Suchergebnisse

What makes women experience sexual desire? According to Kaplan, normal sexual response starts with desire, progresses through excitement or arousal, and ends with orgasm (Kaplan, 1974). This model implies that sexual desire is something you either have or don't have, and, if you don't have it, there may be no sex in your future. This drive model of sexual desire, a biomedical model, assumes that lack of desire represents a deviation from a physiological norm. In contrast, the biopsychosocial model promoted by the New View emphasizes that a woman's sexuality is largely produced by her social context and rejects the idea of desire norms rooted in physiology. The incentive motivation model of sexual desire that we will present here is based on new findings suggesting that the experience of desire may follow rather than precede sexual excitement, and suggests that desire emerges following sexual arousal initiated by a sexually meaningful stimulus.

Introduction: Sexual pleasure has been a neglected issue in sexual health policies. Emerging trends in public health, however, emphasize the importance of sexual pleasure in preventing negative sexual health outcomes. Methods: Using data from the German Sexuality and Health Survey (GeSiD), we tested the assumption that sexual pleasure is associated with sexual health, including a special focus on the role of gender. Participants were interviewed about their sexual experiences and health between October 2018 and September 2019. The analytical sample included 3472 partnered and single women and men who had been sexually active with a partner in the past 12 months. We examined if sexual pleasure was associated with various sexual health indicators (i.e., communication about sexually transmitted infections (STIs), condom use, and absence of sexual problems). Results: Women reported less sexual pleasure than men. Results further indicate that sexual pleasure was associated with more sexual health indicators in women than in men. Conclusions: Supporting emerging trends in public health our results emphasize the importance of sexual pleasure in preventing negative sexual health outcomes. Policy Implications: To promote (especially women's) sexual health, our results call for the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education programs that focus on more positive aspects of sex, such as sexual pleasure and agency.