Sexual Disgust: Evolutionary Perspectives and Relationship to Female Sexual Function

This article presents the development of a brief, self-report measure of female sexual function. Initial face validity testing of questionnaire items, identified by an expert panel, was followed by a study aimed at further refining the questionnaire. It was administered to 131 normal controls and 128 age-matched subjects with female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD) at five research centers. Based on clinical interpretations of a principal components analysis, a 6-domain structure was identified, which included desire, subjective arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain. Overall test-retest reliability coefficients were high for each of the individual domains (r = 0.79 to 0.86) and a high degree of internal consistency was observed (Cronbach's alpha values of 0.82 and higher) Good construct validity was demonstrated by highly significant mean difference scores between the FSAD and control groups for each of the domains (p < or = 0.001). Additionally, divergent validity with a scale of marital satisfaction was observed. These results support the reliability and psychometric (as well as clinical) validity of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) in the assessment of key dimensions of female sexual function in clinical and nonclinical samples. Our findings also suggest important gender differences in the patterning of female sexual function in comparison with similar questionnaire studies in males.

What is the function of disgust? Whereas traditional models have suggested that disgust serves to protect the self or neutralize reminders of our animal nature, an evolutionary perspective suggests that disgust functions to solve 3 qualitatively different adaptive problems related to pathogen avoidance, mate choice, and social interaction. The authors investigated this 3-domain model of disgust across 4 studies and examined how sensitivity to these functional domains relates to individual differences in other psychological constructs. Consistent with their predictions, factor analyses demonstrated that disgust sensitivity partitions into domains related to pathogens, sexuality, and morality. Further, sensitivity to the 3 domains showed predictable differentiation based on sex, perceived vulnerability to disease, psychopathic tendencies, and Big 5 personality traits. In exploring these 3 domains of disgust, the authors introduce a new measure of disgust sensitivity. Appreciation of the functional heterogeneity of disgust has important implications for research on individual differences in disgust sensitivity, emotion, clinical impairments, and neuroscience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).