Big gender differences in reported intensity of arousal associated with one’s own as compared to a partner’s body: males reported significantly stronger arousal whilst touching or looking at a partner’s body, whereas females rated it as more arousing for own body to be touched or looked at

Tsakiris, Manos, Lara Maister, Aikaterini Fotopoulou, and Oliver Turnbull. 2018. “The Erogenous Mirror: Intersubjective and Multisensory Maps of Sexual Arousal.” PsyArXiv. August 5. doi:10.31234/osf.io/zreku

Abstract: Several areas of the body, known as ‘erogenous zones’, are able to elicit sexual arousal in the absence of direct genital stimulation. Previous scientific investigations of these erogenous zones have been restricted to the effects of tactile stimulation of one’s own body. However, human sexual interactions are interpersonal and multimodal, involving mutual touching, and looking at each other’s bodies. Here, we take a novel interpersonal and multimodal approach with a large (N=613) questionnaire-based sample to characterise the self-reported intensity and distribution of erogenous zones, mapped both on one’s own body and on an imagined partner’s body in response to being touched but also being looked at. We revealed two key findings; first, we observed clear correspondences between individuals’ topographic distributions of erogenous zones on their own and their partners’ bodies, as well as between those reported to be elicited by tactile and visual stimulation, suggesting the presence of an erogenous mirroring across individual and sensory modalities. Second, strong gender differences were observed in the reported intensity of arousal associated with one’s own as compared to a partner’s body; males reported significantly stronger arousal whilst touching or looking at a partner’s body, whereas females rated it as more arousing for their own body to be touched or looked at. Therefore, the erogeneity of body parts is represented on a multimodal, somatotopic map, which can be activated similarly for both one’s own and the partner’s body, highlighting for the first time the interpersonal and multisensory organization of the erogenous body.