In most participants, when sexual material was shown to them, several regions of the brain became more active. Participants’ brain activity was tracked while viewing neutral, then sexual images. That same review, though, did find that sexual images can jump-start activity in the brain. In other words, a man’s brain didn’t have a stronger reaction to erotic images than a woman’s.
Some people just don’t enjoy sex, or they experience only sexual attraction and sexual desire toward folks they already have a close emotional connection with.Ī 2019 metanalysis found that nervous system responses to sexual and erotic images weren’t tied to the biological sex assigned to participants at birth. Not everyone desires sex, regardless of their gender, and when some of us do, libido isn’t always the same. Today, we understand that human sexuality is wide and diverse - and it’s not simply gender-defined. You may have heard that men are visual, aroused by viewing erotic images, while women take an emotional approach to arousal.