“Heterosexual women are responding to women, which is counterintuitive,” Dr. Chivers said. “Why are women so turned on by watching other women?” Straight and gay men, as well as lesbians, were more predictably aroused by images of their preferred sex, Dr. Chivers found."In this quote, Chivers is referring to the genital response determined by photoplethysmograph while watching erotic films of various combinations. Women who identified as 2 or lower on the Kinsey scale (primarily interested in men) showed greater genital response to the activity pictured (exercise, masturbation, or intercourse) rather than the subject of the film (male, female, or non-human).
The website TSRoadmap has a lot to say about Chivers, Bailey, and Blanchard. To summarize as briefly and ungenerously as possible: women don't have a sexual orientation, bisexual men are lying, and transsexualism is a sexual fetish. Needless to say, neither Andrea James of TSRoadmap or Dan4th of Difference Blog are particularly sold on their results.
The fact that the NYT consistently goes to the Blanchard/Bailey camp for sexuality stories bothers me deeply, but there is a caveat: I haven't found anyone doing research on female sexuality or transsexualism that doesn't creep me out. Bailey, Blanchard, Chivers, Brody, Lippa, Diamond, Baumeister -- they all seem to agree on the difference between the construction of women's sexual orientation versus that of men's. That's an awful lot of people to be wrong, and no one coming up with an answer I like. Of course, I can't think of any of them who have looked at the social pressure that men face in regards to "not being gay."
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My question then is, what would be an answer that you like?
The idea that my arousal level is more linked to the activity I'm seeing then who is performing it fits with my experience. As does the idea that how my genitals respond initially has very little to do with my option what I’m seeing (one of Bailey’s studies asked women to rate there arousal and found that what women said they liked, and the blood to there genitals didn’t seem to have much to do with each other).
(But I can’t say I’m comfortable with the “women don't have a sexual orientation, bisexual men are lying, and transsexualism is a sexual fetish” either.)
Well, that's the problem isn't it? And science is *not* the search for an answer I'd like, but the answers they're getting are counterintuitive for me in some pretty profound ways.
Honestly, I think the last sentence of today's post sums up my feelings on it: I think people who are socialized as men are really badly and harmfully repressed in terms of sexual expression. And I would trust less than 1% of people to be actually self-aware.
What about research done in other countries where the social pressure on men to "not be gay" is less intense? Does that research exist (or those countries)?
That lesbianism is often portrayed as harmless or sexy and gay male sex as gross or dangerous seems pretty pervasive in the USA...and that's got to have a huge effect.
When we start seeing "Boys Gone Wild" tapes...then we'll know things are changing.
I believe this *is* the country where pressure is less intense.
and there was a "Guys Gone Wild" tape - at least one. It doesn't get as much advertising, but gay porn doesn't need a lot.
for what it's worth, I think it's a great sign that I see ads on late-night TV for all-male party chat lines.
I believe this *is* the country where pressure is less intense.
Japan, I know, has, if not LESS pressure, a different kind of it; culturally, homosexual behaviour is considered vaguely acceptable, though not as a lifestyle option. I've read that it's treated as one of those "experimenting phases" in youth. So there might be a different setup in Japanese people versus US people.
My personal experience with sexuality reflects the "women are turned on by everything" setup, with some caveats- I'm generally more turned on by couples if there's a woman involved, because I'm mentally putting myself in there.
Of course, this doesn't reflect on my actual sexuality; I'm not generally interested in women, but I think I respond more to the idea of the situation. If that makes sense.
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