Do men really think less about sex than women?

IT sounds like a cliche, but when it comes to passion men really do have less going on in their minds.

A study found a lot more of the excitement for women seems to take place in their brain, where more regions light up – and more strongly than they do in men.

Scientists played 20 men and 20 women erotic film clips, before measuring their brain and genital response. Both sexes reported being equally turned on after watching the clips, but women showed activity in ten regions of their brain, compared to four for men.

The results might explain why some men find it easier to become aroused and ready for sex, while women find it all a bit more complicated.

Pfizer, the drug company which has tried to make a female version of Viagra, found it did not work to arouse the majority of women, with its lead scientist stating that for females, ‘the brain is the crucial sexual organ’.

The study, led by McGill University in Canada and published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, states: ‘Our findings provide direct sex comparisons of the neural correlates of genital arousal in men and women, and suggest that brain-genital correlations could be stronger in women.’

Men are often described as being more turned on by what they see, but the results suggest that women might be more influenced by the visual features of erotic scenes than previously thought.