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3. Women's sexual turn-ons are
more complicated than men's.
What turns women on? Not even
women always seem to know.
Northwestern University
researcher Meredith Chivers and
colleagues showed erotic films to
gay and straight men and women.
They asked them about their
level of sexual arousal, and also
measured their actual level of
arousal through devices attached
to their genitals.
For men, the results were
predictable: Straight men said
they were more turned on by
depictions of male-female sex
and female-female sex, and the
measuring devices backed up
their claims. Gay men said they
were turned on by male-male
sex, and again the devices backed
them up. For women, the results
were more surprising. Straight
women, for example, said they
were more turned on by malefemale sex. But genitally they
showed about the same reaction
to male-female, male-male, and
female-female sex.
"Men are very rigid and specific
about who they become aroused
by, who they want to have sex
JF mag!
with, who they fall in love with,"
says J. Michael Bailey. He is a
Northwestern University sex
researcher and co-author with
Chivers on the study.
By contrast, women may be more
open to same-sex relationships
thanks to their less-directed sex
drives, Bailey says. "Women
probably have the capacity to
become sexually interested in
and fall in love with their own
sex more than men do," Bailey
says. "They won't necessarily do
it, but they have the capacity."
Bailey's idea is backed up by
studies showing that
homosexuality is a more fluid
state among women than men. In
another broad review of studies,
Baumeister found many more
lesbians reported recent sex with
men, when compared to gay
men's reports of sex with women.
Women were also more likely
than men to call themselves
bisexual, and to report
their sexual orientation as a
matter of choice.