Straight but Not Narrow; Within-Gender Variation in the Gender-Specificity of Women's Sexual Response.

Meredith L Chivers,Amanda D Timmers,Katrina N Bouchard,Heather Hoffmann

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0142575

Abstract

Gender differences in the specificity of sexual response have been a primary focus in sexual psychophysiology research, however, within-gender variability suggests sexual orientation moderates category-specific responding among women; only heterosexual women show gender-nonspecific genital responses to sexual stimuli depicting men and women. But heterosexually-identified or “straight” women are heterogeneous in their sexual attractions and include women who are exclusively androphilic (sexually attracted to men) and women who are predominantly androphilic with concurrent gynephilia (sexually attracted to women). It is therefore unclear if gender-nonspecific responding is found in both exclusively and predominantly androphilic women. The current studies investigated within-gender variability in the gender-specificity of women’s sexual response. Two samples of women reporting concurrent andro/gynephilia viewed (Study 1, n = 29) or listened (Study 2, n = 30) to erotic stimuli varying by gender of sexual partner depicted while their genital and subjective sexual responses were assessed. Data were combined with larger datasets of predominantly gyne- and androphilic women (total N = 78 for both studies). In both studies, women reporting any degree of gynephilia, including those who self-identified as heterosexual, showed significantly greater genital response to female stimuli, similar to predominantly gynephilic women; gender-nonspecific genital response was observed for exclusively androphilic women only. Subjective sexual arousal patterns were more variable with respect to sexual attractions, likely reflecting stimulus intensity effects. Heterosexually-identified women are therefore not a homogenous group with respect to sexual responses to gender cues. Implications for within-gender variation in women’s sexual orientation and sexual responses are discussed.

Highlights

Over a decade ago, research reporting on gendered specificity of sexual arousal proposed that women’s and men’s sexual response patterns were fundamentally different [1]
Approximately half showed greatest genital response to male sexual stimuli. These findings suggest potentially meaningful differences in the sexual response patterns of exclusively and predominantly androphilic women
Effect sizes increased with degree of gynephilia (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Research reporting on gendered specificity of sexual arousal proposed that women’s and men’s sexual response patterns were fundamentally different [1]. Similar to Study 1, we combined these data with those from a previous sample of exclusively and predominantly androphilic women [5], and created groups of women as in Study 1 to examine patterns of sexual response to less intense, nonvisual stimuli (narratives describing sexual activities with women and men) as a function of sexual attractions For both audiovisual and narrative sexual stimuli, we predicted that sexual responses would vary with degrees of andro- and gynephilia such that exclusively androphilic women would demonstrate gender-specific sexual responses, both genital and subjective, and predominantly androphilic women would show gender-nonspecific sexual responses, as would andro/gynephilic women. Following literature showing gender-specific patterns of sexual response among gynephilic women, we expected the same to emerge from the current data sets

Materials and Methods

Results

Discussion