ABSTRACT
This chapter explores whether the psychology of emotion adds to understanding sex, and what sex has to do with emotions. Sex would seem a major topic in the psychology of emotion. All sexual emotions result from events impinging on the sexual concern, that is, the sexual motivational system, rooted in neurohumoral dispositions, without which no sexual feeling or striving could occur. Sexual emotions are aroused by stimulus events, but, as also discussed there, the concern can on occasion manifest itself more spontaneously, diffusely, as unrest, and more focally through fantasies and thoughts. The different sexual emotions result from different events as appraised. They are: being attracted; being charmed; being in love; sexual excitement; sexual desire; lust; sexual enjoyment. Being attracted is often a small and fleeting emotion. Sexual interaction is a relationship in which certain intimacies are necessarily involved, expected, and accepted if one is inclined to them. Sex thrives on novelty, presumably because of the excitements of non-self-evident well-functioning.
