<< Erotic Arousal (Sexual Response) >>

Sexual contacts in the adolescent or adult male almost always involve physiologic disturbance which is recognizable as “erotic arousal.” This is also true of much pre-adolescent activity, although some of the sex play of younger children seems to be devoid of erotic content. Pre-adolescent sexual stimulation is much more common among younger boys than it is among younger girls. Many younger females and, for that matter, a certain portion of the older and married female population, may engage in such specifically sexual activities as petting and even intercourse without discernible erotic reaction.

Erotic arousal is a material phenomenon which involves an extended series of physical, physiologic, and psychologic changes. Many of these could be subjected to precise instrumental measurement if objectivity among scientists and public respect for scientific research allowed such laboratory investigation. In the higher mammals, including the human, tactile stimulation is the chief mechanical source of arousal; but the higher mammal, especially the human, soon becomes so conditioned by his experience, or by the vicariously shared experiences of others, that psychologic stimulation becomes the major source of arousal for many an older person, especially if he is educated and his mental capacities are well trained. There is an occasional individual who comes to climax through psychologic stimulation alone.

Erotic stimulation, whatever its source, effects a series of physiologic changes which, as far as we yet know, appear to involve adrenal secretion, typically autonomic reactions, increased pulse rate, increased blood pressure, an increase in peripheral circulation and a consequent rise in the surface temperature of the body; a flow of blood into such distensible organs as the eyes, the lips, the lobes of the ears, the nipples of the breast, the penis of the male, and the clitoris, the genital labia and the vaginal walls of the female; a partial but often considerable loss of perceptive capacity (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell); an increase in so-called nervous tension, some degree of rigidity of some part or of the whole of the body at the moment of maximum tension; and then a sudden release which produces local spasms or more extensive or all-consuming convulsions. The moment of sudden release is the point commonly recognized among biologists as orgasm.

The person involved in a sexual situation may be more or less conscious of some of the physiologic changes which occur although, unless he is scientifically trained, much of what is happening escapes his comprehension. Self observation may be especially inadequate because of the considerable (and usually unrecognized) loss of sensory capacities during maximum arousal. The subject’s awareness of the situation is summed up in his statement that he is “emotionally aroused”; but the material sources of the emotional disturbances are rarely recognized, either by laymen or by scientists, both of whom are inclined to think in terms of passion, a sexual impulse, a natural drive, or a libido which partakes of the mystic more than it does of solid anatomy and physiologic function.

The responses which an animal makes when it is stimulated sexually constitute one of the most elaborate and in many respects one of the most remarkable complexes (syndromes) of physiologic phenomena in the whole gamut of mammalian behavior. The reactions may involve changes in pulse rates, blood pressure, breathing rates, peripheral circulation of blood, glandular secretions, changes in sensory capacities, muscular activity, and still other physiologic events. As a climax to all these responses, the reacting individual may experience what we identify as sexual orgasm. There is every reason for believing that most of the physiologic changes take place even in the mildest sexual response, even though the gross movements of the body may be limited and the individual fails to reach orgasm.

The gross aspects of sexual response and orgasm may differ considerably in different individuals. The stimuli which initiate the response may vary in intensity, continuity, and duration, and the animal’s responses may depend not only on such variation in the nature of the stimuli, but upon its physiologic state and psychologic background. There is nothing more characteristic of sexual response than the fact that it is not the same in any two individuals. On the other hand, the most obvious variations lie in the gross body movements which are part of the response, and particularly in the spasms or convulsions which follow orgasm; and while these variations are striking and sometimes very prominent, the basic physiologic patterns of response are remarkably uniform among all the mammals, including both man and the infra-human species. Even more significant is the fact that the basic physiology of sexual response is essentially the same among females and males, at least in the human species.

The record in the present chapter emphasizes the physical reality of any sexual response -- physiologic changes during sexual response. Whatever the poetry and romance of sex, and whatever the moral and social significance of human sexual behavior, sexual responses involve real and material gross changes in the physiologic functioning of an animal.

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