By contrast, women don't require visuals to feel desire; what matters most is the context in which they encounter sexual stimuli.
'Their sexuality is more dependent on the relationship context,' says Dr Dewitte, explaining that this difference is due to gender roles in evolution.
'For women, the attachment system is more important, so the partner stays with them and raises the child. So it makes sense that sexuality is much more related to the relationship.'
Further proof of this has been seen in studies in which women are shown porn movies. 'Their body reacts - they're genitally aroused - but they don't feel anything,' says Dr Dewitte.
However, 'we know that if you let women watch porn that is more female-oriented, embedded in a story, they respond with more sexual arousal.'
Dr Dewitte's study involved 86 men and 78 women who were analyzed as they watched three different video clips.
The first was of a couple having sex; the second was the scene in Titanic where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have their first kiss, followed by a romantic clip from 1993's Indecent Proposal; and the third was part of a documentary about English history.
Then the participants were asked to report how they felt, both mentally and physically, as well as complete a survey to measure how much they wanted sex afterwards.
For women, the number one turn-on were the clips from Titanic and Indecent Proposal, which won out even over the sex scenes.
This, according to the authors, is because women are more sexually stimulated by fantasy, which they can conjure up by watching romantic scenes.
Unsurprisingly, men felt more inclined to have sex after watching the explicit video.
What is surprising, however, is that the men were more likely to desire sex after watching the history documentary than they were after watching the Titanic scene - indicating that they are actually physically turned off by romance. The study did not make clear why this may be.
- Daily Mail
