Volkmar Sigusch

Sex differences in responses to psychosexual stimulation by films and slides

In a previous publication we reported on the emotional and physiological-sexual reactions as well as the changes in sexual behavior in men and women when they were confronted with sexual thematic slides (Sigusch, 1970). In contrast to the data of Kinsey (1953), we found relatively few sex-specific differences for the variables we covered. We were not able to establish any sex differences at all for physiological-sexual reactions during the showing of the pictures and for changes in sexual behavior in the 24 hours after the experiment. In this report, too, emotional and physio-sexual behavior will be described, with a special view on sex specific differences. This time, however, we are using a different set of stimuli, namely films and slides that show petting and coitus. In addition, more variables are isolated and examined.

Responses to reading erotic stories: male-female differences.

In individual sessions, 120 female and 120 male students read one of two stories in which the sexual experience of a young couple was described. The stories differed in the degree to which affection was expressed. The results were as follows: (1) On the average, the stories were rated as “moderately sexually arousing.” (2) The emotional reactions during and to a lesser degree in the 24 hr after the experiment may be described as general activation, an increase of emotional instability, and avoidance reactions. (3) Most of the subjects registered sexual-physiological reactions in the genital region during the experiment. (4) In the 24 hr period following the experiment, there was a slight to moderate activation of sexual behavior, sexual fantasy, and sexual drive. (5) With reference to all measured responses, only slight sex differences were found. Compared to men, women displayed significantly less emotional activation and significantly greater emotional instability and avoidance. Coital activity and sexual drive were significantly more increased among women than among men during the 24 hr following the experiment. (6) The type of story has only a very slight influence on the measured responses. This is true for both men and women.

Changes in sexual behavior among young males and females between 1960-1970.

On the basis of results of three West German sex surveys of a total of 4568 men and women born between 1936–1954, an analysis is made of the changes in youth sexuality in the 60s. Comparisons were made for boys and girls of high educational level (school attendance 13 years or more) and low educational level (school attendance 9 years or less). The following results were found: (1) The age at first masturbation for boys of both educational levels dropped only slightly; for girls of high educational level, the age dropped markedly during the last decade; there was no change among girls of low educational level. (2) The age at first coitus decreased markedly. This is especially true for the moreeducated boys and girls. (3) The age level at which sociosexual activities are started (dating, kissing, petting) decreased markedly among the less-educated boys and girls. (No data are available for more-educated boys and girls.) (4) These changes in behavior do not correspond to any radical change in sexual standards or sexual philosophy. (5) The ability to experience the first coitus positively and free from conflict increased in the less-educated groups. (No data are available for more-educated boys and girls.)

The Neosexual Revolution

The affluent societies of the Western world have witnessed a tremendous cultural and social transformation of sexuality during the 1980s and 1990s, a process I refer to as the neosexual revolution. Up to now, this recoding and reassessment of sexuality has proceeded rather slowly and quietly. Yet both its real and its symbolic effects may indeed be more consequential than those brought about in the course of the rapid, noisy sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The neosexual revolution is dismantling the old patterns of sexuality and reassembling them anew. In the process, dimensions, intimate relationships, preferences, and sexual fragments emerge, many of which had been submerged, were unnamed, or simply did not exist before. In general, sexuality has lost much of its symbolic meaning as a cultural phenomenon. Sexuality is no longer the great metaphor for pleasure and happiness, nor is it so greatly overestimated as it was during the sexual revolution. It is now widely taken for granted, much like egotism or motility. Whereas sex was once mystified in a positive sense - as ecstasy and transgression, it has now taken on a negative mystification characterized by abuse, violence, and deadly infection. While the old sexuality was based primarily upon sexual instinct, orgasm, and the heterosexual couple, neosexualities revolve predominantly around gender difference, thrills, self-gratification, and prosthetic substitution. From the vast number of interrelated processes from which neosexualities emerge, three empirically observable phenomena have been selected for discussion here: the dissociation of the sexual sphere, the dispersion of sexual fragments, and the diversification of intimate relationships. These processes go hand in hand with the commercialization and banalization of sexuality. They are looked upon as being controlled individually through the mechanisms of a fundamentally egotistical consensus morality. In conformity with the general principles at work in society, the outcome of the neosexual revolution could be described as self-disciplined and self-optimized lean sexuality.

Lower-class sexuality: Some emotional and social aspects in West German males and females

Emotional and social aspects of lower-class sexuality in West Germany are examined on the basis of results of interviews with 150 male and 150 female, single, 20–21-year-old, unskilled or semi-skilled workers from six large cities. Particular attention was given to the relation between sexuality and love, the significance of fidelity and virginity, partner mobility, mutuality of sexual relations, attitudes to marriage and family, double standards and gender roles, emotional reactions to coitus, as well as the experience of orgasm in the female. A comparison between American and Scandinavian patterns of lower-class sexuality shows that the West German pattern is largely congruent with the Scandinavian pattern.

Sexology in West Germany

Abstract Modern sex research was founded mainly by Austrian and German scientists. In the two decades before and in the three decades after the turn of the century, among other things, a sexual pathology was set up by Richard von Krafft‐Ebing, psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud, a sexual morphology by Magnus Hirschfeld, and sexual economy and the “Sexpol” (Sexual Politics) Movement by Wilhelm Reich. The victory of fascism in Germany put a total stop to this development. It took until the late fourties before Hans Giese started to reestablish sex research. The tradition, however, was not taken up again before the middle sixties. For a long time West German sex research took its cues from existential philosophy and was remote from both psychoanalysis and Marxism. While advances have occurred during the past decade, the dramatically underdeveloped state of sexology is most evident in the lack of adequate sex education for health professionals and in the inadequacy of treatment for sexual disturbances.