Sexual Arousal

Sexual arousal is the process and state of an animal being ready for sexual intercourse.

Unlike most other animals, human beings of both sexes are potentially capable of sexual arousal throughout the year, and there is therefore no human "mating season". Things that precipitate human sexual arousal are commonly known as turn-ons.

Causes of human sexual arousal:

• the sight, smell, warmth and touch of a (potential) sexual partner
• sexual foreplay
• erotic thoughts, fantasies or dreams
• presence of fetishised objects
• pornography
• erotica
• masturbation
• sexual role-playing
  

Signs of human sexual arousal:

• increased blood supply and respiration rate
• in males only:
  • penile tumescence and erection
  • emission of pre-ejaculatory fluid (Cowper's fluid) from the bulbourethral glands
• in females only:
  • lubrication of the vagina by the Bartholin's glands
  • hardening of the nipples

Homophobia and sexual arousal
Psychoanalytic theory has long held that homophobia was the result of repressed homosexual desires. Recent research has shown that homophobic heterosexual men showed signs of sexual arousal from being shown images of homosexual sex, when a control group of non-homophobic heterosexual men did not.