Do "straight" women exist?

[Skeptic Ginger]

This would assume reliable self-awareness.

I saw this same theme in the commentary in the meta-analysis of the photoplethysmography, that somehow women (as opposed to men) might not be aware of their own sexual response.

I'm tempted to say, what a sexist bunch of tripe.

I'll try to keep an open mind but it's so ludicrous as to be difficult to comprehend. Are women supposedly sexually aroused and don't know it? Surely a post-pubescent female can reliably say they are or are not sexually attracted to someone.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Really, you don't say? Hrm... I seem to recall someone else saying that... oh yeah, it was ME. You're just repeating what I said. Since you appear to have missed it the last few times, I'll say it again: The statements made in the article are not supported by the study it references. It's a matter of bad reporting.

You can take the article writers to task for that, no problem. But you were attacking the study itself for something it did not, in fact, say; only for what a lazy and sensationalist article writer claimed it said. Who else does that? Hrm...

I addressed the article, then the abstract and then the study. I take it you didn't read what I posted and just went on your merry way with your confirmation bias that all I've been posting about here was the article.

 

[luchog]

I addressed the article, then the abstract and then the study. I take it you didn't read what I posted and just went on your merry way with your confirmation bias that all I've been posting about here was the article.

Except I explicitly said early on that the article was crap. And no, you are being disingenuous again, since you specifically said "The same way the people who designed the study want girl on girl sex to be the norm." And they you backpeddled and claimed that you were just being flippant and didn't mean what you actually said.

You just keep digging yourself deeper.

And the really twisted part is that we essentially agree with regards to the stupidity of the reporting and the flaws in the study. In fact, my very first post in the thread was pointing out that the study was too flawed to draw conclusions from it. But apparently since I do not criticize it quite rabidly or faecetiously enough for you, I'm somehow just one of the evil menz trying to promote girl-on-girl sex with junk science.

 

[The Atheist]

... except completely heterosexual.

No, I'm sure there are, which is why I pointed out the asexual and Cliff Richard. You have a full range of asexual to pansexual. within that, there must be one dead straight guy.

It might be you; it's sure as hell not me.

But apparently since I do not criticize it quite rabidly or faecetiously enough for you, I'm somehow just one of the evil menz trying to promote girl-on-girl sex with junk science.

Oh crap! I thought it was trying to promote men on men action by not wanting to be left out.

Boy, did I screw up.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I knew a lady with a wicked French curve once upon a time.

 

[Meadmaker]

No, the issue is I said the study was bunk (regardless of any homosexual implications) and then documented how their methodology did not support the conclusion the researchers claimed.

Fair enough.

In the post I was commenting on, you had quoted the magazine article when talking about the unsupported conclusions of the paper. That's where my confusion came from.


One of the core problems with the paper is calling any sort of measurable response in the genitals "sexual arousal". I think you said roughly the same thing in an earlier post talking about the fallacy of assuming that people who do X are sexually aroused, because sexually aroused people do X.

I still haven't read the paper, and I probably won't bother, but it doesn't really seem to be exactly groundbreaking research. The raw data about what creates physiological responses in people is at least somewhat interesting, although probably not new, but drawing any conclusions from that is probably risky.

 

[Loss Leader]

Considering the fact that males and females are very nearly identical, it doesn't seem difficult to imagine that one could be physically aroused by certain traits that tend to be common between both sexes - the feel of skin or hair or such.

So, if you want to be as reductionist as possible, every person is capable of being aroused by something about his/her own sex.

This doesn't seem to be a particularly useful statement, though.

 

[William Parcher]

Considering the fact that males and females are very nearly identical, it doesn't seem difficult to imagine that one could be physically aroused by certain traits that tend to be common between both sexes - the feel of skin or hair or such.

So, if you want to be as reductionist as possible, every person is capable of being aroused by something about his/her own sex.

This doesn't seem to be a particularly useful statement, though.

But I'm not aroused by any part of a man's body or the feel of his hair or his skin. The reductionist idea you give is false for me. I'm thinking it may be false for others too, but I can't speak for them.

 

[arthwollipot]

I think those men who say that they've never been attracted to a man just haven't met the right man yet.

 

[DarthFishy]

I think those men who say that they've never been attracted to a man just haven't met the right man yet.

I.e. Chris Hemsworth shirtless...

 

[dellarte]

There's a simple test to know if you're bi/gay or not. Try it. If you like it...

...but if you don't and the person you simply tested with turns out to be a bunny boiler? Drugs, however, are incapable of boiling bunnies.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

...but if you don't and the person you simply tested with turns out to be a bunny boiler? Drugs, however, are incapable of boiling bunnies.

Having been married to an incipient serial killer I can only agree.

 

[Dinwar]

This would assume reliable self-awareness.

People are known to report what they think society wants to hear when it comes to sex. Women DRASTICALLY under-report pretty much anything to do with sex, in large part because women tend to think that society will look down on them if they enjoy sex ("slut" is a female pejorative).

Measuring physiological responses is a great way to get around that, provided one can find reliable physiological responses. We've only really just begun to explore sex from a scientific (read, biological, physiological, medical) perspective, so questioning the individual physiological responses measured isn't inherently wrong. The question is, can you come up with better?

But I'm not aroused by any part of a man's body or the feel of his hair or his skin.

Any part of someone you know is a man, I'd say. It'd be tricky to find a way to test whether you could tell or not rigorously.

 

[The Shrike]

Any part of someone you know is a man, I'd say. It'd be tricky to find a way to test whether you could tell or not rigorously.

I thought that's what glory holes were for. Oh wait . . .

 

[Meadmaker]

People are known to report what they think society wants to hear when it comes to sex. Women DRASTICALLY under-report pretty much anything to do with sex, in large part because women tend to think that society will look down on them if they enjoy sex ("slut" is a female pejorative).

Do you think that's true today? I don't think it's true today. Twenty years ago, maybe. 50 years ago, definitely. Today? If anything, I think they've caught up to men in lying about the frequency of sexual encounters.

ETA: And, the first sentence is still true, for sure, but what society wants has changed, it seems to me.

 

[Dinwar]

Do you think that's true today? I don't think it's true today.

I don't have links handy, but from what I've seen about PornHub's stats it's certainly true as of a few years ago. And by "a few" I mean five on the outside. Slut shaming is still a thing. There's a blog by a psychologyst, Slate Star Codex, that goes into this in a few posts from 2013/14, so it's as recent as that (the language gets a bit NSFW, and the topics definitely are).

Just look at 50 Shades. It's porn for women. It could never sell on the quality of the writing (there is at least one blog that goes paragraph-by-paragraph through the series showing the errors, and they are legion). And it pretty much took everyone by surprise. Yet the number of sales does not match the numbers in surveys asking women about sexual topics.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Gender itself is a social construct,no wonder that "heterosexuality", "homosexuality", "bisexuality" etc are as well.

I was raised semi-orthodox Hippy, including this bit of received wisdom.

So of course I bought RocketBoy1.0 a baby doll along with other toys. Nope, sorry, nothing. Okay, but he doesnt like any toy with a face. He had a complete meltdown one evening when his toddler brain wanted to climb into a toy car and couldn't and he was totally train crazy. So maybe RocketBoy2.0 will like the baby doll. Nope, sorry, nothing. But he liked his stuffed dinosaur and fell asleep in a pile of Megablocks (like LEGO, but huge) more than once.

Then RocketGirl came along and took possession of the baby doll and never played with any of the cars or trucks. And she refused to wear hand me downs from her brothers that were excessively boyish.


We don't watch tv and had minimal movies and other gender-normative messaging in the house when the kids were small. Mrs. J doesn't wear makeup or girly clothes (jeans and tees gal) so RocketGirl isn't getting gender messages of what she is supposed to like and dislike - those preferences were all set to factory defaults, whatever they are.

So I'm gonna throw the BS flag on the "social construct" thing. It made sense, I guess, within the preconceived notion set of Marxist-influenced Feminism, but fails on exposure to reality. My boys liked "boy" stuff and not "girl" stuff, and my girl is totally a "girl" and has been from the time she could make her own choices.

 

[Arcade22]

I think those men who say that they've never been attracted to a man just haven't met the right man yet.

For those males who are willing to try and widen their horizons one shouldn't just try staring blindly at other "men". There's no shortage of beautiful and handsome male youths out there. Most importantly they aren't as objectionable for those who don't enjoy manliness and masculine features.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I was raised semi-orthodox Hippy, including this bit of received wisdom.

So of course I bought RocketBoy1.0 a baby doll along with other toys. Nope, sorry, nothing. Okay, but he doesnt like any toy with a face. He had a complete meltdown one evening when his toddler brain wanted to climb into a toy car and couldn't and he was totally train crazy. So maybe RocketBoy2.0 will like the baby doll. Nope, sorry, nothing. But he liked his stuffed dinosaur and fell asleep in a pile of Megablocks (like LEGO, but huge) more than once.

Then RocketGirl came along and took possession of the baby doll and never played with any of the cars or trucks. And she refused to wear hand me downs from her brothers that were excessively boyish.


We don't watch tv and had minimal movies and other gender-normative messaging in the house when the kids were small. Mrs. J doesn't wear makeup or girly clothes (jeans and tees gal) so RocketGirl isn't getting gender messages of what she is supposed to like and dislike - those preferences were all set to factory defaults, whatever they are.

So I'm gonna throw the BS flag on the "social construct" thing. It made sense, I guess, within the preconceived notion set of Marxist-influenced Feminism, but fails on exposure to reality. My boys liked "boy" stuff and not "girl" stuff, and my girl is totally a "girl" and has been from the time she could make her own choices.

Good friend of mine had a baby girl about the same time my son was born. We both pride ourselves in being modern single moms. My son was into anything Batman and her daughter was into Barbie.

Kids are socialized fairly young, at four my son decided a man wearing scrubs in the hospital was a doctor, not a nurse, because it was a man. But both my friend and I agree, our kid's genders played a major part in their early years.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Love the stereotypes in this thread.

If a woman says she's not sexually interested in other women, and a dozen studies fail to find the physiological measurements of vaginal blood flow correlate with self reports of arousal, but said measurements work on a penis, the woman's report rather than the failed physiological measurement is assumed.

But the results of non-correlation are found in multiple studies with different subjects.

If it was the reporting of not being aroused that was the problem, one should find results all over the map. But that's not what is found. Rather one finds consistent non-correlation from study to study, population to population.

I'm sorry folks, but it's not all this imagined inability of women to know when they are aroused, it's not a cultural thing or a woman thing. The measurements don't correlate with arousal. That's what the evidence supports. It doesn't support all this rationalizing that we aren't sexual beings or that we have a problem talking about it or recognizing what turns us on.

Do you think all those 50 Shades fans are not in touch with what arouses them?