A New Paradigm for Understanding Women's Sexuality and Sexual Orientation

In summary, cultural and historical research documents the varied patterns of women's sexuality and erotic relationships. These findings add support to characterization of women's sexuality as potentially fluid and influenced by social forces.

The Importance of Relationships for Women's Sexuality and Sexual Orientation

For many theorists, especially those taking male experiences as their model, sexuality and sexual orientation are first and foremost about sexual behavior. Increasingly, however, researchers with diverse theoretical orientations have suggested that love and intimacy are more important for understanding women's sexuality than for understanding men's sexuality (e.g., Golden, 1996; Weinrich, 1987). For example, Regan and Berscheid (1996, p. 116) asked young heterosexual adults, "What is sexual desire?" These comments are illustrative:

Man: Sexual desire is wanting someone ... in a physical manner. No strings attached. Just for uninhibited sexual intercourse. (italics in original)

Woman: Sexual desire is the longing to be emotionally intimate and to express love for another person.

Regan and Berscheid concluded that men were more likely to "sexualize" and women to "romanticize" the experience of sexual desire. Similarly, based on their study of bisexuals, Weinberg and colleagues (1994, p. 7) concluded: "For men it was easier to have sex with other men than to fall in love with them. For women it was easier to fall in love with other women than to have sex with them." We are not suggesting that eroticism is unimportant in women's lives or irrelevant to their sexual orientation. Rather, we think it is crucial to acknowledge and analyze the central role emotional intimacy often has for women's sexual experiences. Similarly, we do not propose that emotional intimacy is unimportant to men's lives or their sexual orientation.

Gender differences in sexuality have been widely discussed (e.g., Sprecher & McKinney, 1993). In general, women have been characterized as having a relational or partner-centered orientation to sexuality and men as having a recreational or body-centered orientation (e.g., Baldwin & Baldwin, 1997; DeLamater, 1987). Both biological and social explanations have been proposed for these differences. Oliver and Hyde (1993) reviewed five theoretical perspectives--sociobiology, neoanalytic, social learning, social roles, and script theory--all of which predict sex differences in sexuality--for instance, that compared to males, females will have a smaller number of sex partners and hold more negative attitudes toward premarital sex. Several lines of research provide empirical support for these generalizations and suggest that they may apply regardless of sexual orientation.

Beliefs and Attitudes About Sex

There is considerable evidence that men and women tend to think about sex differently (see reviews by Baldwin & Baldwin, 1997; Sprecher & McKinney, 1993). It is likely that these general patterns apply to gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals as well as heterosexuals, although available research on homosexuals is often limited. As a starting point, men apparently think about sex more often than women do. In a U.S. national survey (Laumann et al., 1994), 54% of men reported thinking about sex every day or several times a day compared to only 19% of women. Compared to men, women hold less permissive attitudes toward casual sex, both premarital and extramarital. In a meta-analysis (Oliver & Hyde, 1993), the difference between men's and women's attitudes toward casual sex was quite large, with an effect size of d = .81. We do not have comparable data for lesbians and gay men, but the greater availability of opportunities for casual sex in gay male communities (e.g., bath houses) and reports of greater numbers of sex partners among gay men would suggest relatively permissive attitudes toward casual sex (Paroski. 1987).