and desire in women with and without sexual difficulties.

New models of sexual response suggest that sexual desire is a result of feeling sexually aroused, and not always something felt before people behave sexually. Previous research also suggests there may be an important link between the agreement of a woman’s self-reported and physiological arousal, and her experience of sexual desire. That is, through processes that are as of yet unclear, women without sexual functioning problems tend to have higher levels of agreement between their self-reported and physiological arousal than women with sexual arousal or desire difficulties. To examine this association in more depth, we are studying the effects of sexual arousal on sexual desire in women with and without sexual difficulties. The results of this study will help researchers understand more clearly how sexual arousal relates to women’s sexual desire and functioning and help develop better treatments for women’s arousal and desire problems.

Publications:

• Blumenstock, S., Suschinsky, K. D., Brotto, L. A., & Chivers, M. L. (in press). Genital arousal and responsive desire among women with and without sexual interest/arousal disorder symptoms. Journal of Sexual Medicine.

• Blumenstock, S., Suschinsky, K. D., Brotto, L. A., & Chivers, M. L. (2023). Sexual desire emerges from subjective sexual arousal, but the connection depends on desire type and relationship satisfaction (but not sexual satisfaction). Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy.

• Micanovic, N.,* Timmers, A. D.,* Chivers, M. L. (2021). Gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal to prepotent sexual stimuli in androphilic men and gynephilic women. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. (*co first authors).

The aims of this study were to examine the following among sexually healthy women who are sexually-attracted to both women and men: 1) genital and subjective sexual response to sexual and nonsexual videos; 2) associations between sexual interests and patterns of sexual response to sexual videos; 3) how women’s sexuality changes over time.

Previous research suggests there is a difference in the way that women and men respond to sexual stimuli. Women respond to both preferred (relative to her sexual orientation) and nonpreferred persons, whereas men respond much more to persons of their preferred gender. Likewise, women’s sexuality has been found to be more “fluid” than men’s, meaning women are more likely to shift in aspects of their sexuality, such as sexual identity. Some researchers have suggested that women have greater flexibility in their sexual identity because women have the capacity to become sexually aroused by both men and women.

To examine this possibility, we are examining the effects of sexual identity, patterns of romantic and sexual attraction to men and women, and sexual behaviour, on women’s sexual responses to videos showing sexual scenes of people of their preferred or nonpreferred gender. We are also interested in examining whether variability in women’s sexual responses is associated with later variation in their sexual identity, attractions, and behaviour.

Researchers have long thought that an individual’s sexual preferences are determined, in part, by their sexual arousal to different people. This may not be true for women. The results of this research contribute to a growing body of evidence that women’s sexuality is fundamentally very different from men’s. The results of this study will help researchers understand more clearly how sexual arousal relates to women’s sexual preferences and identity, and the role that sexual arousal plays in women’s sexual choices.

Publications:

• Maunder, L., Micanovic, N., Huberman, J., & Chivers, M. L. (2022). Orgasm consistency and its relationship to women’s self-reported and genital sexual response. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality.

• Timmers, A. D., Bouchard, K., & Chivers, M. L. (2015). Effects of gender and sexual activity cues on the sexual responses of women with multidimensionally defined bisexuality. Journal of Bisexuality, 15, 154–179. doi: 10.1080/15299716.2015.1023389

The aims of this study were to examine the following among sexually healthy women and men: 1) genital and subjective sexual response to sexual and nonsexual images; 2) associations between sexual interests and patterns of sexual response to sexual images.

Chivers et al. (2007) found that heterosexual women experienced genital and subjective sexual arousal when viewing films of nude women performing an aerobic routine. More surprising, these heterosexual women did not get sexually aroused by films of naked men exercising. We do not understand why women showed this counterintuitive pattern of sexual arousal. One possibility is that, in the female films, the female actors opened and closed their legs and exposed their vulvas while they exercised and women responded to this as a sexual cue; in the male films, men had exposed penises but these were flaccid. Ponseti et al. (2006) have proposed that an exposed vulva or erect penis may function as a prepotent sexual feature, that is, a visual sexual stimulus that evokes an automatic sexual response regardless of the sexual orientation of the viewer. Women may have responded to the films of women exercising and not to the films of men exercising because the films featured a prepotent sexual feature.

The results of the current study will help to clarify whether the presence of prepotent sexual features in sexual stimuli help explain why women respond to a broader range of sexual stimuli than men.

Publications:

• Micanovic, N,*, Timmers, A. D.,* Chivers, M. L. (2021). Gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal to prepotent sexual stimuli in androphilic men and gynephilic women. The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. (*co first authors), 30(3), 361-373. doi.org/10.3138/cjhs.2021-0004

• Spape, J., Timmers, A. D., Yoon, S., Ponseti, J., & Chivers, M. L. (2014). Gender-specific genital and subjective sexual arousal to prepotent sexual features in heterosexual women and men. Biological Psychology, 102, 1—9. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.07.008

Publications:

• Seto, M. C., Leroux, E. J., Kane, L., Ashbaugh, A., Lalumière, M. L., Curry, S., Stephens, S., & Chivers, M. L. (in press). Does the Paraphilia Scale generalize? Confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance across gender and sexual orientation groups. Journal of Sex Research.

• Seto, M. C., Curry, S., Dawson, S. D., Bradford, J., & Chivers, M. L. (2021). Concordance of paraphilic interests and behaviours. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 58(4), 424–437. doi: 10.1080/00224499.2020.1830018