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Reflections on the Relation Between Sex-Typed Behavior in Childhood and Sexual Orientation in Adulthood
Published in Robin M. Mathy, Jack Drescher, Childhood Gender Nonconformity and the Development of Adult Homosexuality, 2020
The term sexual orientation is defined by a person’s relative responsiveness to sexual stimuli. The most salient dimension of sexual orientation is probably the sex of the person to whom one is attracted sexually. This stimulus class is obviously how one defines a person’s sexual orientation as heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual. In contemporary sexological research, sexual orientation is often assessed by psychophysiological techniques, such as penile plethysmography and vaginal photoplethysmography (Chivers et al., 2004; Rosen and Beck, 1988), although structured interview assessments or self-report questionnaires have become increasingly common, particularly when respondents do not have a compelling reason to conceal their sexual orientation.
Questionnaires to Assess Sexual Function
Published in Linda Cardozo, Staskin David, Textbook of Female Urology and Urogynecology - Two-Volume Set, 2017
Claudine Domoney, Tara Symonds
using rigiscAn hAs been the most widely used [22]. DiAgnosis And Assessment of men with premAture ejAculAtion hAs relied on the use of time (stopwAtch Assessment) to ejAculAtion (intrAvAginAl lAtency time). For women, objective meAsures hAve been developed such As vAginAl photoplethysmogrAphy And Doppler ultrAsonogrAphy [23]. objective Assessment of sexuAl function in men with eD shows good Agreement with subjective Assessments, considered to be becAuse of the obvious biofeedbAck loop of the rigidity of the penis. However, in women, Agreement between the objective And subjective Assessments of sexuAl function hAs not been eAsy to demonstrAte; this mAy be due to its being multidimensionAl compAred to the unidimensionAlity of eD. Subjective MeAsures subjective meAsures of sexuAl heAlth hAve flourished over the pAst 10 yeArs. For Assessing eD, the gold stAndArd meAsure is the internAtionAl index of erectile function [24,25], but for men with premAture ejAculAtion, there is no gold stAndArd equivAlent but there Are A number of meAsures to choose from, which were reviewed recently by Althof And symonds [26]. Assessment of women's sexuAl heAlth hAs tended to use sexuAl inventories, which cApture All elements of the DsM-IV femAle sexuAl function cycle domAins (femAle sexuAl ArousAl disorder [FsAD], FoD, hypoActive sexuAl desire disorder [HsDD], And pAin) (e.g., sexuAl function questionnAire [sFQ] [27], FsFI [28]; see tAble 15.1 for detAiled listing of meAsures). CliniciAn MeAsures evAluAtion of chAnge in sexuAl function stAtus cAn be Assessed using cliniciAn interview, which benefits from An in-depth discussion of All Aspects of the individuAl's sexuAl history or problem. However, stAndArdizAtion of An interview is difficult if trying to use this ApproAch in the evAluAtion of
Fear Learning in Genital Pain: Toward a Biopsychosocial, Ecologically Valid Research and Treatment Model
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2023
There is preliminary evidence showing that fear of pain can be acquired to initially arousing stimuli that are paired with pain, which then lowers sexual arousal responses. Using a differential fear conditioning paradigm, in which an erotic picture (CS+) was paired with a painful electrocutaneous stimulus delivered at the wrist and another erotic picture (the CS-) was never paired with pain, it was found that both women with genital pain and healthy controls showed weaker subjective sexual arousal to the CS+ as measured via self-reports (Both et al., 2017). However, the difference in affect and sexual arousal toward the stimulus paired with pain (CS+) and the stimulus not paired with pain (CS-) was less pronounced in women with genital pain compared to controls. In addition, genital arousal was measured using vaginal photoplethysmography, revealing that healthy control women displayed a lower genital response to the CS+ during acquisition than women with genital pain. These results suggest that women with genital pain show less differential conditioning and impaired safety learning, meaning that the learned aversiveness of the CS+ tends to generalize toward the CS-. Alternatively, these results could also indicate a lack of inhibitory learning to the CS- itself, meaning that the process of transferring the inhibitory properties of the CS- is attenuated or slowed down.
The Relationship Between Sexual Concordance and Orgasm Consistency in Women
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2018
Kelly D. Suschinsky, Meredith L. Chivers
All sexual psychophysiological data were sampled continuously during each stimulus using a Limestone Technologies Inc. (Odessa, ON) DataPac_USB and Preftest software, Version 10. Women’s genital responses were assessed with changes in vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA) using a vaginal photoplethysmograph equipped with an orange-red spectrum light source (Technische Handelsonderneming Coos, the Netherlands). VPA represents the phasic changes in vaginal blood flow associated with each heartbeat (Hatch, 1979), with higher amplitudes indicating greater vaginal vasocongestion. Increases in VPA are specific to sexual stimuli (Laan, Everaerd, & Evers, 1995; Suschinsky, Lalumière, & Chivers, 2009). The photoplethysmograph signal was sampled at 10 Hz and bandpass filtered (.5 Hz to 10 Hz). Movement artifacts were detected through visual inspection of the waveforms and removed prior to data analysis.
The Effects of Gender and Relationship Context Cues on Responsive Sexual Desire in Exclusively and Predominantly Androphilic Women and Gynephilic Men
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2018
Amanda D. Timmers, Samantha J. Dawson, Meredith L. Chivers
All psychophysiological data were sampled using a Limestone Technologies Inc. DataPac_USB (Limestone Technologies, Kingston, Ontario, Canada). Women’s genital response was assessed using vaginal photoplethysmography. Vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA), which measures the changes in vaginal vasoengorgement as a function of heart rate (Laan et al., 1995), was used for the current study. The photoplethysmograph signal was sampled at a rate of 10 samples per second and band-pass filtered (0.5 Hz to 10 Hz). VPA was measured as peak-to-trough amplitude for each vaginal pulse. Movement artifacts in the VPA were found by visual inspection of the waveforms and deleted prior to data analysis.