It has been known since the early 1960s
that when heterosexual men view a film of women having sex, they will
become aroused. If those same men see a film of men having sex, no
arousal occurs. With homosexual men, the exact opposite occurs. This is
not news.
Since women had not been used in this type of experiment, Bailey decided to determine how they would react.
Straight and gay women were used in the investigation. As
was true with the studies conducted on men, the women viewed three
types of films depicting couples: female/female; male/male; and
male/female. Since it was difficult to know upon which partner the
viewer was focused, the male/female films provided no useful
information.
The surprising finding was that both
heterosexual and lesbian women tend to be aroused by male and female
erotica. This means, according to the researchers, that unlike men,
women have a bisexual arousal pattern. Professor Bailey states, “These
findings likely represent a fundamental difference between men’s and
women’s brains and have important implications for understanding how
sexual orientation development differs between men and women.”
The Northwestern research team further
extended the study by working with postoperative transsexuals who began
life as men but had surgery to construct artificial vaginas. The
arousal pattern in these individuals matched those of males in that
they were excited by only one sex: individuals who liked men were
aroused by male stimuli, and those who liked women were aroused by
female erotica. Bailey states, “This shows that the sex difference that
we found is real and almost certainly due to a sex difference in the
brain.”
Since most women seem capable of sexual
arousal to both sexes, why do they choose one or the other? To this
vexing question, Bailey can say only, “Probably for reasons other than
sexual arousal.” The eternal mystery continues. . .
