Sexual Arousal - Sexual Arousal Disorders

Sexual Arousal Disorders

See also: Sexual arousal disorder, Hypoactive sexual desire disorder, and Female sexual arousal disorder

Sexual arousal for most people is a positive experience and an aspect of their sexuality, and is often sought. A person can normally control how they will respond to arousal. They will normally know what things or situations are potentially stimulating, and may at their leisure decide to either create or avoid these situations. Similarly, a person's sexual partner will normally also know his or her partner's erotic stimuli and turn-offs. Some people feel embarrassed by sexual arousal and some are sexually inhibited. Some people do not feel aroused on every occasion that they are exposed to erotic stimuli, nor act in a sexual way on every arousal. A person can take an active part in a sexual activity without sexual arousal. These situations are considered normal, but depend on the maturity, age, culture and other factors influencing the person.

However, when a person fails to be aroused in a situation that would normally produce arousal and the lack of arousal is persistent, it may be due to a sexual arousal disorder or hypoactive sexual desire disorder. There are many reasons why a person fails to be aroused, including a mental disorder, such as depression, drug use, or a medical or physical condition. The lack of sexual arousal may be due to a general lack of sexual desire or due to a lack of sexual desire for the current partner. A person may always have had no or low sexual desire or the lack of desire may have been acquired during the person's life. There are also complex philosophical and psychological issues surrounding sexuality. Attitudes towards life, death, childbirth, one's parents, friends, family, contemporary society, the human race in general, and particularly one's place in the world play a substantive role in determining how a person will respond in any given sexual situation.

On the other hand, a person may be hypersexual, which is a desire to engage in sexual activities considered abnormally high in relation to normal development or culture, or suffering from a persistent genital arousal disorder, which is a spontaneous, persistent, and uncontrollable arousal, and the physiological changes associated with arousal.