Thermography as a physiological measure of sexual arousal in both men and women

IntroductionCurrent physiological measures of sexual arousal are intrusive, hard to compare between genders, and quantitatively problematic.AimTo investigate thermal imaging technology as a means of solving these problems.MethodsTwenty‐eight healthy men and 30 healthy women viewed a neutral film clip, after which they were randomly assigned to view one of three other video conditions: (i) neutral (N = 19); (ii) humor (N = 19); and (iii) sexually explicit (N = 20).Main Outcome MeasuresGenital and thigh temperatures were continuously recorded using a TSA ImagIR camera. Subjective measures of sexual arousal, humor, and relaxation were assessed using Likert‐style questions prior to showing the baseline video and following each film.ResultsStatistical (Tukey HSD) post‐hoc comparisons (P < 0.05) demonstrated that both men and women viewing the sexually arousing video had significantly greater genital temperature (mean = 33.89°C, SD = 1.00) than those in the humor (mean = 32.09°C, SD = 0.93) or neutral (mean = 32.13°C, SD = 1.24) conditions. Men and women in the erotic condition did not differ from each other in time to peak genital temperature (men mean = 664.6 seconds, SD = 164.99; women mean = 743 seconds, SD = 137.87). Furthermore, genital temperature was significantly and highly correlated with subjective ratings of sexual arousal (range r = 0.51–0.68, P < 0.001). There were no significant differences in thigh temperature between groups.ConclusionThermal imaging is a promising technology for the assessment of physiological sexual arousal in both men and women. Kukkonen TM, Binik YM, Amsel R, and Carrier S. Thermography as a physiological measure of sexual arousal in both men and women. J Sex Med 2007;4:93–105.