Male-female differences in sexual fantasy

A questionnaire about thoughts and ideas during sexual activity was returned by 51 females and 50 males in a random sample of college undergraduates. A high response rate (91%) and the similar sexual experience of male and female respondents make possible a strong conclusion about the college population sampled: Males are thinking more about past experiences and current behavior, while females are thinking more of imaginary experiences. This difference occurs for thoughts during masturbation as well as for thoughts during heterosexual activity. It appears that females prefer a different kind of sexual fantasy than males, rather than being generally less interested in sexual fantasy as claimed by Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, and Gebhart (Sexual behavior in the human female, Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953).     

“阳刚”还是“清秀”更具吸引力?——对男性面孔二态性不同偏好的元分析

生活中,有的喜欢"清秀"的男性面孔,而有的则更偏爱长得"阳刚"的面孔,已有大量的研究致力于解释这一分歧,但是得出的研究结果各不一致。本研究用元分析方法考察对男性面孔二态性的不同偏好,通过检索、搜集了23篇有效文献,56对数据满足了元分析标准(n=8408)。结果发现,漏斗图和BeggMazumdar秩相关检验、Egger’s检验结果显示不存在发表偏差;主效应检验发现对男性面孔二态性无明显偏好;调节效应检验表明,对男性面孔二态性偏好受面孔生成技术、生理周期的调节,但不受被试性别、关系背景和文化的调节。人们对男性面孔二态性的偏好,除了本身生物学特质(生理周期)外,还受到生成技术的影响。     

The erosion of sexual dimorphism: challenges to religion and religious ethics

Late modernity has been witnessing the erosion of the dimorphic sexual paradigm that, in both strong and weak forms, has characterized human history as we know it. Recent discoveries in biology and the social sciences have combined with altered patterns in human sexual behavior to raise critical new questions about the inherited paradigm. Religions of the West whose sacred texts, mythologies, and codes of behavior assume that maleness and femaleness are exclusive and complementary types of sexuality-each of which determines sexual identity, reproductive role, social role, and the sex of one's partner-increasingly must grapple with both theoretical evidence for and experiential evidence of polymorphous human sexuality. Inherited categories of dimorphic sexuality not only are challenged but become less and less intelligible.     

Preferences for sexual dimorphism on attractiveness levels: An eye-tracking study

Previous studies on sexual dimorphism showed feminine preferences in female faces and mixed findings in male faces by choosing which is more attractive in a pair of a masculine face and a feminine face. However, very little is known about how people make fine-grained visual assessments of such images and the attractiveness levels of faces are not received much attention. Recently a large number of androgynous stars appear in the media, which triggers a hot phenomenon of imitating them. Here we examine the influence of androgynous stars on people’s facial preferences for sexual dimorphism in male and female faces on different attractiveness levels using eye-tracking techniques. In male faces we found both male and female participants preferred masculine faces to androgynous faces in high attractiveness, but mixed results in low attractiveness. In female faces we found both male and female participants preferred feminine faces to androgynous faces in high attractiveness, but no preferences in low attractiveness. Results suggest that attractiveness levels of faces might be a factor causing inconsistency in sexual dimorphism preference for male faces and that androgynous faces are not preferred, which reveals that androgynous phenomenon might not be caused by facial attractiveness.     

Gender and sexual orientation differences in sexual response to sexual activities versus gender of actors in sexual films

In this study, the authors investigated the hypothesis that women's sexual orientation and sexual responses in the laboratory correlate less highly than do men's because women respond primarily to the sexual activities performed by actors, whereas men respond primarily to the gender of the actors. The participants were 20 homosexual women, 27 heterosexual women, 17 homosexual men, and 27 heterosexual men. The videotaped stimuli included men and women engaging in same-sex intercourse, solitary masturbation, or nude exercise (no sexual activity); human male-female copulation; and animal (bonobo chimpanzee or Pan paniscus) copulation. Genital and subjective sexual arousal were continuously recorded. The genital responses of both sexes were weakest to nude exercise and strongest to intercourse. As predicted, however, actor gender was more important for men than for women, and the level of sexual activity was more important for women than for men. Consistent with this result, women responded genitally to bonobo copulation, whereas men did not. An unexpected result was that homosexual women responded more to nude female targets exercising and masturbating than to nude male targets, whereas heterosexual women responded about the same to both sexes at each activity level.     

Sex differences in sexual fantasy patterns

A detailed sexual fantasy questionnaire was completed anonymously and returned by post by a sample of 90 Londoners stratified by sex and social class and representing a 30% return rate. Men and women were equally likely to accept and return the questionnaires. Information was also collected concerning sexual behaviour, libido and satisfaction. Factor analysis revealed four main types of fantasy: (1) Exploratory (e.g., group sex, promiscuity, homosexuality); (2) Intimate (e.g., kissing, oral sex, outdoor love); (3) Impersonal (e.g., watching others, fetishism, using objects for stimulation); and (4) Sadomasochistic (e.g., whipping or spanking, being forced). These four types of fantasy were positively correlated and were all more commonly reported by men, although women were almost as high on the Intimate factor. Women were also more likely to be passive or receptive in their fantasies, and men active. All fantasies were associated with high libido as indicated by self-rated sex drive and orgasm frequency, especially for women. In general, reports of many fantasies went with satisfaction in women but with dissatisfaction (frustration?) in men. This finding is explained in terms of the higher average level of libido in men than women, with the consequent difficulty experienced by men in acting out their desires.     

Ethnic differences in female sexual victimization

This study examined the link between ethnicity, early sexual victimization experiences and college sesual assault in a sample of 383 undergraduate women. One third of the sample (32.9%) had experienced some form of sexual assault during college (22% of whom reported that they had been raped), and 52 percent had experienced unwanted sexual activity before the age of 18 (17.5% of whom reported that a family member or trusted family friend asked for or forced sexual activities). There were substantial differences among the Black, White, Hispanic and Asian women on two of four measures of college sexual assault. Black women had the highest and Asian women the lowest incidence of forced intercourse through verbal threats or pressure. Hispanic women had the highest and Black women the lowest incidence of attempted rape. Black and White women were almost three times as likely as Hispanic women to have had experiences that meet the legal definition of rape, but do not consider themselves rape victims. There were significant differences in college victimization experiences as a result of experiencing incest before age 18, experiencing extrafamilial sesual abuse before age 18, and the use of alcohol. Ethnicity interacted with alcohol use and early experiences with extrafamilial sexual abuse. However, the effect of incest on college victimization was similar for the women in the study, regardless of ethnicity.     

Self-esteem and sexual behavior: Exploring gender differences

Previous studies have shown that the relationship between sexual permissiveness and self-esteem fluctuates with the social climate. The present study found that high self-esteem males and females had a significantly greater number of sexual partners than low self-esteem subjects. The relationship is particularly strong for males. The greatest difference in self-esteem levels was found between male virgins and nonvirgins. Self-esteem levels did not differ between female virgins and nonvirgins. Sensation seeking, marital status, and age were also found to be significantly related to number of coital partners.     

The other-species effect in human perceptions of sexual dimorphism using human and macaque faces

Humans are better able to discriminate among human faces than faces of other species. This difference in perceptual discrimination is known as the “other-species effect”. Models of perception have posited that the ultimate functional significance of the other-species effect is a higher discrimination capability within an organism's most familiar and salient stimulus set while attenuating the ability to discriminate amongst unfamiliar stimuli. Here, human participants made masculinity judgements of human and macaque faces manipulated based on either human or macaque sexual dimorphism. Humans were more accurate at identifying masculine/feminine faces in species-congruent than species-incongruent transforms in both human and macaque faces. We observed an other-species effect whereby accuracy (correctly judging masculinized faces as more masculine) was highest for own-species faces. We also found that both men and women were better at judging the sex-typicality of male faces than female faces, regardless of the species of the face or the species of the manipulation. Our findings demonstrate an other-species effect for the perception of sex-typicality among human raters.     

Temperamental factors in human development

The initial dispositions to approach or to avoid unfamiliar events are 2 temperamental characteristics of children--among the many that have been described--that appear to be moderately stable over time and associated with distinct, physiological profiles that may be under partial genetic control. The display of high versus low levels of both motor activity and crying to unfamiliar in 4-month-old infants predicts these 2 temperamental profiles in the 2nd year. This fact implies, but does not prove, that variation in the excitability of those brain areas that mediate motor activity and crying participates in the actualization of the temperamental categories called inhibited and uninhibited to the unfamiliar.     

Reflections on sexual differences in creative productivity

Although research and literature are replete with explanations and theories concerning the physical and intellectual potential of women, their creative contributions to the world of the arts and sciences (with exceptions, of course) have been surprisingly sparse. Some of this phenomenon is said to center around socioeconomic issues that have reflected the exploitation of women through the ages.A more dramatic issue in this paper deals with the frequency of intense, emotional affinities between highly creative men and their mothers, as well as between creative women and their fathers. This paper elaborates on the issue, in an attempt to show the effect of these relationships on the creative growth of a son or daughter. It also touches on the implications of psychotherapists' influence on the growth of their patients.This paper by Professor Erwin Singer was edited by Gladys Natchez after his death. It appeared in the NEWS CHRONICLE published at City College of the City University of New York by Eva Kayser, editor, in the spring of 1975. The NEWS CHRONICLE is no longer published.     

Pain sensitivity and individual differences in self-reported sexual behavior

The relationship between sexual behavior and pain sensitivity was assessed in 27 heterosexual men and 20 heterosexual women. Sexual behavior measures included sexual motivation and ratings of subjective sexual arousal to and enjoyment of an auditory stimulus. Pain sensitivity measures were pain threshold and pain tolerance in a cold pressor task. Participants were tested after exposure to a neutral or a sexual audio stimulus. Exposure to the sexual stimulus increased pain sensitivity in women but not in men. However, sexual behavior measures were correlated with pain threshold for both men and women. Specifically, higher pain thresholds were associated with weaker sexual motivation, lower enjoyment potential for sexual interaction, and increased inhibition during intercourse. These results are consistent with findings in laboratory animals, suggesting that differences in sexual behavior may reflect differences in responsiveness to a variety of stimuli.     

Male-female differences in sexual activity,enjoyment and fantasies

Gender differences in sexuality were examined by comparing the sexual experience, enjoyment of various activities, and favourite fantasies of 1862 men and 2905 women readers of a national newspaper. Frequency of experience was no clear guide to enjoyment, especially for women, many of whom engaged in activities they found distasteful. Oral sex was enjoyed by both men and women, whereas anal sex was enjoyed by men and disliked by women. On the other hand, homosexual contact was enjoyed more by women than men. Content analysis of fantasies revealed a male preoccupation with group sex and voyeurism, and a female concern for committed partners and romantic settings. It is argued that fantasies and enjoyment are better indicators of sexual instinct than attitudes and behaviour.     

Sex differences in childhood sexual abuse and suicide-related behaviors

Child sexual abuse and suicide-related behaviors are associated, but it remains unclear if the strength of this association differs in boys and girls. In a systematic review of this association in children and youth, we identified 16 relevant studies, all cross-sectional surveys of students. The association is stronger in boys specific to suicide attempt(s). Adjustments for potential confounding variables explained some, but not all of this sex difference. While additional research would strengthen causal inferences, this sex difference may be influenced by the nature and timing of child sexual abuse as well as the sex of the perpetrator, which in turn shapes the disclosure of these events.     

Gender-related sexual attitudes: Some crosscultural similarities and differences

We tested the hypothesis that males differentiate love and sex more strongly than females, and that the magnitude of this gender difference is augmented in homosexuals and diminished in married heterosexuals. American and Swedish subjects sorted statements describing behaviors of love, sex, and services into two piles on the basis of perceived similarity. The results of all three studies were consistent with the predictions. In addition, the findings suggest that Americans differentiate love and sex more strongly than Swedes.     

Perceived health contributes to the attractiveness of facial symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism

Symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism (femininity in female faces, masculinity in male faces) are attractive in faces. Many have suggested that preferences for these traits may be adaptations for identifying healthy mates. If they are, then the traits should be honest indicators of health and their attractiveness should result from their healthy appearance. Much research has focused on whether these traits honestly signal health. Here we focused on whether the appeal of these traits results from their healthy appearance. Specifically, we tested whether the attractiveness of symmetry, averageness, and sexual dimorphism is reduced or eliminated when perceived health is controlled, in two large samples of Western faces and a large sample of Japanese faces. The appeal of symmetric faces was largely due to their healthy appearance, with most associations between symmetry and attractiveness eliminated when perceived health was controlled. A healthy appearance also contributed to the appeal of averageness and femininity in female faces and masculinity in male faces, although it did not fully explain their appeal. These results show that perceptions of attractiveness are sensitive to a healthy appearance, and are consistent with the hypothesis that preferences may be adaptations for mate choice.     

Temperamental consequences of infant difficultness

Two central issues pertaining to the construct of infant temperamental “difficultness” were investigated in this longitudinal project. First, the cross-time convergent validity of two parent-report measures of temperament was examined. Second, the temperamental consequences of difficultness during infancy were studied by prospectively following children from infancy to adolescence. Additionally, using MANOVA and structural equation modeling, gender comparisons were conducted to determine whether or not the construct of difficultness was similar for males and females. Analyses were based on parent reports (Ns=96−110) of infant difficultness on the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ) when children were 18 months of age. The nine temperament dimensions of the New York Longitudinal Study model were also assessed by parent report inventories when children were 2, 3, 3.5, 5, 8, 10, and 12 years old. Results showed no pervasive evidence of gender differences in infant difficultness. Convergent validity between the ICQ and subsequent temperament measures was evidenced by significant cross-time canonical correlations reaching to moderate magnitude and significant bivariate correlations between infant difficultness and specific temperament dimensions. Temperamental difficultness during infancy predicted subsequent adverse temperamental qualities such as unadaptability and negative mood at every age from 2 through 12 years.     

Gender differences in theories of adolescent sexual activity

This was a study of 1478 adolescents who attended ten private schools located in different areas of this country. The purpose was to determine which concepts from four theories of deviance were useful in explaining male and female sexual intercourse. The sample was 73% White, 6% Chicano, 5% Black, 3% Asian, and 12% other minorities, and was comprised of 1114 females and 364 males. Bivariate analyses showed that the majority (15 of the 21 factors for both males and females) of factors examined were significantly correlated with frequency of sexual intercourse. Few gender differences were observed, and hierarchical regression procedures revealed that the strongest predictor of both male and female sexual intercourse was differential peer association, accounting for 33% of the variance (48% explained) among males and 27% of the variance among females (44% explained).The authors wish to express their appreciation to Dr. Ken Millar for the supportive resources to complete this study, and to the reviewers at Sex Roles for their comments on an earlier draft.