Human Sex-Response Cycles

Abstract

In order to better assess and explain the multiple factors contributing to our patients' sexual difficulties, we need to construct a reasonably simple model of human sexual response that illustrates, first, feedback to the mind as it orchestrates the sexual response and, second, the concept that sexual experiences can be undertaken for reasons that are not strictly sexual but intimacy-based. A simple model is presented that integrates responsive and "spontaneous" sexual desire, the subsequent creation of further stimuli in the form of the emotions experienced, subjective mental excitement, and accurate or inaccurate appreciation of physical, genital, and nongenital changes, all of which continue to modulate the sexual response.