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Rachel Cook
New research has revealed heterosexual
women are more likely to be aroused by looking at naked women than naked men.
Dr Meredith Chivers, a research fellow at
the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health at the University of Toronto,
has completed several studies on the arousal responses of men and women while
they watched video clips depicting naked men and women in various sexual and
non-sexual scenarios.
According to the New York Times, by using a photoplethysmograph (a device that
measures blood flow to the genitals) Chivers found that when heterosexual women
viewed naked women, their blood flow increased significantly, as opposed to
when they viewed naked men.
Chivers also found that straight women,
straight men and lesbians all verbally reported increased arousal when watching
women, whereas gay men ‘were more predictably aroused by images of their
preferred sex’.
Sociologist Kirsten Mclean, from Monash University,
told MCV that Chivers’ study offers
nothing new to what we already know about women’s sexuality.
“There is a lot of research that says women
are a lot more flexible in their sexual attractions and desires, and are more
likely to move along the continuum, than men are,” Mclean
said.
“In terms of identification, men aren’t as
fluid; heterosexual men may have sex with men but still believe they are
heterosexual; and gay men may have sex with women but still identify as gay.
“However, there has also been a study that
showed lots of flexibility amongst a fairly young male sample, so maybe there’s
been a generational shift,” she concluded.
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