Neural Pathways of Sexual Arousal

Introduction The research I conducted for the neuroscience emphasis graduation requirement was a combined topic with my gender studies minor thesis. The thesis title was Dirty Minds: Comparing the Gender Differences in Neural Sexual Arousal with Theories of Human Sexuality. The first purpose of the thesis was to explore the neuroscience evidence for gender differences in sexual arousal to better understand what is happening on a physiological level. The second portion of the thesis was designed to investigate if the current psychological theories of human sexuality were in line with the experimental results researched previously. Ruth Hubbard's argument to understanding the relationship between biology and culture as transformational was the framework that I used to consider these two strains of research [1]. This framework allowed me to consider neuroscience, psychology, and culture as interdependent in a way that perpetuated the norms and expectations of our gendered culture. Specifically, the powerful influence of gender roles on the questions that researchers ask, such as targeting only female sexuality as in need of explanation because male sexuality is biologically driven [2]. The influence of gender roles has permeated into the language of the sciences; for example, fertilization is often discussed as sperm actively penetrating the egg, when in fact the egg plays a more active role in fertilization [3]. The following review discusses the neurological evidence for human sexual arousal pathways and known gender differences.