Elucidating women’s (hetero)sexual desire: Definitional challenges and content expansion

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-30-2010

Publication Title

Journal of Sex Research

Volume

47

Issue

2-3

First page number:

104

Last page number:

122

Abstract

The literature on women's sexual desire is reviewed with an emphasis on definitional challenges, an assessment of the empirical basis for the distinction between spontaneous and responsive desire, a reconsideration of the extent to which women's sexual desire is relational in nature, and an exploration of the incentive value of sex for women as a factor partially independent from the experience of sexual desire. Nine recommendations are made regarding research and diagnostic directions. The article concludes with an appeal for the inclusion of eroticism in research and clinical work on sexual desire.

Keywords

Sex; Sex differences; Sexual excitement; Women--Sexual behavior

Disciplines

Community-Based Research | Health Psychology | Medicine and Health | Psychiatry and Psychology | Psychology

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited

UNLV article access

Search your library

Share

COinS