It is estimated that of the 40 million adults who visit pornography websites annually, 72% are male while only 28% are female ( 2006). Pornographic magazines and videos directed at men are a multi-billion dollar industry while similar products directed towards women are difficult to find. A common presumption in society and the media is that men respond more strongly to visual sexual stimuli than do women. Sex differences in response to visual sexual stimuli are widely acknowledged, although poorly documented. These differences are of practical importance to future research on sexual arousal that aims to use experimental stimuli comparably appealing to men and women and also for general understanding of cognitive sex differences. Sexual motivation, perceived gender role expectations, and sexual attitudes are possible influences. Specifically, men appear more influenced by the sex of the actors depicted in the stimuli while women’s response may differ with the context presented. Based on the literature reviewed, we conclude that content characteristics may differentially produce higher levels of sexual arousal in men and women. Factors include participant variables, such as hormonal state and socialized sexual attitudes, as well as variables specific to the content presented in the stimuli. Additionally, this review discusses factors that may contribute to the variability in sex differences observed in response to visual sexual stimuli. The divergence between men and women is proposed to occur at this time, reflected in differences in neural activation, and contribute to previously reported sex differences in downstream peripheral physiological responses and subjective reports of sexual arousal. We propose that the cognitive processing stage of responding to sexual stimuli is the first stage in which sex differences occur. While the assumption that men respond more to visual sexual stimuli is generally empirically supported, previous reports of sex differences are confounded by the variable content of the stimuli presented and measurement techniques.
This article reviews what is currently known about how men and women respond to the presentation of visual sexual stimuli.