The Guide to Getting It On (157 page)

“People come in different sexual orientations. It’s part of human diversity—like variations in skin color, hair texture, mental abilities, and handedness.

“Scientists are interested in figuring the causes of sexual orientation, just as they are interested in figuring out the causes of variations in handedness, personality, and intelligence. When scientists study the causes of human traits, it’s not necessarily because the traits are good or bad; rather, it’s because it’s interesting to understand the causes of human behavior. We’re still not sure of the causes of sexual orientation. However, in recent years the pendulum has swung more in favor of biological theories.

“Recent research suggests that the nature of sexual orientation may be quite different for men and women. (I’ve conducted some of this research.) Women’s sexual orientation seems to be more fluid and flexible than men’s, whereas men’s sexual orientation seems to be more fixed, ‘black-and-white,’ and perhaps biologically wired in. For example, recent studies of people’s physiological arousal to sexy male and sexy female stimuli show that heterosexual men are turned on by sexy women but not by men, and gay men are turned on by sexy men but not by women (as you would probably expect). However, women—both heterosexual and lesbian—get turned on by both sexy men and women (which is perhaps not so expected).

“Western society has become more open about variations in sexual orientation and more tolerant of non-heterosexual orientations and relationships. So it will be really interesting to see how the expression of various sexual orientations develops in coming years.”

Here’s what Michael Bailey from Northwestern has to say:

“Increasingly, people are understanding that men and women do sexual orientation differently. Men are straightforward. A man’s sexual orientation results from what causes him the greatest sexual arousal, what kind of person (or animal or thing) gives him the most intense sexual excitement and the most dependable erections.

“Women are different. Increasingly, it appears that women’s sexual orientation is not closely linked to their sexual arousal patterns the way it is in men. I even question whether women have something called a sexual orientation, although they clearly have sexual preferences. Women’s sexuality seems more fluid than men’s, in that it can vacillate between different types of people, and women are known to fall in love with each other and then to revert to a heterosexual identity and life.”

What Do They Mean By “Women’s Orientation is More Fluid?”

When sex researchers ask women to put tampon-like probes in their vaginas that measure their blood flow, they find that just about any kind of sexual stimulus results in an increase of blood flowing around their vagina. A picture of two hippos humping would probably do the trick. But before you take a girl to the zoo hoping she’ll want to have sex with you, what flows between a woman’s legs and what she’s experiencing in her mind can be very different. As the researchers say:
there can be a huge disconnect between vagina and cranium
.

There is also the assumption floating around that a lot of women are turned on by other women. But if you ask them what they actually feel, most women who are not lesbians will say they would rather have sex with men, unless the stars are lined up right and their chemistry with another woman is exceptionally hot. In fact, if you look at who women have sex with, you will find that a large majority of the time it is with men.

So just because researchers are saying that female sexuality is fluid doesn’t mean that waves of women are going down on each other. Perhaps a better way to put it is to say that when it comes to sex, the theater of the female mind has more potential for variety than the male mind. How much of this translates into actual behavior is another story.

Beware How the Research Is Interpreted

Just because highly sensitive probes in women’s vaginas can detect an increase in blood flow doesn’t mean a woman is dripping wet with sexual lubrication. In fact, we know very little about the triggers of female lubrication. This is something people don’t take into account when they hear about studies that show “women are turned on by films of bonobos fucking” or “women show sexual arousal to videos of rape.” There may an increase in blood flow in the tissues around the vagina, but we still have no clue if this is related to sexual lubrication. So if you are reading studies about women’s sexual arousal, pay close attention to what the women actually report in addition to what the sensors in their vaginas find.

Mostly Straight” vs “Totally Straight”

If women’s orientations are more fluid than men’s, it might explain the results of our own totally unscientific sex survey. Over the past years, we have received approximately 10,000 surveys from visitors to our website. One of the first questions has been, “Please state your orientation as
totally straight, mostly straight, depends on the day, mostly gay or totally gay.
” Here are the approximate results:

Males
— “totally straight” = 80% “mostly straight” = 15%

Females
— “totally straight” = 45% “mostly straight” = 45%

With great effort, we’ve tried to design a nonthreatening question about same-sex interest. We have tried to make the question as safe to answer as possible, since even a hint of same-sex interest can make male survey takers come unglued:

“If our society did not care or notice, and if your girlfriend and best friends thought it was perfectly normal and OK, do you think you might ever consider experimenting sexually with another guy to see what it was like?” [For the women’s version of this question, change “girlfriend” to “boyfriend” and “guy” to “woman”.]

The vast majority of the women replied, “Sure!” or “I’ve already thought about it and am wondering how to make it happen,” or “It’s nothing I would seek out, but if it happened, I might go with it.”

It was a very different story for the male survey takers. Many of them flamed in all caps, “NO FUCKING WAY” or “I’M NOT GAY!” Around 30% did say “Maybe” or “You never know.” Most said, “It’s nothing that interests me.”

One thing men could be wrestling with is memories of school taunts about being “queer!” or “a fag.” Even the straightest of straight boys in our culture has to face such taunts if he is caught not towing a manly line. (While girls have their own special ways of being cruel and mean to each other, taunts about sexual orientation are not usually at the top of their nastiness agenda.) On the other hand, guys who are openly gay faced the same cultural ridicule, and it didn’t stop them from wanting the one-eyed winky. So perhaps culture doesn’t hold a candle to biology when it comes to sexual orientation.

One possibility is that most males come out of the womb with an orientation that says “Seriously Straight” or “Seriously Gay” with no wiggle room. But what about boys who come out of the womb sitting on the sexual fence? Perhaps culture and their family environment can have a significant influence on their sexual choices.

Note:
We haven’t received enough sex surveys from men who describe themselves as being “mostly gay” to say if there is a significant group of “mostly gay” men who occasionally find women to be sexually arousing. There could be, but there’s no way to speculate based on our survey results.

Wet Panties Have Their Advantages

If a woman becomes aroused at the sight, smell, or touch of another woman, she doesn’t have to worry about being found out. If she’s undressing with another woman and finds the situation to be arousing, she can smile inwardly and enjoy her feelings without having to camouflage an emerging erection. She doesn’t need to think of her feelings as sexual or as homosexual.

But if a guy gets an erection in the locker room, there’s going to be nastiness to deal with. If he even gets caught looking in the wrong direction, there can be repercussions. However, when he is alone, his penis will usually remind him when something is sexually arousing and will provide tactile reinforcement.

The penis is one of nature’s more obvious feedback devices. Having one could possibly make sexual thinking more black and white for males than for females. However, lesbians tend to be as black and white about sexual orientation as men, and lesbians don’t have a penis to guide them.

Do Social Factors Influence Women More Than Men?

Psychologist Roy Baumeister believes women are more sexually flexible than men, and not just in terms of intercourse positions. He says the reason is because women’s sexuality is more influenced by social factors such as religion, education and parental pressures. Women with college educations are more likely to masturbate than women without, while a guy who is a high-school drop out is just as likely to masturbate as one with a Ph.D.

Women may be more flexible, but they often see themselves as guardians of the family and champions of the status quo. If a woman in a woman’s church group is romantically kissing another woman during their annual anti-pornography potluck, she’ll have hell to pay. And good luck if a lesbian takes a straight man to a lesbian-sponsored consciousness-raising seminar and looks at him longingly.

Women are also the first to call other women “sluts” or “whores.” Perhaps women are more flexible about some things and more rigid about others. Or maybe generalizations about the sexes fall apart once you start looking between the lines.

Women’s Crotches vs. Men’s Crotches When Watching Porn

Since men watch more porn than women and women read more romance novels than men, you’d think that male genital arousal would be more visually driven and women’s less so. However, women’s genitals are just as responsive to porn as men’s, but in a different way. Also, the blood around women’s vaginas flows more to hardcore porn than to erotic stories or sex fantasies.

Straight men often get more of a penis response when porn shows female-female sex. For gay men, it’s male-male sex. So if you show men either male-male or female-female sex, the chances are good you can determine whether they are straight or gay based on which kind of sex their penis reacts the most to. (All bets are off if you show them heterosexual porn. The penises of gay and straight males usually have the same response to male-female porn, but probably for different reasons.)

With women, even if they prefer having sex with men, there is an increase in the blood flow to their vaginas no matter what kind of porn they watch: male-male, female-female or male-female porn. It’s difficult to tell what this means, because it is not consistent with what the women are consciously feeling.

Jerking Off Together at 12 vs. Jerking Off Together at 21

If a therapist hears about two 12-year-old boys giving each other hand jobs or oral sex, it shouldn’t raise flags of concern if the kids are well-adjusted and happy. Whatever orientation they are, they are. You can’t talk a child out of one orientation and into another.

If the therapist is trying to ease the minds of super-straight parents who are paying $160 an hour for the assessment, he or she might say, “Not to worry. It was
parallel sex-play;
your 12-year-old boys were really thinking about girls when they were blowing each other.”

If the same boys were doing the same thing at age 21, people will automatically say, “Gay!” But if it were two girls at age 21 instead of boys, we would probably say, “Could just be a passing thing” or “Lesbians until graduation.”

It is possible that young women take longer to arrive at a fixed orientation than young males. Either way, when it comes to same-sex experimentation, we tend to be more judgemental about boys than girls.

“Mostly Straight” vs “Bisexual”

Not many people would be surprised to hear that a woman who identifies as totally straight might find another woman’s body to be sexually attractive. Nor would many people be surprised if a woman who identifies as being mostly straight would welcome the chance to have sex with a woman who she finds attractive.

It’s different for men. Very different.

There is a small number of men, maybe 1% or less of all men, who are truly bisexual. Research shows they are turned on by both men and women.Men who are truly bisexual know to keep it to themselves because few people are accepting of males who have sex with both men and women.

There is another 15% or so of men who describe themselves as being “mostly straight” as opposed to bisexual or totally straight (at least on our surveys). While you might assume there is a continuum between a man who is “mostly straight” vs one who is bisexual, this doesn’t appear to be the case.

Men who describe themselves as being “mostly straight” really are mostly straight. While they might find themselves being attracted to other men on occasion, they usually prefer being with women. Another man has to be seriously attractive or compelling in order for a guy who is “mostly straight” to “go gay for him.” Not so for men who are genuinely bisexual.

Men who are bisexual are just as attracted to other men as they are to other women. They always have been and probably always will be. It’s also possible that they have a unique sexual orientation, such as being turned on by men having sex with men at the same time that a woman is involved. An example would be bisexual porn where there is a threesome with two men and a woman. But both guys are sexually involved with each other while also being sexually involved with the woman. This is very different than most threesomes with two men and a women, since both men are into the woman and are working overtime to avoid sexual contact with each other.