Neue Studie legen nahe, dass Menschen, die häufig Pornografie ansehen oder andere einsame sexuelle Aktivitäten durchführen, unterschiedlich auf sexuelle Hinweise reagieren können. Obwohl sie immer noch erotische Bilder angenehm finden, zeigen ihr Körper schwächere Anzeichen von Erregung, wenn etwas signalisiert, dass sexueller Inhalt kommt.

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030105112500064X

From the linked article:

**A new study published in Biological Psychology suggests that people who frequently watch pornography or engage in other solitary sexual activities may react differently to sexual cues. Even though they still find erotic images pleasant, their bodies show weaker signs of arousal when something signals that sexual content is coming**. This pattern supports the idea that some people may use pornography more often because they do not get as much reward from it as others do—not because they are more sensitive to sexual cues, as some past theories have suggested.

Across the board, participants showed signs of having learned the associations between neutral cues and sexual or aversive outcomes. Visual cues that predicted sexual images triggered pupil dilation and reduced startle reflexes, while cues predicting unpleasant outcomes had the opposite effects. These patterns were consistent regardless of whether the rewards were visual or auditory, confirming that both types of sexual stimuli can reinforce learning.

However, when the researchers looked at how individual differences in solitary sexual desire shaped responses, a more nuanced picture emerged. People with higher scores on solitary sexuality showed smaller pupil dilation responses to cues that predicted visual sexual stimuli. They also demonstrated less increase in pupil dilation over repeated trials. This suggests diminished anticipatory arousal and slower learning—rather than heightened craving or increased sensitivity to reward.

Interestingly, this effect was specific to visual sexual stimuli. People with high solitary sexual desire did not show a comparable reduction in response to auditory sexual stimuli. Nor did they differ significantly in their physiological reactions to cues predicting aversive outcomes, suggesting that the effect was not simply due to a general difference in emotional reactivity.

Despite reduced physiological arousal, these individuals rated the erotic images as more pleasant than others did. This dissociation between subjective “liking” and physiological “wanting” hints at a decoupling between how enjoyable a stimulus is perceived to be and how strongly the body anticipates it.