The science of sex: Women show a bisexual pattern of sexual arousal
December 28, 2010 at 10:30 am by Shawn Alff

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2010/12/28/the-science-of-sex-women-show-a-bisexual-pattern-of-sexual-arousal/

Regardless of sexual orientation, women are sexually aroused by both homosexual and heterosexual erotica, while men are almost exclusively sexually excited by category-specific stimuli. This difference was proved by a 2003 study out of Northwestern University titled, "A Sex Difference in the Specificity of Sexual Arousal."

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To reduce the possibility that this difference resulted from differences in measuring sexual arousal in male and female genitals, the researchers also ran tests on postoperative transsexuals: persons who were born with a "male" brain but who have medically constructed "female" genitals. For this group, their psychological and genital arousal matched those of men even though their genital arousal was measured in the same way as the women's was.

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Quotepersons who were born with a "male" brain but who have medically constructed "female" genitals.

Why would any one with a male brain get medically constructed female genitals?

Yeah I caught that too...something seems a little off about this article.  I think we all know what turns us on and what we like, and its all different!

What's off about it is that it's a journalist picking up an alleged science story and spinning a hook.

ie, all women are actually lesbians, but don't worry folks, men are men.

The so called science is off too.

The female arousal is, in part, measured by the degree of lubrication in the vagina, but most potop MtF's do not self lubricate. Only a very few of us get so lucky, so that would considerably skew the results...  I also think it might matter how long postop the subjects were, what surgical technique was used, and indeed possibly even at what age they originally transitioned.

Besides from my own experience my sexual arousal varies at different times depending on all sorts of things, I am also basically bi, and indeed after so long postop I no longer find implied masculinity to be a threat so that also would make a difference.

All in all I think the idea was a clever one, but in practice postop MtF's as a group would have too many hidden variables that the researchers simply would not be aware of to be statistically valid as a control group.

Quote from: spacial on December 30, 2010, 04:22:55 AM
ie, all women are actually lesbians, but don't worry folks, men are men.

You're right.

It just seems to me to reinforce binary gender stereotypes and perpetuate a sense of male dominance.

Quote from: rejennyrated on December 30, 2010, 04:35:29 AM
All in all I think the idea was a clever one, but in practice postop MtF's as a group would have too many hidden variables that the researchers simply would not be aware of to be statistically valid as a control group.

Yes. For example, did the TS women have the same surgeon? Did they all have the same method of SRS? What was their sexual orientation? Were the results the same for pre-operative TS women? What hormones were they on? What dose? What age groups were monitored? How long had they lived as male prior to SRS and transition? Were they conservative or liberal? Were they straight, bi, asexual or homosexual prior to transition? Had their orientation changed over transition? Was it a 'blind' study or did the test subjects know what it was about?

This study is ffing transphobic. They're using trans women to 'confirm' a hypothesis that they want to be correct - that women show a certain pattern of arousal and that post-op trans women, being Really Men™ don't show this pattern.

Quote from: rejennyrated on December 30, 2010, 04:35:29 AM
The so called science is off too.

The female arousal is, in part, measured by the degree of lubrication in the vagina, but most potop MtF's do not self lubricate. Only a very few of us get so lucky, so that would considerably skew the results...  I also think it might matter how long postop the subjects were, what surgical technique was used, and indeed possibly even at what age they originally transitioned.

Im too lazy to read the article, because it sounds like many others I've studied. This is old science. However the part you mentioned about self-lubrication - that is not used as an indication as female arousal in good studies now. Good studies use a machine that measures the engorgement of the vaginal tissue. however, that's likely going to be skewed for mtf's as well, as what you have isn't 'natural' in the sense that it was constructed.

I went back to the original journal article in Psychological Science. The article was submitted in 2002. It does not refer to male brains and female genitals. The arousal in women and transexuals was not measured by lubrication, but attempted, if I understand the language, to measure the volume of blood under the skin. The sample size was not large (only 11 transexuals). One in three men were eliminated because they were not sufficiently aroused.

They showed films of homosexual sex (male-male and female-female) to measure the difference between arousal by sex with men or women, without taking into account that in our society, male-male sex is more taboo than female-female sex. They talk about this as being able to detect gay men who might try to deny their attraction. Even in the original, I didn't find it convincingly supported its conclusions.

The whole thing leads me to wonder what is the mechanism leading to arousal. We know from anecdotal evidence in our forums that estrogen decreases the incidence of spontaneous erections. I feel safe in assuming the transexuals tested were taking estrogen. Yet hormones did not affect their arousal pattern in the study. So, I think the article is wrong in drawing any conclusions about physiological differences in the sexual response of men and women. They may be measuring cultural differences in upbringing. Resist though we may, we are creatures of our time and social environment.

S

Quote from: Simone Louise on January 05, 2011, 08:33:58 PM
They showed films of homosexual sex (male-male and female-female) to measure the difference between arousal by sex with men or women, without taking into account that in our society, male-male sex is more taboo than female-female sex.

Yeah, this was the first thing I thought of when I looked at the article. Zero controls for social conditioning, as if that didn't exist, and it only went downhill from there. Calling this science is like calling Rick James on coke mannerly and polite.