Why Straight Women Dig Women

Today's New York Times Thursday Styles section has a very intriguing piece on a recent study conducted by a Dr. Meredith Chivers at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto.

In the study, Dr. Chivers "showed people video clips of naked men and women in various sexual and nonsexual situations and measured their genital arousal."

Heterosexual women, Dr. Chivers and her colleagues found, were no more excited by athletic naked men doing yoga or tossing stones into the ocean than they were by the control footage: long pans of the snowcapped Himalayas. When straight women viewed a video of a naked woman doing calisthenics, on the other hand, their blood flow increased significantly.

So, women find the female body more attractive. Interesting. Yet slightly obvious. But Dr. Chivers' point is that there is "a growing body of scientific evidence that places female sexuality along a continuum between heterosexuality and homosexuality, rather than as an either-or phenomenon."

But, she's also quick to point out that this does not make heterosexual women, well, homosexual.

"To conclude that women are bisexual on the basis of their sexual responding overlooks the complexity and multidimensionality of female sexuality," she wrote in her paper. She did allow that the apparent flexibility of women "may be related to greater potential for bisexuality in women than in men."

Read the rest of the article here.

What do you think? As a woman, are you more attracted to the female form or the male form? Men, do you ever find yourselves attracted to the male form? It's a happy place here - share your thoughts below!

Comments

[greencowgirl]

A beautiful mind, heart and spirit are more important and more stimulating in either gender, but - I'll take a hard body Jake Gyllenhaal or Robert Buckley to a little soft Angelina Joli or Linzy Lohan anytime! This is rediculous. I loved my little 12 year old friends in 5th grade, but not that way!

[kellygrrrl]

O M Jeebus! time for the Fundy Evangeli Activists to get busy on this one

[mergina]

Haaaaaaa. They are going to condemn it like everything else that is sexual, while they are swinging from the rafters popping out one more evangeli activist after another......POP! Whoops there goes another evangelie!

[djwfutbol]

It always astounds me to see a scientific study to demonstrate what is self-evident. Anyone who has spent any time at all with 12 to 16 year old girls knows that bi-sexuality is both natural and effortless in women.

The interesting thing about it, as someone with a background in zoology, is that the sight of it seems to increase the desire for intercourse of the observers. Perhaps it is a communal breeding phenomena and not really about the individual participants at all. They may be playing a role in increasing the sexual activity of the group by, in effect, getting everyone around them excited.

[True]

I don't find men attractive physically, but sometimes i can be attracted to men with an abundance of charisma and an interesting perspective on the world. I would not call my self bi, as i have never actually been interested in following through with it.

[sigismundokafka]

I understand what you mean, True, and you have earned a lot of respect from me for saying so without fearing the backlash of those who might deem themselves "more" hetero than you.
And of course you didn't "follow through." Intellectual attraction does not equal sexual attraction.
Don't bother asking your shrink - you are still as straight as you think you are, just bolder and braver in your convictions than some of your colleagues.

[johnnygoodwud]

i'm a hot blooded straight male, and i used to kid a very attractive woman i dated, that she might be 'bi'. hmmm, now this all makes sense,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,i think

[mergina]

All women are bi, heck all humans are bi, they just need it stimulated under the right circumstances to surface.

[sigismundokafka]

You may have something there!
I see sexuality as a spectrum, with very few solid states.

[cinemaven]

I don't think women have been as conditioned as men to act repulsed at the sight of naked women and so we can feel aroused by it without running through a lot of feelings of shame/uncertainty/fear. When I see a picture of a beautiful naked woman, I appreciate her beauty and fully understand that enjoying the sight doesn't make me anything other than what I am... a very heterosexual woman with a crush on Jodie Foster.

Both my sons and husband have some very positive and wonderful homosexual males in their lives but they would never admit that another guy is attractive. To males, it seems to be conditioned from a very early age that saying some other guy is gorgeous will result in ridicule from your friends. If I point out a stunning woman to my friends or my husband, no one thinks anything of it so there is a great difference in public perception. Males have been conditioning themselves to not show any physical arousal while looking at another male (or never to be caught checking out another naked male) since their first day in the locker room in school.

[sigismundokafka]

You are correct.
It is generally "conditioned" with fists, cruel insults and humiliation, and sometimes horrible acts of near-rape perpetrated by "hetero" males in high school.
Reminds me of how I was referred to as a "fa**ot" and beaten by peers for not wanting to take communal showers after gym class. Yes, the logic is plain to see.....ah.....yeah.

[Hmmm624]

Since my childhood I've always been attracted to both genders, even though I learned to "turn that off" as a result of my social/religious programming. Since I love boys too, it wasn't a big issue until I reached my late teens. Even in my early twenties I felt confused because I thought "why am I sexually attracted to such and such girl?"

I believe that women who are balanced (yin, yang energies and right / left brains) are more easily open, it's a matter of connecting with another human being. Once you feel that connection (if you accept your feelings) the gender is no longer a qualifier to move things forward, because it is not the gender that attracts you. I know this might be hard for some to digest, Only a bisexual person could understand this, and a person with an open mind and heart.

[AtomiClash]

Women are of course more aesthetically pleasing than men. No doubt. When it comes down to it, though, most people experience the "continuum" effect when it comes to sexuality (whether they admit it or not). We are moving to a more open collective sexuality, where appreciation, attraction, and action are more acceptable in various permutations.
I know I'm attracted to women (I'm a woman) and my best friend (also female) has been dating a woman for five years but is still sexually attracted to men. Go figure! There's still so much to understand, but these findings should be no surprise to any woman... and few men.

[miriald]

"Women are of course more aesthetically pleasing than men. No doubt."

I most strenuously object! I find fit, beautiful men *far* more aesthetically pleasing than women. I believe, as cinemaven pointed out, that a lot of this is conditioning. Women's bodies (usually in the form of scantily-clad beauties) are on *constant* display in our society, whereas finding ads, mainstream magazines, or other media showing beautiful male bodies with skimpy clothing is extremely rare. (A real shame, let me tell you.)

Also, as cinemaven points out, males in our society are at risk of being ostracized by peers and family for expressing that they find another male attractive. These environmental factors have to be taken into account before we can say this is evolutionary in origin.