Interesting Study on Female Masculinity and Lesbianism

A paper co-authored by Michael Bailey and Meredith Chivers might be relevant to FTM transsexuality, and how it relates to sexual orientation.

The authors found that “lesbians were more male-typical in their sexual arousal and nonsexual characteristics” but that “there were no indications that these 2 patterns were in any way connected.”

“Thus, women’s sexual responses and nonsexual traits might be masculinization by independent factors”.

The authors provide two theories to explain this discrepancy.

Theory 1: Timing of Prenatal Androgen Exposure


“…it is possible that androgen influences at different timeframes explain why some women show male-typical sexual arousal and others show male-typical behaviors, but that these are apparently not linked.”


Theory 2: Social Environment


The authors explain that “there is no strong evidence that social factors determine the origins of sexual orientation”, but that social environment can influence the expression of non-sexual behaviors.


The authors conclude that “the most parsimonious interpretation is that any masculinization of women’s sexual response systems is independent of a masculinization of their nonsexual behaviors and attitudes.”


References


Rieger, G., Savin-Williams, R. C., Chivers, M. L., & Bailey, J. M. (2016). Sexual arousal and masculinity-femininity of women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(2), 265.

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