Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 4, 2026

Assessment of Sexual Behavior of Male Mice
Published on: March 5, 2020
Sexual aversion versus hypoactive sexual desire: a diagnostic challenge
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, Maryland.
Abstract:
Our work with women with sexual aversion documents the presence of marked sexual avoidance behaviors as specified in the DSM-III-R1 diagnostic criteria for this disorder. At the same time, we demonstrate the presence of normal sexual desire and capacity for orgasm in these women. These two findings offer support for a valid diagnostic differentiation between sexual aversion disorder and hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Inherent in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual aversion disorder is an appreciation by the clinician of the tremendous approach-avoidance conflict that exists in these patients. The behavioral and cognitive avoidance features, therefore, need to be elicited actively by the clinician during all phases of assessment and treatment. These features are not always offered readily by the patients for fear of having to relinquish these strategies and their related sense of control over the overwhelming anxiety that sexual intimacy can produce. Consequently, treatment is not always straightforward and successful.
Related Concept Videos
Sex-linked Disorders
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Latency
The latency period is not considered...
Psychosexual Stages of Personality: Genital
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
Genital Herpes
Amebiasis

