Content provided in partnership with
A New Paradigm for Understanding Women's Sexuality and Sexual Orientation
Journal of Social Issues, Summer, 2000 by Letitia Anne Peplau, Linda D. Garnets
Linda D. Garnets [*]
Major scientific findings about women's sexuality and sexual orientation are reviewed. Sexual orientation is unrelated to mental health. There is no inherent association between gender conformity and women's sexual orientation; masculinity and femininity are linked to sexual orientation in some social contexts but not in others. Research has so far failed to identify major biological or childhood antecedents of women's sexual orientation. Women's sexuality and sexual orientation are potentially fluid, changeable over time, and variable across social contexts. Regardless of sexual orientation, there are important commonalities in women's sexuality. In particular, women tend to have a relational or partner-centered orientation to sexuality. Together, these findings provide the basis for a paradigm shift in the conceptualization of women's sexual orientation.
- Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »
Scientific research on women's sexuality and sexual orientation is still a young endeavor. Nonetheless, several basic findings have been supported consistently by empirical research. Taken together, these findings highlight the need to reject old models of women's sexual orientation and to develop a new paradigm that is grounded in scientific research and sensitive to the realities of women's lives. Too often, old theories have taken male experience as the norm for human experience. Yet there appear to be important differences in the sexualities of women and men that emerge when women's lives are the central focus of investigation. Consequently, we believe that a necessary research strategy will be to develop separate analyses of women's and men's sexualities, each based on a careful examination of the nature and antecedents of sexual orientation for that half of humankind. Whether or not generalizations and unified theories applicable to both sexes will eventually emerge remains to be seen.
We begin by summarizing well-established empirical findings about women's sexualities, which are outlined in Table 1. As relevant, we note differences between women and men to underline the importance of research and theory that put women center stage. We then identify key ingredients in a new paradigm for understanding women's sexual orientation.
Mental Health and Sexual Orientation: Rejecting the Illness Model
Implicit in many discussions of sexual orientation is the assumption that heterosexuals are normal and mentally healthy but homosexuals are abnormal and impaired in their psychological functioning (see review by Bullough & Bullough, 1997). This illness model has influenced theories about the causes of women's sexual orientation, as seen in the idea that lesbians have arrested psychosexual development. It has led to stereotypes of sexual-minority individuals as unhappy, maladjusted, and unable to form satisfying intimate relationships. A growing body of empirical work has refuted the illness model. Based on scientific evidence, the consensus among psychiatrists and psychologists is that homosexuality is not a form of pathology nor is it associated with mental illness or poor psychological functioning. On standardized measures of personal adjustment and psychological well-being, gay and lesbian individuals (Gonsiorek, 1991), couples (Peplau & Spalding, 2000), and parents (Patterson & Redding, 1996) are compara ble to their heterosexual counterparts. Although research about bisexuals is limited, Fox (1996) found no evidence of psychopathology in nonclinical samples of bisexual women and men.
In summary, the illness model of sexual orientation is no longer scientifically viable. One implication is that scientific researchers should avoid taking heterosexuality as the norm for mental health (see Herek, Kimmel, Amaro, & Melton, 1991, for research guidelines).
Gender and Women's Sexual Orientation: Rejecting the Inversion Model
Early-20th-century sex experts such as Havelock Ellis (1928) and Krafft-Ebing (1908/1950) proposed an inversion model of homosexuality, suggesting that sexual orientation is closely tied to gender. Normal heterosexual women are feminine in their physiology, personality, and attractions to men. Lesbians are sexual inverts, women who are masculine in aspects of their physiology, personality, and attraction to women. The cumulative record of research on women's sexual orientation has repeatedly disconfirmed this model (see review by Peplau, Spalding, Conley, & Veniegas, 1999). There is no inherent link between heterosexuality and femininity in women or between homosexuality and masculinity in women. Biological models based on inversion premises, most notably the proposal that prenatal hormones "masculinize" the brains of females destined to be lesbians, have not been confirmed by scientific research.
Research presented in this issue has demonstrated, instead, that there are consistent similarities among women, regardless of sexual orientation. Research on the centrality of intimacy and relationships to women's sexuality is illustrative. In addition, studies of bisexual women raise important questions about gender and sexual attractions (see Rust, this issue). Compared to other women, bisexual women appear to be less constrained by gender in their sexual and affectional attractions (Firestein, 1996). Bisexuals emphasize individual characteristics rather than gender in selecting a partner (Fox, 1996).
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: News
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »