Visual Attention to Erotic Images in Women Reporting Pain with Intercourse

Title
Visual Attention to Erotic Images in Women Reporting Pain with Intercourse
Publication Date
2011
Author(s)
Lykins, Amy
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2930-3964
Email: alykins@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:alykins
Meana, Marta
Minimi, Jillian
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Routledge
Place of publication
United States of America
DOI
10.1080/00224490903556374
UNE publication id
une:7407
Abstract
The coupling of sex and pain creates an interesting theoretical conundrum of clinical significance: Are women with dyspareunia distracted from sexual stimuli, or are they hypervigilant to sexual stimuli because these stimuli elicit thoughts and expectations of pain? This study measured attention to sexual stimuli in women reporting persistent pain with intercourse, women reporting low sexual desire, and women reporting no sexual problems. Participants viewed a series of erotic images, each containing an object intended to distract from the erotic scene regions, while an eye tracker recorded their eye movements. Women with pain looked for shorter periods of time and fewer times at the sexual scene region than did both women with low sexual desire (p = .024 and p = .018, respectively) and the no-dysfunction control group (p < .001 and p = .003, respectively). Women with pain also looked at the context (nonsexual) scene region significantly more times and for longer periods than did the no-dysfunction control women (p = .013 and p = .042, respectively). Results are interpreted to be potentially supportive of the cognitive distraction hypothesis associated with sexual dysfunction, with an additional component of cognitive avoidance of sexual stimuli for the women reporting sexual pain.
Link
Citation
Journal of Sex Research, 48(1), p. 43-52
ISSN
1559-8519
0022-4499
Start page
43
End page
52

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