We asked a sex expert 🍫
, says it’s crucial to differentiate between physical arousal and sexual arousal. To explain, physical arousal has more to do with engaging your senses through external factors, while sexual arousal is directly tied to whether or not you’re turned on enough to want to engage in sex.
“PEA also releases dopamine, which is the main [thing] people think of as the pleasure neurotransmitter,” Dr. Wise says. “Plus, chocolate actually has key compounds in it that are precursors for dopamine and also serotonin, [which] is more of a soothing neurotransmitter.” —which underscores that the answer to the “is chocolate sexually arousing question” is, well, not exactly. However, this does not automatically mean that the physiological arousal you’re experiencing from eating chocolate is worth discounting.
According to Dr. Wise, there is an even larger placebo effect when it comes to wine and oysters—which she doesn’t count as foods that are arousing, period.