News

Visual attention to erotic images in women reporting pain with intercourse

Women who experience pain when having sex can have many psychological issues around intercourse.  Recently the debate has shifted from dyspareunia being a manifestation of inner emotion conflict to it being a pain disorder in its own right.  However, is it a sexual dysfunction characterised by pain, or is it a pain disorder that affects sex?  This isn’t an easy question to answer as both the experience of pain and sex involve many emotional and cognitive process and together the picture is even more complex.

 

This study aims to investigate whether women with dyspareunia are distracted from sexual stimulation, so making sex painful, or whether the experience of pain makes them hypervigilant to sexual signals and increases their anticipation of pain.

Women were recruited into three groups; those with pain on at least 50% of intercourse attempts, women with low sexual desire as a sexual dysfunction control group and a group of women with no reported sexual problems.  54 women completed the study, 20 with dyspareunia, 14 with low libido and 20 in the healthy control group. 

Participants viewed a series of erotic images, each containing an object intended to distract them from the erotic areas on the screen.  An eye tracker recorded their visual movements.

Women with dyspareunia looked at the erotic images fewer times and for a shorter duration than either women with low desire or normal sexual function.  They also looked at the non sexual scene region more times and for longer than either of the control groups. 

The results from this small study suggest that women with dyspareunia have their attention distracted away from sexual stimuli, which could potentially inhibit arousal and cause pain, then also avoid sexual images, preferring to focus on non sexual stimuli.  The study didn’t record the thoughts that accompanied these eye movements so it’s difficult to be precise about any cognitive motivations for these findings or whether fear or anxiety played a part.  However it does seem to show that the brains of women with dyspareunia attend and respond to sexual stimuli in different way.  Could this mean dyspareunia is a sexual dysfunction after all?  Watch this space.

Lykins A D, Meana M, Minimi J.  Visual Attention to Erotic Images in Women Reporting Pain with Intercourse.  Journal of Sex Research 2011; 48 (1): 43-5

 

Filed under: View All, Doctors NotesPosted at 23:06

Leave your comment