Cognitions and Emotions During Exposure to Erotica in Men With and Without Erectile Dysfunction

Abstract

Erectile dysfunction is a health problem that affects the quality of life of many men. In addition to medical approaches, it has been assigned an increasingly important role to cognitive-affective factors involved in male sexual response. Recent studies have indicated that men with sexual dysfunction present significantly more negative thoughts during sexual activity, compared to sexually healthy individuals (Nobre and Pinto-Gouveia, 2003). Despite the accumulated knowledge in this field, there is a scarcity of studies comparing cognitive-emotional processes and sexual responses of men with and without erectile dysfunction in the laboratory. In this study, we sought to investigate how men without erectile dysfunction differ from, men with erectile dysfunction, with regard to the propensity for sexual inhibition and excitation as well as to the subjective and physiological sexual response, and the nature of sexual thoughts and emotions during exposure to sexual explicit material in the laboratory. Twenty-two men with psychogenic erectile dysfunction and 20 men without erectile dysfunction participated in the study. All participants were interviewed for sexual problems, and have given informed consent before being exposed to 2 films of sexual content while their genital response was being recorded. Moreover, after each sex film, participants reported on levels of subjective sexual arousal, sexual cognitions (STQ), and emotions (PANAS).