| 1 Room 524-C | Sexuality, Desire and Pleasure Thursday, July 14, 2005 Time: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM |
Understanding the Development of Male Sexual Arousal Patterns - Invited Paper.
Merriman, Gareth *,1, 2, Coates, Rosemary1, Andrews, Hank1, 1 Curtin University of Technology, PERTH, WA, Australia2 Sexuality & Relationship Therapy Centre, INGLEWOOD, WA, Australia
ABSTRACT- The paper presents a grounded theory, qualitative study of 127 men (64 interviewed, 63 in focus groups) aged between 18 and 25, investigating patterning and repatterning of male sexual arousal (MSA). Limited information exists on non-deviant sexual arousal of men. The majority of contemporary literature on MSA examines clinical populations of men with erectile function difficulties and other performance issues, or harmful arousal patterns (sex offenders). The men in this study were not from a clinical population just usual blokes who volunteered to participate. These men have a very different view than what is continually documented about MSA. The results reveal that men understand that they need to control their emotions, cognitions and physical changes (ECP; including physiology and behaviour) in a manner that provides the best fit for a particular situation in order to achieve sexual arousal and gratification. This ability to recognise changes in the homeostasis of these ECP elements allows the man, through experience and practice, to develop ratio sets of these ECP. For example, this provides detachment from emotions and thoughts when purely the behaviour is desired, or stronger connection to the cognitive when fantasy is desired or required. These men recognised that arousal is influenced greatly by anticipation and can start in the morning when they are hopeful of having sex that night. Components necessary for arousal were conceptualised and categorised from the data and a core category established that is the base of other components of arousal: Self constructed situational alignment of physical, emotional and cognitive states to validate self. A model of how men pattern and attempt to repattern arousal to best suit their view of self in any situation was developed and will be presented. This model has implications for the education of boys, the treatment of men with sexual arousal problems and the treatment of various forms of paraphilic behaviour including the treatment of sex offenders.
Key words: arousal, desire, male