An article published on November 5th by the BBC
dovetails nicely with the video Venus Boyz. The University of Essex studied the level of sexual
arousal that 345 women had towards the gender they identified with being
attracted to. While studies have been
done in the past on this, it has never been conducted with women who identify
as lesbian.
Here is where the study gets interesting, researchers
overwhelmingly found that women who were attracted to the same sex had “sexual arousal
patterns … similar to men…” (Therrien).
While not fully understanding why 68% of the gay women react like men,
it was suggested by Dr. Rieger that perhaps these females received more testosterone
while “in the womb” (Therrien). This
theory had been corroborated in studies using animals.
Of the straight women who were tested, the results show only
28% of the women who identified as straight were aroused by only images of men. The remaining straight women were aroused by
both sexes, in varying degrees. So,
while the larger proportion of women identified as being straight they really
travel a sexual spectrum or bridge and we can no longer “ignore the shades of
gray in favor of binarism” (Reeser; 153).
Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction.
West Sussex: Wiley- Blackwell, 2010
Therrien, Alex. Nov.
2105. BBC News, Health. No Woman ‘totally
straight’, study says. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34744903
Web. 11 November, 15
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