Evaluating public health perspectives of sexually transmitted diseases: The need for further research

While sexuality is the focus of extensive research, the concept has not been adequately defined. In this paper, sexuality is defined as the individual capacity to respond to physical experiences which are capable of producing body‐centered genital excitation, that only subsequently becomes associated with cognitive constructs (either anticipatory for new experiences or reflective of past experiences) independent of ongoing physical experiences. The discussion focuses on four components of this definition: that sexuality is an individual capacity, is experiential, is body‐oriented, and is directed toward genital excitation.