Sexuality and psychophysiological functioning in women with diabetes mellitus

Subjective and objective psychophysiological responses to erotic visual stimulation were recorded for 24 women with diabetes mellitus type I and 10 control women. There were no significant differences in subjective responses (general sexual arousal and genital arousal) between the two groups. The objective response, a rise in the temperature of the labium minus, varied with the height of the initial temperature. Since this temperature was significantly higher in diabetic women, the subsequent rise during erotic visual stimulation was less in diabetic women than in controls. When samples from the two groups were matched for initial temperature, the difference in the increase in labial temperature was no longer statistically different. In both groups of women there was a significant correlation between the degree of subjective arousal and the rise in labial temperature when women with a high temperature (greater than 37 degrees C) at the start of the visual erotic stimulation were not included. The absence of a statistically significant effect of diabetes mellitus on the parameters studied may be due to a lack of serious neuropathy and angiopathy in the present sample of diabetic women. Future psychophysiological studies should include women with serious neuropathy with or without diabetes mellitus.