Assessing gender-specificity of clitoral responses

Abstract

Androphilic (i.e., sexually attracted to men) women’s vaginal and vulvar responses tend to be gender-nonspecific, meaning that their genital responses to male and female sexual stimuli are relatively similar. Men’s genital responses are gender-specific, in that penile responses are greater to preferred sexual stimuli than nonpreferred sexual stimuli. To date, however, no research has been conducted on the specificity of clitoral responses (i.e., the organ homologous to the penis). The purpose of the current study was to assess gender-specificity of self-reported sexual arousal, vaginal, and clitoral responses in androphilic women. We expected women’s self-reported and vaginal responses to be gender-nonspecific and their clitoral responses to be gender-specific. Forty androphilic women were presented with 90 second sexual (female masturbation and male masturbation) and neutral (nature scene) audio-visual stimuli. Responses were recorded continuously throughout the stimuli using a keypad and combination vaginal and clitoral photoplethysmograph. Consistent with our predictions, self-reported sexual arousal and vaginal responses were gender-nonspecific, such that androphilic women responded similarly to the male and female masturbation stimuli. Counter to our prediction, clitoral responses were also gender-nonspecific. Given that this is the first study to use clitoral photoplethysmography to assess gender-specificity, we discuss the results in the larger context of sexual psychophysiological research, including the importance of contextual features in stimuli, and offer directions for future research.