Human sexual response and attraction (I)

What is the Human Sexual Response?

It is the set of events that we experience when faced with a stimulus that eroticizes us. It is made up of the following phases: desire, excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

What is sexual desire?

Desire is the basis of eroticism and sexual pleasure, which is why it is important to put it at the center and keep it in mind in everything we experience and share in this sense. It is very changeable, it can arise or end from one moment to the next. Desire can lead to arousal or it can stay there. There are many things that can awaken desire in us: from thoughts, memories and fantasies (internal inducers), to stimuli such as seeing a person we are attracted to, their smell, their voice, a comment, a look or a caress (external inducers).

States of low self-esteem, stress, anxiety, tiredness, sadness and worry interfere with our ability to feel desire, while states of relaxation, security, intimacy and pleasurable emotions contribute to our desire. Additionally, if you are a woman or menstruating person, you may feel that your desire increases during the ovulatory phase , due to the hormonal changes experienced during it.

The way we construct our desire is greatly influenced by elements such as the sociocultural context, gender stereotypes, cisheteronorm , hegemonic models of beauty, ableism , etc.

What is sexual attraction?

It is the interest that is awakened in a person on an erotic level but also on a romantic and/or emotional level. They can occur at the same time, but this is not always the case, for example, we can feel sexual or erotic attraction for a person, but not feel like developing a romantic relationship with said person.

Our attraction can be directed towards other people (allosexuality) or not directed towards anyone, almost no one (asexuality) or we feel attraction only when a previous emotional bond has been established (demisexuality).

Although there is a strong sociocultural component (as with desire), attraction depends on what each person considers sexually attractive. This can be triggered by sensory or cognitive stimuli: we may feel an incredible attraction to a person’s physical appearance or smell, or we may find their way of thinking, moving, dressing, etc. attractive. Interacting with a person we find attractive can activate us sexually and produce sexual arousal.

What is sexual arousal?

After desire, arousal can arise, which is a set of physiological events that our body and mind experience when we receive physical and/or emotional stimuli that eroticize us. There can be sexual arousal and no genital arousal, it is important not to confuse them so as not to believe that whenever we feel sexual arousal, our genitals are going to respond.

In the same way, there can be genital activation without sexual arousal, since it is a physiological response that does not have to be linked to an erotic context. For example, there are those who have a penis and experience erections when they wake up in the morning or at any time of the day, without this meaning that they are aroused.

The excitement of the vulva produces an increase in blood supply to the area, dilating and becoming slightly larger, changing its color to a more reddish tone and producing a fluid known as lubrication. At the same time, the clitoris also fills with blood and experiences an erection, swelling and becoming firmer, although with the naked eye we can only see the glans and the clitoral hood.

 

 

On the other hand, the penis also experiences an erection when aroused, filling its erectile tissue with blood and increasing its size and firmness. In this sense, each penis experiences an erection in a different way; there are some that increase their size slightly and some that grow quite a bit compared to their resting state.

 

 

 

A curiosity! Did you know that the clitoris and the penis have very similar anatomical structures? As we have seen, both are made up of erectile tissue and that is why they experience an erection when they become aroused.