Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 10, No. 6, 1981 A Comparison of Male and Female Patterns of Sexual Arousal Debra L. Steinman, M.S.,~rJohn P. Wincze, Ph.D., I9293 Sakheim, B.A., 4 ~David H. Barlow, 4 and Matig Mavissakalian, M.D) The structural patterns of sexual arousal are examined for eight male and eight female heterosexuals. Comparisons are made in terms of phys- iological and subjective arousal. The results indicate (1) that males and females differ in both the direction and magnitude of their arousal re- sponse to a variety of erotic stimuli and (2) that there is a stronger cor- respondence between subjective and physiological measures of sexual arousal for males than for females. A social acceptability and/or unaccep- tability theory is suggested to account for similarities and differences between the male and female structural patterns of arousal. Several methods of assessing subjective arousal are included to represent those most frequently used in clinical research settings. It is demonstrated that each of the subjective measures discriminates between erotic conditions and that the information provided by each of the measures are comparable. KEY WORDS: sexual arousal; social acceptability; social unacceptability; subjective measures; sex differences. Research was funded by VA Grant No. 041-34-7119 (1977). 'VA Medical Center, Davis Park, Providence, Rhode Island, 02912. 2To whom correspondence should be addressed. 3Department of Psychiatry, Brown University Medical School, Providence, Rhode Island 02912. 'Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12203. ~Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 529 0004-0002/81/1200-0529503.00/0 © 1981 Plenum Publishing Corporation