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发帖数: 1194 | 34 Study suggests most straight women are aroused by other women
Taryn Hillin
11/18/15 7:00amFiled to: SEX & LIFE
27.6K
Shutterstock, FUSION
Whenever my boyfriend asks me what kind of porn I want to watch, I usually
say, "Two girls, one guy." Why? Because women turn me on. To be clear, I am
straight—but I've always found that watching two women in sexual situations
is pretty hot.
Turns out, I am not alone. A new study from the University of Essex that's
making waves has found that straight women are pretty unique when it comes
to what turns them on physiologically, compared to both straight men and gay
women.
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The big bombshell? Straight women are likely to be turned on by both men and
women—while straight men and lesbians are likely to be turned on only by
their stated preferred gender.
For the study, published in Personality and Social Psychology, researchers
from Essex, Cornell University, and Northwestern University recruited nearly
500 straight, bisexual, and lesbian women in the United States to come into
a lab and have their arousal levels measured in response to various sexual
stimuli. The researchers then compared that arousal with each participant's
stated sexual preference.
Specifically, researchers showed the women porn that included a female
masturbating, a male masturbating, two females together, and two males
together.
From there, they measured sexual arousal in two different ways. One group of
women—a mix of straight, lesbian, and bisexual—were asked to use a device
placed near the genitals that sensed a change in vaginal blood flow and
recorded those genital responses every five milliseconds.
The other set of women, not involved in the vaginal-response lab tests, had
their sexual arousal measured through eye-tracking technology that examined
the women’s pupil dilation. Past research has shown that pupil dilation can
accurately measure sexual response to stimuli.
The researchers found that the majority of straight women (72%) were aroused
by both men and women, whereas the majority of lesbians (68%) were mostly
aroused by just women. Previous research suggests that the majority of
straight men, too, are aroused only by their stated preferred gender.
“If you’re a man, whatever you tell me you’re attracted to I bet in the
laboratory your penis will verify that,” Gerulf Rieger, lead author of the
study, told The Times in England, citing previous research into straight men
and arousal. “If a woman has the same conversation with me and tells me
she is straight, even if she believes that, in the laboratory her body will
contradict her.”
This finding, of course, led many media outlets to report the study's
findings as "no woman is totally straight!!!"—but Rieger wants to clarify
that's not what it really means.
"I would like to stress that we did not find or say that there are 'no
straight women,'" he told me over email. "Rather, we stated in the press
release that even though the majority of women identify as straight, they
are, in their physiological sexual responses (i.e., genital arousal or pupil
dilation to images of attractive men and women) either bisexual or gay, but
rarely straight." So yes, you can be straight, but also be aroused by
various stimuli.
Why might this be? In the study, Rieger, who teaches psychology at Essex,
cites one possible—albeit controversial—evolutionary explanation that is
heavily debated in the scientific community. This theory is that, many
millennia ago, forced copulation was standard practice among humans. And
because forced sex is dangerous for a female and can result in injury to her
genitals, "the female response to any sexual stimulus could have evolved in
part to mitigate this risk."
He further hypothesized that "women may have physiological sexual responses
to a variety of sexual stimuli, including stimuli representing both
consensual and forced sexual acts, sexual activities of non-human primates,
and male and female sexual stimuli" to protect themselves when sex is
unwanted.
Regardless of how it happened, we should all take a moment to acknowledge
the possibility that straight women are getting turned on a lot more than
popular culture would have us believe. Let the sexual revolution begin.
Taryn Hillin is Fusion's love and sex writer, with a large focus on the
science of relationships. She also loves dogs, Bourbon barrel-aged beers and
popcorn — not necessarily in that order. |
