Men & Women's Sexual Arousal Rates Do Men & Women Get Excited at the Same Rate? Read more at Suite101: Men & Women's Sexual Arousal Rates: Do Men &

he sexual arousal rates in men and women may be more similar than you think.

Sexual arousal rates in men and women

The psychology of sexual arousal rates was fascinating long before Alfred Kinsey researched it. Kinsey was the first to make men and women's sexual arousal rates public and acceptable (though how acceptable his research was is debatable!). New research about sexual arousal rates reveal that men and women get excited at the same rate, which seems hard to believe. Don't men think of sex hundreds of times a day, thus increasing their sexual arousal rates?

Sexual arousal rates in men and women: McGill's study

McGill University researchers found that men and women have sexual arousal rates that are more or less equal. However it's important to remember that any time humans or animals are involved in laboratory studies, their responses aren’t quite the same as in “real life.” Researchers do their best to simulate real life situations when they're studying sexual arousal rates in men and women – and they can come really close – but it’s not quite the same. Would these research results about sexual arousal rates be the same if study participants were in their own homes, with their own lovers?

Maybe, maybe not. The psychology of sexual arousal rates in men and woumen may color the results of the research.

Many factors are involved in a research study on the sexual arousal rates in women and men:

Place affects men and women's sexual arousal rates. The subjects watched a movie with video goggles and other measurements of their sexual response rates. This is much different than having sex at home (or on the train, plane, desk, photocopier, etc). How applicable are the lab findings to "real" sexual arousal situations and sexual arousal rates? It's difficult to say.

Lover versus movie affects men and women's sexual arousal rates. With a real-life lover, most men and women (especially women) are affected by their surroundings, who is nearby making noise, how fat they feel, whether they have gas, if birth control is available, how hairy their legs are, how intimate their relationship is, what a colleague said as they were leaving the office, if they're fighting with their sister, and so on… In light of this, do the study’s results about sexual arousal rates in women and men transfer to real-life sexual situations? It may be easier for women to become aroused by watching a movie in a quiet, unpressured research situation than at home with all sorts of real-life distractions.