Sexual motivation

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts from lecture notes on motivation, emotion, and sexual behavior.

Vasocongestion

The engorgement of blood vessels, leading to penile erection and swollen testes in males, and swelling/hardening of the clitoris, expansion of vaginal lips, and vaginal lubrication in females.

Human Sexual Response Cycle

The four stages are excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. During the excitement phase, the level of physical arousal usually escalates rapidly. During the plateau phase, physiological arousal usually continues to build, but at a much slower pace.

Refractory Period

A time following orgasm during which men are largely unresponsive to further stimulation; varies in length and increases with age.

Parental Investment

What each sex has to invest in terms of time, energy, survival risk, and forgone opportunities to produce and nurture offspring.

Parental Investment Theory

Suggests that disparities between males and females in parental investment have adaptive significance and lead to gender differences in mating tendencies and preferences.

Erotic Plasticity

The degree to which attraction is formed by situational factors.

Sexual Orientation

A person's preference for emotional and sexual relationships with individuals of the same sex, the other sex, or either sex.

Heterosexuals

Individuals seek emotional-sexual relationships with members of the other sex.

Bisexuals

Individuals seek emotional-sexual relationships with members of either sex.

Homosexuals

Individuals seek emotional-sexual relationships with members of the same sex.