MANIPULATING EXPERIMENTALLY WITH SEXUAL DESIRE – THE IMPACT OF INNER SEXUAL FANTASIES

Abstract

"Objective. Recent models of sexual response have challenged the traditional view of spontaneity of sexual desire and argue that desire is context specific and not so obviously spontaneous. However, the Inner responsive desire has been theorized mainly with regard to women’s sexuality. Design and method. For measurement of sexual desire, I distinguished state and trait levels of desire and applied Imagined Social Situation Exercise (ISSE) measures. Results. The trait level of sex desire was significantly different for men and women and state sex desire before the experiment was equal. The sex manipulation changed sex desire level compared with the controls and it worked equally for both men and women. Conclusions. Based on my results I can conclude that state and trait desire levels are similar for men and women and applying ISSE really increases state level of sexual desire. No sex differences were found and it seems that trait and state levels of sexual desire work relatively independently from each other."