How to Measure Female Desire

A Sexual Laboratory of One's Own, 
aka A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Sex

Psychophysiologic studies of sexual response should be done in a comfortable, well-designed laboratory to minimize subject anxiety and discomfort (Woodard & Diamond, 2009, Fig. 5).



How do scientists measure the physiological aspects of sexual arousal in women? A 2009 paper by Woodard and Diamond reviewed 45 years of research using instruments that measure female sexual function. These devices include the vaginal photoplethysmograph (right), vaginal and labial thermistors, pressure/compliance balloons, clitoral electromyography, and the electrovaginogram. For a full list, see Table 1 at the bottom of this post.

The authors note that these physiological measures do not correlate very well with subjective ratings of sexual arousal. Furthermore, clinicians who treat women with sexual dysfunctions are of two minds. Some say the distinction between female desire and arousal may be artificial (see DSM-5 changes, p. 13), while others maintain that the merger of female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD) with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) will be disastrous (Clayton et al., 2012).

The previous post about Lybrido and Lybridos, the drugs in clinical trials for HSDD, talked briefly about Emotional Brain, the Dutch drug company that is developing them. Putting aside the many objections to the HSDD diagnosis for now, and the fact that the trials pathologize sexual boredom within marriage, the company has conducted some interesting studies¹ to assess sexual desire.

Foremost among these is the development of an at-home testing environment, or ambulatory lab, to conduct studies of sexual function (Bloemers et al., 2010).

Fig. 1 (Bloemers et al., 2010). Schematic overview of the ambulatory measurement setting. (1) Generic laptop, (2) genital probe, (3) wireless sensor system, (4) handheld computer, and (5) secure central database.


The participants must be so much more comfortable watching hardcore porn and measuring their own vaginal pulse amplitude and clitoral blood volume in the privacy of their homes, without the prying eyes of hoards of scientists in white lab coats (although some people might be into that).

And that's what was found, for the most part (Bloemers et al., 2010):

The results of this study support our hypothesis that in healthy controls, clitoral and subjective laboratory measures of sexual arousal show stronger increases to erotic stimuli in the home environment than in the environment of the institutional laboratory. This effect was apparent in response to hardcore stimuli, but not to erotic fantasy. ... To our knowledge, this is the first study that investigates ecological validity of sexual psychophysiological measures by comparing those assessed in the institutional laboratory to those assessed at home with an ambulatory laboratory.

Footnote

¹ Albeit flawed studies, from a cognitive perspective (especially their implementation of an 'Emotional Stroop' task). I am not particularly qualified to comment on other aspects of this research.


References

Bloemers, J., Gerritsen, J., Bults, R., Koppeschaar, H., Everaerd, W., Olivier, B., & Tuiten, A. (2010). Induction of Sexual Arousal in Women Under Conditions of Institutional and Ambulatory Laboratory Circumstances: A Comparative Study Journal of Sexual Medicine, 7 (3), 1160-1176 DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01660.x

Woodard, T., & Diamond, M. (2009). Physiologic measures of sexual function in women: a review Fertility and Sterility, 92 (1), 19-34 DOI: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2008.04.041