Early-phase physiological response patterns to psychosexual stimuli: comparison of male and female patterns.

The onset and sequential changes of psychosexual arousal for male and female were compared. During an erotic film presentation, genital hemodynamic and groin skin temperature measures of sexual arousal recorded moderate to large increases for both sexes. A sequential analysis revealed strikingly similar male-female response patterns for both the genital and groin measures of arousal. Thus, the commonly held view that males typically show a greater sexual responsivity to visual erotic stimuli than do females was not supported.