Fear and Arousal
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Have you ever been kind of turned on while you were scared? You’re not the only one!
It’s about to be September 22nd, do you know what that means? That’s right: summer is OVER. No more heatwaves in the middle of June, no more sun out at 9pm- now we move into the chilly and rainy wind-down of the year. Before we find ourselves in the clutches of yule over in the winter, we get to spend a little bit of quality time here in the fall, with our scary friend Halloween. It’s never too early to get into the spooky sensibility- in and out of the bedroom. Many people find being in a state of fear arousing, whether they have a fetish for it or not- and there’s tons of reasons why this might happen!
Fear can increase sexual arousal by triggering stress hormones like adrenaline, which can be misattributed as attraction, a phenomenon known as Misattribution Of Arousal. Fear can also directly activate areas of the brain involved in both fear and arousal, like the amygdala. While this connection exists, anxiety generally impairs sexual arousal, though some conditions like fear play or fear-inducing scenarios can enhance arousal through a controlled release of adrenaline in a harmless context.
Some Psychological and Cognitive Factors:
Survival Mode:
States of fear put the body into "survival mode," which involves the release of stress hormones that can be confused with or enhance sexual desire.
Cognitive Labeling:
According to the Schachter-Singer theory, an emotional state is a combination of physiological arousal and the cognitive interpretation of that arousal. Arousal from fear can be labeled as sexual arousal if the situation or environment suggests it, such as being with an attractive person after a fearful experience.
Conditioning:
Emotional and sexual arousal can become conditioned over time, where cues from one may trigger cues for the other.
That’s only the regular-schmegular way that fear interacts with arousal though! Some people have a thing for that- maybe even you! The best way to figure it out is with:
Fear Play:
Some people use fear-inducing activities in a safe and consensual context (fear play) to achieve sexual arousal by leveraging the release of adrenaline. Engaging in low-risk high-fear situations or simulating scary situations with a partner is a good way to get your heart racing one way or another!
There’s a whole bunch of weird ways that feelings get crossed together in the human mind, for example, the Bridge Study. A classic study showed that men who crossed a dangerous suspension bridge were more likely to have sexual content in their stories with an attractive woman afterward compared to men who crossed a sturdy bridge. This suggests they misattributed the physiological arousal from the bridge to the woman.
Must have been too much of them to ask that they test it on anyone except straight men- but what were we really expecting? We don’t need that study to prove the link between fear and arousal though- there’s countless videos online that prove that link ten times over. So go looking! You might just find a new and exciting way to celebrate Halloween this year.