Sexual arousal

Human sexual arousal

Unlike most other animals, human beings of both sexes are potentially capable of sexual arousal throughout the year, and there is therefore no human "mating season[?]". Things that precipitate human sexual arousal are commonly known as turn-ons.

Causes of human sexual arousal

• The sight, smell, warmth and touch of a (potential) sexual partner
• Sexual foreplay
• Erotic thoughts, fantasies or dreams
• Presence of fetishised objects
• pornography
• erotica
• masturbation
• sexual role-playing
• make list here

Signs of human sexual arousal

Common to both sexes:

• increased blood supply and respiration rate

Male sexual arousal:

• penile tumescence[?] and erection
• emission of pre-ejaculatory fluid (Cowper's fluid) from the bulbourethral glands

Female sexual arousal:

• lubrication[?] of the vagina by the Bartholin's glands
• hardening of the nipples

Homophobia and sexual arousal

Psychoanalytic theory has long held that homophobia was the result of repressed homosexual desires. Recent research has shown that homophobic heterosexual men showed signs of sexual arousal from being shown images of homosexual sex, when a control group of non-homophobic heterosexual men did not. See New Study Links Homophobia with Homosexual Arousal (http://www.apa.org/releases/homophob)

Sexual arousal in other animals

• describe this here

Related Topics

• Sexual desire
• Sexual arousal disorder[?]
• Impotence
• Frigidity[?]
• Human sexuality
• Kinsey report
• Sexual preference
• Sexual orientation
• Homophobia
• Hypersexuality