Gender differences in sado-masochistic arousal among college students

This paper tests three competing explanations for male-female differences in sado-masochistic sexual arousal. The male arousal hypothesis posits that because of socialization that emphasizes sexual aggression and experimentation (and thus higher levels of sexual arousal and activity in all areas), men will be more aroused by both sadism and masochism than women. The female masochism hypothesis argues that because females are socialized to be passive, they will be more aroused by masochistic (but not sadistic) activities than males. The convergence hypothesis notes that male-female socialization (and differences in most sexual attitudes and behavior) have converged in recent years, and hypothesizes that the same convergence has taken place in arousal caused by sado-masochistic behavior and fantasy. Using a sample comprised of 320 undergraduate students (69% white, 27% African American, 4% other) from a large urban university in the Southeast, we found no evidence for the female masochism hypothesis and only weak evidence for the convergence hypothesis. The strongest evidence was for the male arousal hypotheses, with males scoring significantly higher than females on seven of the twelve measures Of sado-masochistic arousal, and no differently from females on the remaining five.