The influence of sexual arousal on subjective pain intensity during a cold pressor test in women

Background & Objectives: Pain can be significantly lessened by sex/orgasm, likely
due to the release of endorphins during sex, considered potent analgesics. The
evidence suggests that endorphins are also present during sexual arousal (that is, prior
to sex/orgasm). It follows then that pain can be modulated during sexual arousal,
independent of sex/orgasm, too. Accordingly, sexual arousal induced by erotic slides
has been demonstrated to lessen pain in men, but not in women. One explanation
could be that for women, the erotic slides were not potent enough to elicit a lasting
primed state of sexual arousal by the time pain was induced. Thus, the current study
aims to optimize the means of inducing a potent state of sexual arousal and
subsequently examine the potentially analgesic influence of sexual arousal on pain in
women. As a subsidiary aim, the study also assesses whether the anticipated
analgesic effect of sexual arousal would be stronger than that of distraction or
generalized (non-sexual) arousal.
Methods: Female participants ( N = 151) were randomly distributed across four
conditions: sexual arousal, generalized arousal, distraction, neutral. Mild pain was
induced using a cold pressor while participants were concurrently exposed to film
stimuli (pornographic, exciting, distracting, neutral) to induce the targeted emotional
states. A visual analogue scale was utilized to measure the subjective level of pain
perceived by the participants.
Results: Sexual arousal did not reduce subjective pain. Generalized arousal and
distraction did not result in stronger analgesic effects than the neutral condition.
Conclusion: The present findings do not support the hypothesis that sexual arousal
alone modulates subjective pain in women. This might be due to the possibility that
genital stimulation and/or orgasm are key in pain reduction, or, that feelings of disgust
may inadvertently have been induced by the pornographic stimulus and interfered with
sexual arousal in influencing pain.