Examining Erectile Disorder Manifestations and the Impact of Point-Of-View in Virtual Reality Erotica

A growing body of research utilizes virtual reality (VR) in the field of mental health. Yet, the potential of this technology for sexual dysfunctions remains underexplored. This study focused on erectile disorder (ED) and evaluated the ability of virtual three-dimensional sexual scenarios to elicit ED manifestations (e.g. sexual performance anxiety, low sexual response). It further investigated the influence of viewer perspective in VR - first-person point of view (POV) versus third-person POV - on the activation of ED manifestations. Sixty adults (30 with ED; 30 without ED) viewed three virtual sexual scenarios (oral sex, masturbation, penetrative sex) in the laboratory. Measures of fear, catastrophizing, sexual arousal, and sexual presence were collected throughout the scenarios. Mixed repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed no differences between ED and non-ED groups in levels of fear and catastrophizing; however, individuals with ED reported significantly lower sexual arousal scores during the oral sex and masturbation scenarios. The POV modality had no effect on the examined outcomes among individuals with ED. These findings suggest that VR sexual stimuli may hold promise for examining impaired sexual responses in ED, while highlighting the need for future research evaluating the efficacy of more interactive and realistic virtual environments in eliciting sexual performance anxiety.