Female responsiveness to erotic films and the "ideal" erotic film from a feminine perspective.

Subjects were 20 volunteers randomly selected from all female undergraduate students attending a local university, who were 21 years of age or older, and living off campus. The stimuli consisted of seven films, of approximately 5 minutes duration each, which depicted various types of human sexual behavior. Themes included "romantic" heterosexual behavior, primarily genital heterosexual behavior, a mild, and an explicit form of group-sex behavior, a mild and explicit form of heterosexual sadomasochistic behavior, and male homosexuality. Subjects rated the degree of sexual arousal experienced for each film on a 50-point Likert scale. The order of presentation of the films for each subject was randomized, and all subjects participated individually with only a female experimenter present. Following the rating period, subjects completed the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test (9). Finally, a structured interview was conducted to probe specific likes and dislikes with respect to the content of the films viewed. Results indicated that rank order ratings of the films, from most to least sexually stimulating, was: heterosexual, romantic; group-sex mild (two males and one female); heterosexual-genital; group-sex explicit (three males and three females); sadomasochism (mild); sadomasochism-explicit (forcing and brutal); and male homosexuality. One conclusion that the data led to was that females preferred and were significantly more sexually stimulated by films in which a male related to a female (even if the male was treating the female cruelly) than they were by homosexual stimuli involving two males together. Correlational data between the rating responses and the Sex Knowledge and Attitude Test yielded much information including significant negative correlations between ratings of both group-sex films and rejection of sexual myths. Also, significant positive correlations were found between rated degree of sexual stimulation for the heterosexual and the group-sex films and the consideration of pre- and extramarital relations as acceptable or even desirable.