(They are inhibited, of course, when women fear being stoned, mocked, shamed, raped or brutalized in response to their desire). Similarly, a rich body of data, including many important studies by Alessandra Rellini and Cindy Meston, now links women’s arousal to their autonomic nervous systems (Rellini and Meston have even found that rape can affect women’s baseline ANS years after the assault).