I normally am pretty critical of evolutionary psychology because, well, science. But this article, which comes from a lab that calls itself the New Paltz Evolutionary Psychology Lab is not a pile of stinking statistics dressed up all pretty.

What they found, and what has been known to people in gender studies for decades, is that intra-sex variability is far greater than between-sex variability.

Male/Female Differences in Variability Itself

Rethinking the Statistics Underlying Gender Diffferences

Published on October 4, 2014 by Glenn Geher, Ph.D. in Darwin's Subterranean World
By Blair B. Dawson and Glenn Geher

Comparison of the sexes is as old as contemplative thought. Do men and women differ in aggression? Intellect? Emotional Expression? Empathy? Health? Taste in movies? Statistically speaking, a rich and important discourse exists, complete with ample data, on the mean scores (or averages) between males and females in any number of domains (such as emotional intelligence (females score higher; Joseph and Newman, 2010)).

This said, another important statistical concept, variability (which refers to how much scores in a population vary from one another), consistently receives less attention when it comes to understanding male/female differences. In fact, our research team (the New Paltz Evolutionary Psychology Lab) has recently uncovered that in humans, sex differences in variability across many behavioral and physical domains ends up being the rule. Based on our examination of dozens of past studies that explore differences between males and females, there is evidence to suggest that while males and females may differ in terms of their statistical means in some domains as personality traits, causes of death, emotional intelligence, academic success, and so forth, a story that is just as compelling pertains to the fact that the sexes consistently differ in statistical variability - with, for a large number of variables, males demonstrating greater variability.

To understand the idea of males showing more variability on a dimension than females, consider the following example: If males show a larger range of scores in emotional intelligence than females do, then males demonstrate more variability on this dimension than females do (while females may still score higher on average compared with males). In this example, males vary more from one another in terms of how emotionally intelligent they are compared with females (who, by this example, vary less from one another compared with males on this dimension).

This finding of males showing more variability than females (across varied dimensions) is in line with a highly accepted biological concept, Bateman’s (1948) Principle, which is the idea that males of many species vary more in reproductive success than do females. Based on Bateman’s seminal research on fertility differences across the sexes in fruit flies, it turns out that males vary much more in the number of mates they acquire and offspring they produce compared with females – and this finding is a function of the fact that, as with humans, female fruit flies provide more necessary parental investment than do male fruitflies.

In humans, female morphology also maps onto higher required levels of parental investment – and extensive research on humans (see Brown, Laland, & Mulder, 2009) shows that, as with fruit flies, males (across various cultures) show great variability in reproductive success (with more males either being shut out of reproduction or siring extremely high numbers of offspring) compared with females. Females are more likely to have a number of offspring close to average (i.e., to not show too much in the way of variability).

Why would males vary more from one another compared with females in reproductive output? Males in species such as ours (characterized by relatively low obligatory male parental costs) can sire a greater number of offspring than can females. Females in species with high parental care often have a greater parental costs (Trivers, 1972). If conception occurs in-utero, fetal development naturally gives the female greater responsibility than the male. This fact leads females to be more likely than males to primarily adopt long-term mating strategies and be relatively choosy in selecting mates. Males historically could choose short-term or long-term mating strategies, as their potential investment is not as great (Buss, 2007). This comparatively greater variability in mating-relevant variables in males as opposed to females is theorized by our research team to have extended into other characteristics as previously listed.

Importantly, the idea presented here about males showing more variability across assorted dimensions does not for a second speak to the issue of superiority of one sex over the other. So, for instance, relatively high male variability shows up in the fact that males have a wider range of causes of death compared with females (particularly when men are in their sexual prime (Kruger, 2008)). Having a wider range of causes of death is not exactly superior in any sense .. And, of course, this all is not to say that a female could not die from hang gliding into a bear’s den ...

In our analysis of the published scientific literature, males show greater variability than do females in such diverse domains as:

• Favored Sexual Activities (Peterson, Geher, and Kaufman, 2011)
• General Cognitive Abilities (Machin & Pekkarinen, 2008)
• Verbal Performance (Hedges & Nowell, 1995)
• Math Performance (Hedges & Nowell, 1995)
• Causes of Death (Kruger, 2008)
• Height (Sauro, 2013)

… and in many more domains as well.

This non-comprehensive list is, thus far, in support of Bateman’s Principle at work in humans. And it shows how strongly interconnected variability in reproductive output is with dimensions that cut across the human body and mind. In combination, these findings serve as a strong example of the ripple effect that evolutionary forces have on each of us in ways we might not often consider.

Males and females may differ from one another on average - but, perhaps just as importantly, males and females seem to differ from one another in terms of how much they vary from other members of their own sex. Future research into the nature of male/female differences in any domain would be wise to incorporate an understanding of male/female differences in variability.

References

Bateman, A.J. (1948). Intra-sexual selection in Drosophila, Heredity, 2, 349–368.

Buss, D.M. (2007). The evolution of human mating. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 39, 502-512.

Geher, G., & Kaufman, S. B. (2013). Mating intelligence unleashed: The role of the mind in sex, dating, and love. Oxford University Press.

Hedges, L. V., & Nowell, A. (1995). Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals. Science, 269, 41-45

Joseph, D. L., & Newman, D. A. (2010). Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model. Journal of Applied Pyschology, 95, 54-78.

Kruger, D. J., & Nesse, R. M. (2007). Economic transition, male competition, and sex differences in mortality rates. Evolutionary Psychology, 5(2), 411-427.

Kruger, D. J. (2008). Human life history variation and sex differences in mortality rates. Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2(4), 281.

Machin, S., & Pekkarinen, T. (2008). Global sex differences in test score variability. Science, 322(5906), 1331-1332.

Peterson, A., Geher, G., & Kaufman, S. B. (2011). Predicting preferences for sex acts: Which traits matter and why? Evolutionary Psychology, 9, 371-389.

Sauro, J. (2013). The Normal Distribution. In Usable Stats. Retrieved August 5, 2014, from https://www.usablestats.com/lessons/normal

Trivers, R. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In: Sexual selection and the descent of man 1871-1971 (B. Campbell, ed.). Chicago: Aldine Press.
******************************************

Note that this article is a summary of a manuscript in preparation being co-authored by ourselves (Blair Dawson and Glenn Geher) along with Gokce Sancak Aydin, Morgan E. Gleason, John M. Montgomery, Nathaniel E. Postol, Andrew R. Shimkus, Christopher S. Tripoli, and Nicole A. Wedberg – we call ourselves the New Paltz Evolutionary Psychology Lab! Special thanks to Associate Director of the New Paltz Evolutionary Studies Program, Dr. Spencer Mass for his insight into this work.

Gender Studies, Masculinity and Television (via Utne Reader)

This is an interesting look at the dearth of analysis of male characters on television in gender studies. The majority of characters are male, yet they are seldom studied within their gender performance context, while women have been often studied over the last several decades.

This brief article is an excerpt from the Introduction to Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century (NYU Press, 2014), by Amanda D. Lotz.

Gender Studies, Masculinity and Television

Why gender studies should examine male television characters like Archie Bunker and Tony Soprano more closely.

 
By Amanda D. Lotz
September 2014

Despite the number of male characters in American television, the study of these men—and their roles as men in society—are not among the popular topics when discussing gender studies. Photo by Fotolia/migfoto

Women’s roles on television have been analyzed over the course of television’s history. Through the 20th century and into the 21st century, the evaluation of gender roles has come mostly through the analysis of women. Why not men? In Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century (NYU Press, 2014), Amanda D. Lotz attributes the lack of analysis and typology to the abundance of types of male characters in television, which leads to an audience who is more accepting of the male characters they see on television. In the following excerpt from the introduction, Lotz examines why male television characters have not been analyzed in depth under gender studies while many male film characters have. 

What Do We Know about Men on Television?

It is revealing that so little has been written about men on television. Men have embodied such an undeniable presence and composed a significant percentage of the actors upon the small screen—be they real or fictional—since the dawn of this central cultural medium and yet rarely have been considered as a particularly gendered group. In some ways a parallel exists with the situation of men in history that Michael Kimmel notes in his cultural history, Manhood in America. Kimmel opens his book by noting that “American men have no history” because although the dominant and widely known version of American history is full of men, it never considers the key figures as men. Similarly to Kimmel’s assertion, then, we can claim that we have no history of men, masculinity, and manhood on television—or at best, a very limited one—despite the fact that male characters have been central in all aspects of the sixty-some years of US television history. It is the peculiar situation that nearly all assessments of gender and television have examined the place and nature of women, femininity, and feminism on television while we have no typologies of archetypes or thematic analyses of stories about men or masculinities.

For much of television studies’ brief history, this attention to women made considerable sense given prevailing frameworks for understanding the significance of gender representation in the media. Analyses of women on television largely emerged out of concern about women’s historical absence in central roles and the lack of diversity in their portrayals. Exhaustive surveys of characters revealed that women were underrepresented on television relative to their composition of the general populace and that those onscreen tended to be relegated to roles as wives, love interests, or sex objects. In many cases, this analysis was linked with the feminist project of illustrating how television contributed to the social construction of beliefs about gender roles and abilities, and given the considerable gender-based inequity onscreen and off, attention to the situation of men seemed less pressing. As a result, far less research has considered representations of men on television and the norms or changes in the stories the medium has told about being a man.

Transitioning the frameworks used for analyzing women on television is not as simple as changing the focus of which characters or series one examines. Analyzing men and masculinity also requires a different theoretical framework, as the task of the analysis is not a matter of identifying underrepresentation or problematic stereotypes in the manner that has dominated considerations of female characters. The historic diversity of stories about and depictions of straight white men has seemed to prevent the development of “stereotypes” that have plagued depictions of women and has lessened the perceived need to interrogate straight white men’s depictions and the stories predominantly told about their lives. Any single story about a straight white man has seemed insignificant relative to the many others circulating simultaneously, so no one worried that the populace would begin to assume all men were babbling incompetents when Darrin bumbled through episodes of Bewitched, that all men were bigoted louts because of Archie Bunker, or even that all men were conflicted yet homicidal thugs in the wake of Tony Soprano. Further, given men’s dominance in society, concern about their representation lacked the activist motivation compelling the study of women that tied women’s subordinated place in society to the way they appeared—or didn’t appear—in popular media.

Gender Studies: Focusing on Men

So why explore men now? First, it was arguably shortsighted to ignore analysis of men and changing patterns in the dominant masculinities offered by television to the degree that has occurred. Images of and stories about straight white men have been just as important in fostering perceptions of gender roles, but they have done their work by prioritizing some attributes of masculinity—supported some ways of being a man—more than others. Although men’s roles might not have been limited to the narrow opportunities available to women for much of television history, characteristics consistent with a preferred masculinity have pervaded—always specific to the era of production—that might generally be described as the attributes consistent with what is meant when a male is told to “be a man.” In the past, traits such as the stoicism and controlled emotionality of not being moved to tears, of proving oneself capable of physical feats, and of aggressive leadership in the workplace and home have been common. Men’s roles have been more varied than women’s, but television storytelling has nevertheless performed significant ideological work by consistently supporting some behaviors, traits, and beliefs among the male characters it constructs as heroic or admirable, while denigrating others. So although television series may have displayed a range of men and masculinities, they also circumscribed a “preferred” or “best” masculinity through attributes that were consistently idealized.

The lack of comprehensive attention to men in any era of television’s sixty-some-year history makes the task of beginning difficult because there are so few historical benchmarks or established histories or typologies against which newer developments can be gauged. Perhaps few have considered the history of male portrayal because so many characteristics seemed unexceptional due to their consistency with expectations and because no activist movement has pushed a societal reexamination of men’s gender identity in the manner that occurred for women as a component of second-wave feminism. Male characters performed their identity in expected ways that were perceived as “natural” and drew little attention, indicating the strength of these constructs. Indeed, television’s network-era operational norms of seeking broad, heterogeneous audiences of men and women, young and old, led to representations that were fairly mundane and unlikely to shock or challenge audience expectations of gender roles.

One notable aspect of men’s depictions has been the manner through which narratives have defined them primarily as workers in public spaces or through roles as fathers or husbands—even though most male characters have been afforded access to both spaces. A key distinction between the general characterizations of men versus women has been that shows in which men functioned primarily as fathers (Father Knows Best, The Cosby Show) also allowed for them to leave the domestic sphere and have professional duties that were part of their central identity—even if actually performing these duties was rarely given significant screen time. So in addition to being fathers and husbands, with few exceptions, television’s men also have been workers. Similarly, the performance of professional duties has primarily defined the roles of another set of male characters, as for much of television history, stories about doctors, lawyers, and detectives were necessarily stories about male doctors, lawyers, and detectives. Such shows may have noted the familial status of these men but rarely have incorporated family life or issues into storytelling in a regular or consistent manner.

This split probably occurs primarily for reasons of storytelling convention rather than any concerted effort to fragment men’s identity. I belabor this point here because a gradual breakdown in this separatespheres approach occurs in many dramatic depictions of men beginning in the 1980s and becomes common enough to characterize a subgenre by the twenty-first century. Whether allowing a male character an inner life that is revealed through first-person voice-over—as in series such as Magnum, P.I., Dexter, or Hung—or gradually connecting men’s private and professional lives even when the narrative primarily depicts only one of these spheres—as in Hill Street Blues or ER—such cases in which the whole lives of men contribute to characterization can be seen as antecedents to the narratives that emphasize the multifaceted approach to male characters that occurs in the male-centered serial in the early 2000s. Though these series offer intricately drawn and complex protagonists, their narrative framing does not propose them as “role models” or as men who have figured out the challenges of contemporary life. The series and their characters provide not so much a blueprint of how to be a man in contemporary society as a constellation of case studies exposing, but not resolving, the challenges faced.

The scholarly inattention to men on television is oddly somewhat particular to the study of television. The field of film studies features a fairly extensive range of scholarship attending to changing patterns of men’s portrayals and masculinities. While these accounts are fascinating, the specificity of film as a medium very different from television in its storytelling norms (a two-hour contained story as opposed to television’s prevailing use of continuing characters over years of narrative), industrial characteristics (the economic model of film was built on audiences paying for a one-time engagement with the story while television relies on advertisers that seek a mass audience on an ongoing basis), and reception environment (one chooses to go out and see films as opposed to television’s flow into the home) prevent these studies of men on film to tell us much about men on television. Further, gender studies and sociology have developed extensive theories of masculinity and have been more equitable in extending beyond the study of women. Although theories developed in these fields provide a crucial starting point—such as breaking open the simple binary of masculinity and femininity to provide a language of masculinities—it is the case that the world of television does not mirror the “real world” and that the tools useful for exploring how societies police gender performance aren’t always the most helpful for analyzing fictional narratives. Sociological concepts about men aid assessments of men and masculinity on television, but it is clearly the case that the particularities of television’s dominant cultural, industrial, and textual features require focused and specific examination.

---

Reprinted with permission from Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century by Amanda D. Lotz and published by NYU Press, 2014.

Related Content

• Boys and Dolls - Is it strange for boys to play with dolls? Even for parents who generally shun gender stereotypes, t...
• Wartime Men on the Silver Screen - Cinema’s response to war has changed since Vietnam, Michael Bronski postulates in Z Magazine. For in...
• Peep Yo: Baltimore Students Invent Gender-Neutral Pronoun - English speakers have always been forced to use either “he” or “she” when referring to others, until...
• The Trouble with Tough Guys - While our culture still glorifies the stereotypical "tough guy," there are indications that traditio...

Omnivore - Of the Two Sexes

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, here is a collection of links on men and women and the issues that drive gender theory.

Of the Two Sexes

Aug 8 2014
3:00PM

• Janet Radcliffe-Richards (Oxford): Only X%: The Problem of Sex Equality. 
• Robert Deaner (GVSU), Rickey Carter and Michael Joyner (Mayo), and Sandra Hunter (Marquette): Men Are More Likely than Women to Slow in the Marathon. 
• Millions of years of fist fights have altered the human face to leave men's jaws more robust than women's, a study has found. 
• Joni M. Lakin (Auburn) and James L. Gambrell (ACT): Sex Differences in Fluid Reasoning: Manifest and Latent Estimates from the Cognitive Abilities Test. 
• The Mars and Venus question: A variation in the cognitive abilities of the two sexes may be more about social development than gender stereotypes.
• In the brain of the father: Why men can be just as good primary parents as women. 
• No, men aren’t “having it all” either: A CEO steps back, and shows that the work-life challenge is for guys too. 
• Why are there no female Sheldon Adelsons? Rebecca Traister on the real reasons for the absence of free-spending women political donors. 
• Kat Stoeffel on why it shouldn’t take having a daughter for men to care about feminism. 
• A new study helps explain why some people get enraged when women have sex. 
• A new study helps explain why Hobby Lobby supporters are so fiercely opposed to birth control: The idea that ensuring access to affordable birth control is harmful to society because it leads to promiscuity and infidelity. 
• Tara Culp-Ressler on the GOP’s plot to convince you they support birth control. 
• Phyllis Schlafly explains why feminism has made women unhappy. 
• The women of the men's rights movement: Alex Brook Lynn goes inside the online world of honey badgers, trolls, and feminist threats. 
• Punching Gloria Steinem: Jessica Valenti goes inside the bizarre world of anti-feminist women. 
• Hey, “women against feminism”: Feminism still has your back so you’re welcome. 
• Christina Sterbenz on the 24 words that are most known to only men or women.

Annual Review of Critical Psychology - Gender and Sexuality

 

Some cool stuff here, especially Towards a situated approach to sex/gender identities and The Governance of Gender Non-Conforming Children: A Dangerous Enclosure. Many of the articles are in English, but there are several in Spanish or Portuguese.

ARCP 11: Gender and Sexuality

This Annual Review of Critical Psychology 11 with a focus on gender and sexuality is formed by a number of articles on diverse themes and theoretical perspectives. This diversity is seen in relation to the themes, approaches and also from papers from different geographical locations (and in different languages). This broad scope allowed for a plethora of perspectives, also pointing to the importance of intersectional work for critical perspectives, hence, the papers considered key social categories in their analysis, such as gender, sexuality, class, race, age and disability, and many of them accounted for intersections of social categories in their analysis.

Contents of ARCP 11

Editorial
Ilana Mountian, Jemma Tosh, Marco Aurélio Máximo Prado and Suryia Nayak

Towards a situated approach to sex/gender identities
Antar Martínez-Guzmán, Marisela Montenegro and Joan Pujol – EN

Consideraciones para un abordaje situado de las identidades de sexo/género
Antar Martínez-Guzmán, Marisela Montenegro and Joan Pujol – ES

Troubling humanity: towards a queer feminist critical psychology
João Manuel de Oliveira, Carlos Goncalves da Costa and Nuno Santos Carneiro – EN

Problematizando a humanidade: Para uma Psicologia Crítica Feminista Queer
João Manuel de Oliveira, Carlos Goncalves da Costa and Nuno Santos Carneiro – PT

The Governance of Gender Non-Conforming Children: A Dangerous Enclosure
Jake Pyne – EN

Touching Race Through Play: Sadomasochism, Phenomenology, and the Intertwining of Race and Sexuality
Ada Demaj – EN

Subjectivation and the Law: Bodily Desire Between Normalization and Subversion
Sonja Buckel and Julia König – EN

Far beyond the rainbow. The constitution of collective identities between civil society and the state
Marco Aurélio Máximo Prado and Frederico Viana Machado – EN

Muito além do arco-íris. A constituição de identidades coletivas entre a sociedade civil e o estado
Marco Aurélio Máximo Prado and Frederico Viana Machado – PT

Pedagogy of the closet: heterosexism and gender surveillance on Brazilian everyday school life
Rogério Diniz Junqueira – EN

A Pedagogia do Armário: heterossexismo e vigilância de gênero no cotidiano escolar brasileiro
Rogério Diniz Junqueira – PT

Performances of a contested body: homo/eroticism and ageing
Fernando Altair Pocahy – EN

Performances de um corpo contestado: homo/erotismo e envelhecimento
Fernando Pocahy – PT

Legislating (lesbian) sexuality: colonial law and post-colonial impact
Dyuti Ailawadi – pronto – EN

The idealized family and discourses about same-sex parenting
Miriam Debieux Rosa and Michele Kamers – EN

A família idealizada e os discursos sobre a Homoparentalidade
Miriam Debieux Rosa and Michele Kamers – PT

The political scope of travestilities: On the transgressive potential of travestis
Julieta Vartabedian – EN

El alcance político de las travestilidades: acerca del potencial transgresor de las travestis
Julieta Vartabedian – ES

On high heels: intertwinings between the art of travestility, becoming-drag queen and self-affirmation
Aureliano Lopes and Anna Paula Uziel – EN

Chest Surgeries of a Different ‘Nature’
T. Garner – EN

The critical intersections of disability and non-normative sexualities in Spain
Paco Guzmán and Raquel (Lucas) Platero – EN

Exploring Ableism and Cisnormativity in the Conceptualization of Identity and Sexuality “Disorders”
Alexandre Baril and Kathryn Trevenen – EN

Gender, Sexuality, and Experience of Disability in Women in Southern Brazil
Marivete Gesser, Adriano Henrique Nuernberg and Maria Juracy Filgueiras Toneli – EN

Gênero, Sexualidade e a Experiência da Deficiência Física em Mulheres no Sul do Brasil
Marivete Gesser, Adriano Henrique Nuernberg and Maria Juracy Filgueiras Toneli – PT

Annual Review of Critical Psychology is an international peer-reviewed online open-access journal (ISSN 1746-739X)

From The Guardian (US version), Jessica Valenti speaks with Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me and coiner of the word, mansplaining (I did not know that).

I have been seeing the word around a lot more recently, so I guess it has Dictionary:

Mansplain 

1. to delighting in condescending, inaccurate explanations delivered with rock solid confidence of rightness and that slimy certainty that of course he is right, because he is the man in this conversation

2. To explain in a patronizing manner, assuming total ignorance on the part of those listening. The mansplainer is often shocked and hurt when their mansplanation is not taken as absolute fact, criticized or even rejected altogether.

Named for a behavior commonly exhibited by male newbies on internet forums frequented primarily by women. Often leads to a flounce. Either sex can be guilty of mansplaining.

Below this article is a copy of the original article in which Solnit coined the now famous term.

Mansplaining, explained: 'Just ask an expert. Who is not a lady'

Author Rebecca Solnit admits that even penning a book titled 'Men Explain Things to Me' doesn't stop some men

Jessica Valenti
theguardian.com, Friday 6 June 2014


Rebecca Solnit is smarter than you, and she's not sorry about it. (David Levene)
Rebecca Solnit is a prolific author (she's working now on her sixteenth and seventeenth books), historian, activist and a contributing editor to Harper's. Her most recent book, Men Explain Things to Me, is a collection of Solnit's essays, including the title piece that launched a million memes. Solnit, on the road in Seattle, took some time to explain "mansplaining", writing, and how the post-Isla Vista misogyny conversation is a little like climate denialism.

JESSICA VALENTI: How do you feel about being considered the creator of the concept of "mansplaining"? Your now-famous essay – which really gave women language to talk about the condescending interactions they've had with men – certainly gave birth to the term, but you write in the book that you didn't actually make up the word.

REBECCA SOLNIT: A really smart young woman changed my mind about it. I used to be ambivalent, worrying primarily about typecasting men with the term. (I have spent most of my life tiptoeing around the delicate sensibilities of men, though of course the book Men Explain Things to Me is what happens when I set that exhausting, doomed project aside.) Then in March a PhD candidate said to me, No, you need to look at how much we needed this word, how this word let us describe an experience every woman has but we didn't have language for.

And that's something I'm really interested in: naming experience and how what has no name cannot be acknowledged or shared. Words are power. So if this word allowed us to talk about something that goes on all the time, then I'm really glad it exists and slightly amazed that not only have I contributed about a million published words to the conversation but maybe, indirectly, one new word.

Do men still explain things to you?

Do they ever! Social media are to mansplainers what dogs are to fleas, and this recent feminist conversation has brought them out in droves. I mean, guys explain ridiculous things to me like that the Louisiana Purchase gave the United States a Pacific Coast. But more than anything since I wrote Men Explain Things to Me, they've explained women's experience to me and other women. With this explosive new conversation since the Isla Vista murders, there's been a dramatic uptick in guys mansplaining feminism and women's experience or just denying that we need feminism and we actually had those experiences.

If there were awards to be handed out, one might go to the man who told me and a woman friend that 1) women actually like all those catcalls 2) as a man who's spent time in men's-only locker rooms, he knows men don't actually speak to women that way. So we like street harassment, but that doesn't actually exist, because we're just crazy that way, us subjective, imaginative, unreliable ladies. Just ask an expert. Who is not a lady.

Speaking of Isla Vista, in the wake of that tragedy there's been a lot of talk about masculinity and toxic masculinity. The misogyny was so obvious – we have a mass murderer saying hatred for women is the reason for his attack – and yet some people still argue that these murders had nothing to do with sexism. What do you make of this?

There are a lot of ideologies out there passionately devoted to not connecting dots. There are climate denialists who think that 97% of all the scientists on earth are in conspiracy to spread lies and the weather is just fine; there are people who don't want to know that American foreign policy makes us, to say the least, a little unpopular in some places; and there are people who find that thinking about misogyny and violence against women is uncomfortable and think that they have a God-given or Constitutional right to eternal comfortableness, as far as I can tell.

Right now I think that a lot of people get it and a lot of people are getting more engaged with the ideas, with the issues, and with the urgency of the situation. I feel like I've been waiting all my life for women to be talking the way we are right now, and that many men have joined in the conversation or support from the sidelines or get it is magnificent and inspiriting. (And then, yeah, those other guys. "Not all men".)

Your essay "The Longest War" is about sexual assault and, this week, we just found out about yet another gang rape at a high school. What do you think it will take for our culture to take rape – and the notion that this is an epidemic of violence against women – seriously?

Part of what was shocking about the Steubenville sexual assault – one of the 2012 crimes that has opened up a new conversation about rape culture and sexual entitlement – is that the boys evidently thought that violating and humiliating a helpless human being made them cool. Where the hell did they get that idea from? And how do we take them out of that lad culture (in which it is indeed cool) and back to civilization where it's horrible and you'd be despised and regarded as repulsive (by enough of us if, sadly, far from all of us)? I think the culture at large is getting – post-New-Delhi and Steubenville, and post a lot of great speaking and writing by feminists like you – the idea.

But how do we undermine the lad culture, that jeering, tittering, competing, struggling realm of young men left to themselves and to the worst notions of what it means to be a man, or undermine the segregation in our culture that leaves the young to socialize as though they were another species? I mean, in some small and rural places and other cultures, teenage is not a distinct ethnicity or caste or pariah group, and teenagers are not left largely to their own devices.

Too, I think we need to make blatant misogyny widely regarded as gross and despicable and ignorant the way we have racism, and this time that we means men. And a lot of men are, as never before, stepping up. Only men can dissuade men from a misogyny that discounts a woman's right to speak, let alone what she says. The sexual assault that just happened in Tennessee: this time the authorities are responding fairly appropriately and a local male columnist wrote a column about it – a tough, clear, no-excuses for assault analysis that any feminist could love.

Finally, I think feminism has made astonishing progress over the past 50 years, so I think both that it's going to take a long time and we're well on our way.

What are your thoughts about online harassment – specifically the online harassment of outspoken women? I used to to think of just abandoning the Internet, but it's as much a public space as the street these days... there's no avoiding it and it's my space too!

There are a lot of ways the Internet needs to be democratized and made into a public commons: when it comes to protecting our privacy and not monetizing our data for advertisers or sharing it with the NSA; and not letting advertising drive what everyone does and sees and makes; as well as not letting haters try to scare women into silence or make their lives miserable. The whole raison d'être needs to be reinvented, and I'd be all for not nationalizing but some form of internationalizing (or regulating for the public good) some of the more universally used sites (Siva Vaidhyanathan has a very good book about doing that with Google's ubiquitous search engine).

My friend Astra Taylor points out in her new book, The People's Platform, "Those posting with female usernames, researchers were shocked to discover, received 25 times as many malicious messages as those whose designations were masculine or ambiguous." Way too many sites tolerate, maybe even feed, really vile forms of misogyny – from Twitter to a lot of supposedly progressive news sites – because it's all about getting the clicks or traffic that convince advertisers to give them money. Hate is profitable. And human beings are chameleons; I think that some of these sites, groups, spaces, threads, don't just give misogyny an outlet; they breed and feed and cultivate misogyny.

Two things, though: men intent on silencing women like you truly believe that you are a threat. They believe your voice matters, that you're part of changing the world, and they don't want it changed that way. So there's a weird kind of validation in it, but one I'm sure you and Mary Beard and the rest of the women under attack could live without.

The other thing is: these haters seem to be pretty irony-deficient. Helen Lewis created Lewis's Law on Twitter in 2012: "Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism." You go to #YesAllWomen on Twitter and see so many guys now showing up to mock, sneer, harass, and threaten, to just try to piss on the party, and you realize they have no idea they're demonstrating why we need feminism. We need it because some men hate women; want to violate and silence and annihilate us; can't stand us telling our truths; don't think we have any rights; think they're more important and sole holders of the truth. And they are those men. It's a parade of excellent specimens. Unfortunately.

If you could explain one thing to one man, what and who would it be?

My beloved has, with time and patience and a lot of going over the same ground again and again and some digging-in of heels, come to accept that I really need two cups of tea in the morning (and one won't do). So I've already succeeded hugely on that front.



Jessica Valenti is a daily columnist for the Guardian US. She is the author of four books on feminism, politics and culture, and founder of Feministing.com. A frequent speaker, Jessica currently serves on the board of NARAL Pro-Choice America. You can find her on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook.

* * * * *

Men Explain Things to Me

Facts Didn't Get in Their Way

By Rebecca Solnit

I still don't know why Sallie and I bothered to go to that party in the forest slope above Aspen. The people were all older than us and dull in a distinguished way, old enough that we, at forty-ish, passed as the occasion's young ladies. The house was great -- if you like Ralph Lauren-style chalets -- a rugged luxury cabin at 9,000 feet complete with elk antlers, lots of kilims, and a wood-burning stove. We were preparing to leave, when our host said, "No, stay a little longer so I can talk to you." He was an imposing man who'd made a lot of money.

He kept us waiting while the other guests drifted out into the summer night, and then sat us down at his authentically grainy wood table and said to me, "So? I hear you've written a couple of books."

I replied, "Several, actually."

He said, in the way you encourage your friend's seven-year-old to describe flute practice, "And what are they about?"

They were actually about quite a few different things, the six or seven out by then, but I began to speak only of the most recent on that summer day in 2003, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, my book on the annihilation of time and space and the industrialization of everyday life.

He cut me off soon after I mentioned Muybridge. "And have you heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year?"

So caught up was I in my assigned role as ingénue that I was perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that another book on the same subject had come out simultaneously and I'd somehow missed it. He was already telling me about the very important book -- with that smug look I know so well in a man holding forth, eyes fixed on the fuzzy far horizon of his own authority.

Here, let me just say that my life is well-sprinkled with lovely men, with a long succession of editors who have, since I was young, listened and encouraged and published me, with my infinitely generous younger brother, with splendid friends of whom it could be said -- like the Clerk in The Canterbury Tales I still remember from Mr. Pelen's class on Chaucer -- "gladly would he learn and gladly teach." Still, there are these other men, too. So, Mr. Very Important was going on smugly about this book I should have known when Sallie interrupted him to say, "That's her book." Or tried to interrupt him anyway.

But he just continued on his way. She had to say, "That's her book" three or four times before he finally took it in. And then, as if in a nineteenth-century novel, he went ashen. That I was indeed the author of the very important book it turned out he hadn't read, just read about in the New York Times Book Review a few months earlier, so confused the neat categories into which his world was sorted that he was stunned speechless -- for a moment, before he began holding forth again. Being women, we were politely out of earshot before we started laughing, and we've never really stopped.

I like incidents of that sort, when forces that are usually so sneaky and hard to point out slither out of the grass and are as obvious as, say, an anaconda that's eaten a cow or an elephant turd on the carpet.

When River of Shadows came out, some pedant wrote a snarky letter to the New York Times explaining that, though Muybridge had made improvements in camera technology, he had not made any breakthroughs in photographic chemistry. The guy had no idea what he was talking about. Both Philip Prodger, in his wonderful book on Muybridge, and I had actually researched the subject and made it clear that Muybridge had done something obscure but powerful to the wet-plate technology of the time to speed it up amazingly, but letters to the editor don't get fact-checked. And perhaps because the book was about the virile subjects of cinema and technology, the Men Who Knew came out of the woodwork.

A British academic wrote in to the London Review of Books with all kinds of nitpicking corrections and complaints, all of them from outer space. He carped, for example, that to aggrandize Muybridge's standing I left out technological predecessors like Henry R. Heyl. He'd apparently not read the book all the way to page 202 or checked the index, since Heyl was there (though his contribution was just not very significant). Surely one of these men has died of embarrassment, but not nearly publicly enough.

The Slippery Slope of Silencings

Yes, guys like this pick on other men's books too, and people of both genders pop up at events to hold forth on irrelevant things and conspiracy theories, but the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is, in my experience, gendered. Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men.

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the trajectory of American politics since 2001 was shaped by, say, the inability to hear Coleen Rowley, the FBI woman who issued those early warnings about al-Qaeda, and it was certainly shaped by a Bush administration to which you couldn't tell anything, including that Iraq had no links to al-Qaeda and no WMDs, or that the war was not going to be a "cakewalk." (Even male experts couldn't penetrate the fortress of their smugness.)

Arrogance might have had something to do with the war, but this syndrome is a war that nearly every woman faces every day, a war within herself too, a belief in her superfluity, an invitation to silence, one from which a fairly nice career as a writer (with a lot of research and facts correctly deployed) has not entirely freed me. After all, there was a moment there when I was willing to let Mr. Important and his overweening confidence bowl over my more shaky certainty.

Don't forget that I've had a lot more confirmation of my right to think and speak than most women, and I've learned that a certain amount of self-doubt is a good tool for correcting, understanding, listening, and progressing -- though too much is paralyzing and total self-confidence produces arrogant idiots, like the ones who have governed us since 2001. There's a happy medium between these poles to which the genders have been pushed, a warm equatorial belt of give and take where we should all meet.

More extreme versions of our situation exist in, for example, those Middle Eastern countries where women's testimony has no legal standing; so that a woman can't testify that she was raped without a male witness to counter the male rapist. Which there rarely is.

Credibility is a basic survival tool. When I was very young and just beginning to get what feminism was about and why it was necessary, I had a boyfriend whose uncle was a nuclear physicist. One Christmas, he was telling -- as though it were a light and amusing subject -- how a neighbor's wife in his suburban bomb-making community had come running out of her house naked in the middle of the night screaming that her husband was trying to kill her. How, I asked, did you know that he wasn't trying to kill her? He explained, patiently, that they were respectable middle-class people. Therefore, her-husband-trying-to-kill-her was simply not a credible explanation for her fleeing the house yelling that her husband was trying to kill her. That she was crazy, on the other hand....

Even getting a restraining order -- a fairly new legal tool -- requires acquiring the credibility to convince the courts that some guy is a menace and then getting the cops to enforce it. Restraining orders often don't work anyway. Violence is one way to silence people, to deny their voice and their credibility, to assert your right to control over their right to exist. About three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses in this country. It's one of the main causes of death in pregnant women in the U.S. At the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has been the necessity of making women credible and audible.

I tend to believe that women acquired the status of human beings when these kinds of acts started to be taken seriously, when the big things that stop us and kill us were addressed legally from the mid-1970s on; well after, that is, my birth. And for anyone about to argue that workplace sexual intimidation isn't a life or death issue, remember that Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach, age 20, was apparently killed by her higher-ranking colleague last winter while she was waiting to testify that he raped her. The burned remains of her pregnant body were found in the fire pit in his backyard in December.

Being told that, categorically, he knows what he's talking about and she doesn't, however minor a part of any given conversation, perpetuates the ugliness of this world and holds back its light. After my book Wanderlust came out in 2000, I found myself better able to resist being bullied out of my own perceptions and interpretations. On two occasions around that time, I objected to the behavior of a man, only to be told that the incidents hadn't happened at all as I said, that I was subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest -- in a nutshell, female.

Most of my life, I would have doubted myself and backed down. Having public standing as a writer of history helped me stand my ground, but few women get that boost, and billions of women must be out there on this six-billion-person planet being told that they are not reliable witnesses to their own lives, that the truth is not their property, now or ever. This goes way beyond Men Explaining Things, but it's part of the same archipelago of arrogance.

Men explain things to me, still. And no man has ever apologized for explaining, wrongly, things that I know and they don't. Not yet, but according to the actuarial tables, I may have another forty-something years to live, more or less, so it could happen. Though I'm not holding my breath.

Women Fighting on Two Fronts

A few years after the idiot in Aspen, I was in Berlin giving a talk when the Marxist writer Tariq Ali invited me out to a dinner that included a male writer and translator and three women a little younger than me who would remain deferential and mostly silent throughout the dinner. Tariq was great. Perhaps the translator was peeved that I insisted on playing a modest role in the conversation, but when I said something about how Women Strike for Peace, the extraordinary, little-known antinuclear and antiwar group founded in 1961, helped bring down the communist-hunting House Committee on Un-American Activities, HUAC, Mr. Very Important II sneered at me. HUAC, he insisted, didn't exist by the early 1960s and, anyway, no women's group played such a role in HUAC's downfall. His scorn was so withering, his confidence so aggressive, that arguing with him seemed a scary exercise in futility and an invitation to more insult.

I think I was at nine books at that point, including one that drew from primary documents and interviews about Women Strike for Peace. But explaining men still assume I am, in some sort of obscene impregnation metaphor, an empty vessel to be filled with their wisdom and knowledge. A Freudian would claim to know what they have and I lack, but intelligence is not situated in the crotch -- even if you can write one of Virginia Woolf's long mellifluous musical sentences about the subtle subjugation of women in the snow with your willie. Back in my hotel room, I Googled a bit and found that Eric Bentley in his definitive history of the House Committee on Un-American Activities credits Women Strike for Peace with "striking the crucial blow in the fall of HUAC's Bastille." In the early 1960s.

So I opened an essay for the Nation with this interchange, in part as a shout-out to one of the more unpleasant men who have explained things to me: Dude, if you're reading this, you're a carbuncle on the face of humanity and an obstacle to civilization. Feel the shame.

The battle with Men Who Explain Things has trampled down many women -- of my generation, of the up-and-coming generation we need so badly, here and in Pakistan and Bolivia and Java, not to speak of the countless women who came before me and were not allowed into the laboratory, or the library, or the conversation, or the revolution, or even the category called human.

After all, Women Strike for Peace was founded by women who were tired of making the coffee and doing the typing and not having any voice or decision-making role in the antinuclear movement of the 1950s. Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being. Things have certainly gotten better, but this war won't end in my lifetime. I'm still fighting it, for myself certainly, but also for all those younger women who have something to say, in the hope that they will get to say it.

Rebecca Solnit is the author of 15 books, including two due out next year, and a regular contributor to TomDispatch.com. She lives in San Francisco, is from kindergarten to graduate school a product of the once-robust California public educational system, and her book A Paradise Built in Hell is the One City/One Book choice of the San Francisco Public Library this fall.

An Exploratory Study of the Categorical Versus Spectrum Nature of Sexual Orientation (The Journal of Sex Research)

This is an open access article from the current issue of The Journal of Sex Research 51(4) 2014 - Special Issue: Annual Review of Sex Research Special Issue. From the abstract:

Sexual identity and sexual orientation label were strongly related at the ends of the sexual spectrum, less so in the middle. Men were nearly as nonexclusive as women. Study results supported the perspective that sexual orientation is a continuously distributed individual characteristic.

From this it appears that sexual identity and sexual orientation are only strongly related at either end of the spectrum, which is what one would expect.

In choosing sexual identity, the participants were given fewer choices than they now have on Facebook (in alphabetical order): Bicurious, Bisexual, Gay/lesbian, Mostly gay/lesbian, Mostly straight, Straight, Questioning, Queer, Unlabeled, and Other (please specify). Here there are 10 choices, while Facebook offers 51 options. 

The nine choices for sexual orientation are also somewhat limiting:

1. Exclusively Straight =Only sexually attracted to the opposite sex; 
2. Straight =Nearly always sexually attracted to the opposite sex. Rarely attracted to the same sex; 
3. Mostly Straight =Mostly sexually attracted to the opposite sex. Occasionally attracted to the same sex; 
4. Bisexual-Leaning Straight =Primarily sexually attracted to the opposite sex and definitely attracted to same sex; 
5. Bisexual =More or less equally sexually attracted to opposite sex and same sex; 
6. Bisexual-Leaning Gay/Lesbian =Primarily sexually attracted to the same sex and definitely attracted to the opposite sex; 
7. Mostly Gay/Lesbian =Mostly sexually attracted to the same sex. Occasionally attracted to the opposite sex; 
8. Gay/Lesbian =Nearly always sexually attracted to the same sex. Rarely attracted to the opposite sex;
9. Exclusively Gay/Lesbian =Only sexually attracted to the same sex.

All of these choices assume the gender binary that the choices for sexual identity often seek to reject - as far as the research is concerned, this seems problematic.

Anyway, it's worth the read, even if all you end up doing is arguing with it, as I did.

Full Citation:
Savin-Williams, RC. (2014, Feb 21). An Exploratory Study of the Categorical Versus Spectrum Nature of Sexual Orientation. The Journal of Sex Research; 51(4): 446-453. DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2013.871691

An Exploratory Study of the Categorical Versus Spectrum Nature of Sexual Orientation

~ Ritch C. Savin-Williams

Abstract

This exploratory study investigated the nature of sexual orientation (categorical or spectrum) by assessing the relative ability of sexual and romantic indicators to be predicted by sexual orientation labels. Young adults from a variety of community and college venues (N =292) reported their sexual orientation label on a 9-point scale; from a 10-item list, their sexual identity; and the percentage of their sexual attraction, fantasy, genital contact, infatuation, and romantic relationship directed to males and females. Although the five indicators were significantly intercorrelated and sexual orientation labels predicted each indicator, discrepancies existed across indicators in relationship to sexual orientation (highest for attraction, lowest for romantic relationship). Sexual identity and sexual orientation label were strongly related at the ends of the sexual spectrum, less so in the middle. Men were nearly as nonexclusive as women. Study results supported the perspective that sexual orientation is a continuously distributed individual characteristic.

Introduction

Sexual orientation is defined as an internal mechanism that directs a person's sexual and romantic disposition toward females, males, or both, to varying degrees (LeVay & Baldwin, 2012). It is manifested by a variety of indicators, including physiological arousal, erotic desire, sexual attraction, sexual fantasy, infatuation, genital behavior, romantic relationship, and public and private sexual identity (Sell, 1997). These indicators have been used to assess sexual orientation, either in terms of discrete categories (heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual) or as existing along a continuum from exclusively to the opposite sex to exclusively to the same sex, with degrees of nonexclusivity in between. Although investigators frequently theoretically accept and empirically assess sexual orientation as if it exists along this continuum (a 5– or 7–point Kinsey-like scale), in practice they usually place research participants into one of the three discrete, mutually exclusive groups. This dissolution of the sexual spectrum into three categories is usually undertaken for methodological or practical considerations (e.g., small sample size in nonheterosexual groups), although recently also for theoretical reasons, especially for males (Bailey, 2009).

The spectrum perspective was noted nearly 30 years ago by McConaghy (1987), who argued that sexuality exists along a continuum with degrees of nonexclusivity in between heterosexuality and homosexuality. A decade later, in an invited critique of sex research, McConaghy (1999) concluded that this category versus continuum debate regarding the nature of sexual orientation remained one of the major unresolved issues in sex science, reflected in part by conflicting findings regarding whether sexual orientation consists of taxa or is a matter of degrees (Gangestad, Bailey, & Martin, 2000; Haslam, 1997). Although Kinsey (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948) and others (e.g., Klein, Sepekoff, & Wolf, 1985) believed that sexual orientation is continuous, Haslam (1997) noted that the Kinsey Scale, a 7-point scale to assess sexual orientation, more often than not has been used as a categorical measure. Because most people tend to congregate at the extreme ends of the Kinsey Scale, investigators use this pattern as justification to dichotomize research participants as either heterosexual or gay/lesbian; all extraneous (nonexclusive) orientations are labeled bisexual, although frequently grouped with gays/lesbians.

The position assumed here is that dissolving sexual orientation into three groups distorts our understanding of sexuality. The prevalence of unacknowledged in-between sexualities (between heterosexual and homosexual) can be substantial, sufficiently such that they should not be grouped with another set or eliminated from consideration. For example, research over the past decade has revealed that mostly heterosexuals (Kinsey Scale 1) show a unique physiological and behavior profile of sexual and romantic characteristics that distinguishes them as a separate sexual orientation group in between heterosexuals and substantial bisexuals (Savin-Williams, Rieger, & Rosenthal, 2013; Savin-Williams & Vrangalova, 2013). Indeed, there are more mostly heterosexual men and women than bisexual, mostly homosexual, and gay/lesbian individuals combined (Savin-Williams, Joyner, & Rieger, 2012). A second example is reports of the behavioral and attraction diversity within the bisexual group (Kinsey Scale 2 to 4) (Rodríguez Rust, 2002; Taywaditep & Stokes, 1998; Weinberg, Williams, & Pryor, 1994; Weinrich & Klein, 2002), suggesting that the label bisexual itself covers multiple subgroups. Third, in a nationally representative study of young adults there were nearly as many or more mostly homosexual (Kinsey Scale 5) individuals than male bisexuals or lesbians (Chandra, Mosher, & Copen, 2011), with a pattern of sexual attraction and sex partners distinct from adjacent bisexuals and gays/lesbians (Vrangalova & Savin-Williams, 2012). Finally, a significant minority of heterosexual (Kinsey Scale 0) and homosexual (Kinsey Scale 6) individuals report a small degree of attraction, fantasy, and/or behavior toward their less preferred sex and a majority of those with at least some same-sex attraction do not identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual (Ellis, Robb, & Burke, 2005; Hoburg, Konik, Williams, & Crawford, 2004; Morales Knight & Hope, 2012; Preciado, Johnson, & Peplau, 2013; Savin-Williams et al., 2012; Vrangalova & Savin-Williams, 2010).

The aims of this study were to provide data on whether dimensional aspects of sexual orientation exist by exploring the varying indicators that have been identified by previous research. Although these sexual orientation indicators are usually highly intercorrelated and are thus said to measure the same construct, this study explored whether discrepancies exist within and across indicators such that individuals can be distributed not in a trifurcated system as straight, bisexual, or gay/lesbian but along a sexual orientation spectrum. The research questions follow:

RQ1: Which indicators (attraction, fantasy, sex behavior, infatuation, romantic relationship) have the strongest relationship to sexual orientation labels?
RQ2: Is there a distribution of these indicators that significantly differentiates sexual orientation along a continuum from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality?
RQ3: Is sexual identity related to sexual orientation?

Given considerable age differences in attitudes toward and the understanding and expression of sexuality (Jones & Cox, 2010; Savin-Williams, 2005), the investigation was limited to the most recent, millennial, cohort—those ages 18 to 32 years (Horovitz, 2012). Whether findings generalize to younger and older age groups was not addressed in this study. Because male sexual orientation is frequently construed as rigid, stable, and exclusive and female sexual orientation as flexible, fluid, and nonexclusive (Bailey, 2009; Baumeister, 2000; Diamond, 2008; Peplau, 2001), all analyses are presented here separately by sex. Finally, because of the recruitment strategy to solicit a range of sexual orientations, the sample is not generalizable to a larger population that would be necessary to resolve the categorical versus spectrum dispute.

Method

Participants 

Of 325 individuals who responded to advertisements about a study on gender and sexual orientation, 146 men (mean age = 21.7, SD = 3.4) and 146 women (mean age = 21.7, SD = 3.4) were 32 years or younger (90% of the total) and thus were included in analyses reported here. Nearly two-thirds were currently in a university, community college, or trade school (66% men, 61% women); the rest either had no further formal education after high school (10%, 9%), had graduated from college and were currently working (11%, 16%), were enrolled in postgraduate work (7%, 8%), or had received a graduate degree (4%, 6%). Although the most common ethnicity was Caucasian (62% of men and 66% of women), the sample reflected a range of ethnicities, including mixed ethnicities (13%, 11%), Asian (8%, 11%), African American (8%, 6%), Hispanic (6%, 6%), and Native American Indian (3%, 0%).

Measures

On a computer-based survey, participants completed a 20-page questionnaire that included demographic information (age, sex, educational level, ethnicity) and other measures used in this study.

Sexual orientation label

Sexual orientation label was assessed with an expanded version of the traditional Kinsey Scale (i.e., two responses were added: exclusively straight and exclusively gay/lesbian). Participants responded to a prompt, “Please check the one that most accurately reflects your current understanding of yourself,” by checking one of nine responses: Exclusively Straight =Only sexually attracted to the opposite sex; Straight =Nearly always sexually attracted to the opposite sex. Rarely attracted to the same sex; Mostly Straight =Mostly sexually attracted to the opposite sex. Occasionally attracted to the same sex; Bisexual-Leaning Straight =Primarily sexually attracted to the opposite sex and definitely attracted to same sex; Bisexual =More or less equally sexually attracted to opposite sex and same sex; Bisexual-Leaning Gay/Lesbian =Primarily sexually attracted to the same sex and definitely attracted to the opposite sex; Mostly Gay/Lesbian =Mostly sexually attracted to the same sex. Occasionally attracted to the opposite sex; Gay/Lesbian =Nearly always sexually attracted to the same sex. Rarely attracted to the opposite sex; or Exclusively Gay/Lesbian =Only sexually attracted to the same sex. The distribution of men and women along these nine responses is presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Levels of Sexual Orientation Indicators Across Nine Sexual Orientation Labels (Read Down) Label Indicator Exclusive Straight Straight Mostly Straight Bisexual Straight Bisexual Bisexual Gay Mostly Gay Gay Exclusive Gay Statistics* Men (N = 19) (N = 20) (N = 16) (N = 9) (N = 7) (N = 11) (N = 17) (N = 28) (N = 19)  Attract + 0.3 (0–5) 3.1 (0–20) 13.7 (5–33) 40.6 (30–65) 53.4 (36–81) 72.2 (50–83) 88.2 (70–99) 96.5 (80–100) 99.2 (90–100) F = 620.14 (−2.9, 3.5)a (0.0, 6.2)a (10.2, 17.2)b (35.9, 45.2)c (48.2, 58.7)d (68.0, 76.4)e (84.8, 91.6)f (93.9, 99.2)g (96.0, 102.4)g R 2 = .97  Fantasy 0.5 (0–5) 3.3 (0–35) 14.6 (0–46) 59.6 (50–90) 60.6 (39–90) 80.0 (50–99) 90.5 (80–100) 97.4 (75–100) 98.6 (90–100) F = 381.86 (−3.7, 4.6)a (−0.8, 7.3)a (10.1, 19.1)b (34.5, 46.4)c (53.8, 67.4)d (74.6, 85.4)e (86.1, 94.8)f (94.0, 100.8)f (94.5, 102.7)f R 2 = .96  Genital 0.0 (0–0) 0.3 (0–3) 12.4 (0–50) 25.4 (0–71) 67.1 (20–100) 80.9 (20–100) 95.6 (81–100) 98.3 (80–100) 94.7 (4–100) F = 124.84  Behavior (−7.7, 7.7)a (−7.2, 7.7)a (4.5, 20.4)a,b (14.9, 36.0)b (55.2, 79.1)c (71.4, 90.5)c,d (87.7,103.5)d,e (92.2, 104.4)e (87.2,102.1)d,e R 2 = .88  Infatuation 1.5 (0–19) 2.0 (0–10) 12.6 (0–50) 30.8 (9–51) 48.6 (20–100) 81.3 (60–100) 86.0 (70–100) 95.9 (70–100) 98.9 (90–100) F = 296.5 (−3.2, 6.2)a (−2.6, 6.6)a (7.5, 17.7)b (24.0, 37.6)c (40.9, 56.3)d (75.1, 87.4)e (81.1, 90.9)e (92.0, 99.7)f (94.3, 103.6)f R 2 = .94  Romantic 0.8 (0–15) 1.6 (0–20) 3.7 (0–30) 16.4 (0–50) 30.0 (0–60) 69.9 (19–100) 80.2 (54–100) 96.9 (78–100) 94.7 (4–100) F = 122.29  Relationship (−6.5, 8.2)a (−5.6, 8.7)a (−4.1, 11.5)a (6.0, 26.9)a, b (18.2, 41.8)b (60.5, 79.3)c (71.6, 88.9)c (90.8, 103.1)d (87.3,102.0)c,d R 2 = .88 Women (N = 22) (N = 16) (N = 19) (N = 10) (N = 13) (N = 10) (N = 21) (N = 25) (N = 10)  Attract 1.0 (0–5) 2.9 (0–8) 22.7 (9–55) 33.9 (10–71) 55.1 (20–80) 71.4 (50–95) 83.6 (61–95) 95.2 (75–100) 98.4 (90–100) F = 247.8 (−3.4, 5.3)a (−2.1, 8.0)a (18.1, 27.4)b (27.5, 40.3)c (49.5, 60.7)d (65.0, 77.8)e (79.2, 88.0)f (91.1, 99.2)g (92.0, 104.8)g R 2 = .94  Fantasy 0.9 (0–10) 5.3(10–25) 20.8 (10–83) 44.5 (15–70) 55.8 (29–77) 64.3 (0–95) 73.6 (40–95) 93.2 (50–100) 96.4 (90–100) F = 95.32 (−5.7, 7.4)a (−2.4, 3.0)a (13.8, 27.8)b (34.8, 54.2)c (47.3, 64.4)c, d (54.6, 74.0)d, e (66.9, 80.3)e (87.1, 99.3)f (86.7, 106.1)f R 2 = .85  Genital 0 (0–0) 0.3 (0–5) 11.4 (0–60) 20.3 (0–100) 25.1 (0–60) 65.8 (0–100) 78.2 (0–100) 97.0 (50–100) 100 (100–100) F = 64.29  Behavior (−9.2, 9.2)a (−10, 10.6)a (1.7, 21.1)a, b (6.7, 34.0)a, b (13.7, 36.5)b (51.2, 80.3)c (69.0, 87.3)c (88.4, 105.6)d (87.0,113)c, d R 2 = .80  Infatuation 1.0 (0–10) 4.5 (0–29) 19.2 (2–50) 41.6 (20–70) 57.8 (40–91) 64.8 (5–100) 87.8 (70–100) 96.2 (80–100) 98.4 (93–100) F = 177.22 (−4.2, 6.1)a (−1.6, 10.6)a (13.6, 24.7)b (33.9, 49.3)c (51.1, 64.6)d (57.1, 72.5)d (82.5, 93.1)e (91.4, 101.1)e (90.7, 106.1)e R 2 = .91  Romantic 0 (0–0) 0.4 (0–5) 7.9 (0–97) 19.6 (0–100) 22.4 (0–60) 60.5 (0–100) 85.7 (10–100) 95.1 (25–100) 100 (100–100) F = 74.67  Relationship (−8.5, 8.5)a (−9.4, 10.2)a (−1.6, 17.4)a,b (6.5,32.6)a,b (11.1, 33.7)b (46.7, 74.3)c (76.8, 94.7)d (87.1, 103.1)d (87.6, 112.4)d R 2 = .82 Note. +First line = mean percentage (range) of sexual indicator for each sexual orientation label. Second line = lower and upper 95% confidence levels; sexual orientation labels in row that share same letter do not significantly (p < .05) differ from each other. *ANOVA for each indicator across sexual orientation labels at the p < .0001. Note. +First line = mean percentage (range) of sexual indicator for each sexual orientation label. Second line = lower and upper 95% confidence levels; sexual orientation labels in row that share same letter do not significantly (p < .05) differ from each other. *ANOVA for each indicator across sexual orientation labels at the p < .0001.

Sexual orientation indicators 

Participants indicated their current sexual attraction, sexual fantasy, genital contact (“on the part of one or both of you”), infatuation/crush, and romantic relationship (“dating, both serious and not so serious”) directed to males and to females.

Sexual identity 

Embedded within the demographic section was the following question: “What is your sexual identity (please check one)?” Responses included (in alphabetical order): Bicurious, Bisexual, Gay/lesbian, Mostly gay/lesbian, Mostly straight, Straight, Questioning, Queer, Unlabeled, and Other (please specify).

Procedure 

In 2010 a study on gender behavior and sexual attraction was advertised in various locations in a rural, college-town community. Advertisements promoting the study were posted on several university Web sites and electronic mailing lists. To enhance recruitment of nonheterosexuals and noncollege students, advertisements were placed on a local Facebook page catering to sexual minority populations; a Craigslist Web forum where men sought both men and women for sexual reasons; and mailing lists for university sororities, fraternities, and residence halls known for their open acceptance of nonheterosexual individuals. Potential volunteers were encouraged to share the lab's e-mail address with others.

Participants contacted the lab by e-mail, and an appointment was arranged. The survey portion of the study was administered online using a Web surveyor tool (Qualtrics) in a confidential setting on a lab computer. The survey assessed various aspects of sexual orientation, personality, and gender nonconformity and took approximately 20 minutes to complete. Participants were compensated for their time and debriefed. The university's Institutional Review Board for Human Participants approved the study.

Results

Sexual Orientation Indicators 

The five sexual orientation indicators were significantly intercorrelated for men (rs = .91 to .98, all ps < .0001) and women (rs = .81 to .96, all ps < .0001). A multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated that the strength of these relationships was significantly different among indicators, F (8, 125) = 8.75, p < .0001 for men and F (8, 125) = 6.85, p < .0001 for women. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was subsequently conducted, and each of the five indicators was significantly predicted by sexual orientation label for both sexes, with effect sizes (R-Squares) ranging from .80 to .97 (Table 1). Sexual attraction most strongly differentiated mean levels across sexual orientation labels and it produced the most (N = 7) nonoverlapping confidence intervals of group means (Table 1). Fantasy and infatuation were nearly as effective; genital contact and romantic relationship were slightly less effective.

Based on their overlapping 95% confidence intervals of means, all indicators failed to distinguish exclusively straight from straight and exclusively gay/lesbian from gay/lesbian labels (Table 1). By contrast, for both sexes, sharp increases in same-sex sexuality occurred between mostly straights and bisexual-leaning straights in attraction, fantasy, and infatuation, and between bisexuals and bisexual-leaning gays/lesbians in romantic relationship. Among men, a dramatic increase (+40%) in same-sex genital contact occurred between bisexual-leaning straights and bisexuals; among women, between bisexuals and bisexual-leaning lesbians. Despite mean group differences that were frequently significant, each of the nine sexual orientation labels overlapped (on all five indicators) in its range with at least one of its adjacent labels.

Across indicators, R-Square values were slightly higher in men than women. A MANOVA indicated that the general relationship of orientation indicators with orientation label was marginally stronger in men than women, F (8, 250) = 1.90, p = .06. The MANOVA also indicated that the sexes differed significantly in how individual indicators related to sexual orientation labels, F (8, 250) = 6.27, p < .0001 (Table 1). This sex difference was most apparent in contrasting adjacent sexual orientation labels along the continuum from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality (see next section).

Comparisons of Adjacent Sexual Orientation Labels 

Exclusively straights’ mean level of same-sex sexuality was zero only for genital contact (both sexes) and romantic relationship (women). On all indicators, straights were slightly more same-sex oriented than exclusively straights and less so than mostly straights. It was among mostly straights (both sexes) in which same-sex sexuality had its first considerable increase (except for romantic relationship). With the exception of genital contact, mostly straight women were more same-sex oriented than mostly straight men.

Another relatively large increase in same-sex sexuality occurred among bisexual-leaning straights (both sexes). In particular, bisexual-leaning straight men differed from bisexual men primarily in having substantially fewer same-sex genital contacts and romantic relationships. Whereas one-quarter of bisexual women reported sex with a woman, two-thirds of bisexual men reported sex with a man. Less than one-third of all bisexuals reported a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex.
On all indicators, there was also a dramatic jump in same-sex sexuality between bisexual men and bisexual-leaning gay men. The increase in same-sex sexuality was less pronounced between bisexual women and bisexual-leaning lesbians, except in genital contact and romantic relationship. For both sexes, on nearly all indicators, bisexual-leaning gays/lesbians were closer to mostly gays/lesbians than they were to bisexuals, and mostly gays/lesbians were closer to gays/lesbians than to bisexual-leaning gays/lesbians. What most distinguished mostly gay men from gays was their significantly fewer same-sex crushes and romantic relationships; among mostly lesbians from lesbians, significantly fewer reports of same-sex attraction, fantasy, and genital contact.

The distinction between gays/lesbians and exclusively gays/lesbians mirrored findings from the heterosexual end of the spectrum. The two groups generally did not differ on mean indicator scores, and only on genital contact and romantic relationship among women were the means 100% for exclusively gays/lesbians.

Sexual Identity
 
Sexual identity labels corresponded to sexual orientation labels for both men and women (descriptive data in Table 2). Agreement was most evident at the ends of the sexual orientation spectrum, with over 90% of exclusively straights and exclusively gays/lesbians identifying as straight or gay/lesbian, respectively. Although the majority of the middle five sexual orientation labels and identities matched, a large minority of the nonexclusive labels incorporated a range of identities. For example, mostly straights by sexual orientation label identified as straight, bicurious, bisexual, queer, or unlabeled; and mostly gays/lesbians by sexual orientation identified as bisexual, queer, gay/lesbian, unlabeled, or other. Neither sex was more likely to use nontraditional sexual identities or to mismatch their sexual orientation and sexual identity.

Label Identity Exclusive Straight Straight Mostly Straight Bisexual Straight Bisexual Bisexual Gay Mostly Gay Gay Exclusive Gay Straight  Men 95% 80% 6%  Women 100% 88% 5% Mostly straight  Men 20% 50% 11%  Women 13% 74% 20% Bicurious  Men 13% 11% 14%  Women 21% 10% 15% Bisexual  Men 5% 13% 67% 86% 55% 12% 4%  Women 0% 0% 40% 46% 60% 10% 0% Mostly gay  Men 18% 71% 29%  Women 10% 76% 12% Gay/lesbian  Men 6% 68% 100%  Women 5% 68% 80% Queer  Men 13% 11% 0% 18% 0% 0% 0%  Women 0% 10% 23% 20% 5% 20% 20% Unlabeled  Men 6% 0% 0% 9% 6%  Women 10% 8% 10% 5% Questioning  Men 0%  Women 10% Other  Men 0% 6%  Women 8% 0%

Table 2. Sexual Identities Among the Nine Sexual Orientation Labels

The range of associated sexual identities and orientations was broad in several circumstances. Bicurious-identified individuals labeled themselves as mostly straight (the majority), bisexual-leaning straight, or bisexual. Queer-identified individuals (primarily women) were any orientation other than exclusively straight or straight. The 10 unlabeled, questioning, or “other” individuals were also in the middle of the continuum, populating every sexual orientation label except for the four straight and gay/lesbian labels.

Discussion

Answering research question 1, each sexual orientation indicator was significantly predicted by sexual orientation labels. Given that the definition of the sexual orientation label included the term sexual attraction, this was not surprising for the sexual attraction indicator. Indeed, sexual attraction has been a common and reliable method of determining sexual orientation, although it is not necessarily clear to some research participants what is meant by sexual attraction (Austin, Conron, Patel, & Freedner, 2007). As a single measure of sexual orientation, however, sexual attraction remains superior to others, although this might depend on the specific research question (e.g., sexual behavior for HIV research) (Savin-Williams, 2006).

Sexual orientation labels were the least good predictors (yet significant) of genital contact and romantic relationship—possibly because engaging in sexual behavior and romance can be constrained by a number of factors not directly related to sexual orientation (e.g., availability of a willing partner, age, virginity pledge). Haslam (1997) previously warned investigators to focus less on overt sexual conduct to assess sexual orientation and to rely more on dispositional variables that are continuous, such as attraction and fantasy. In this study, however, genital contact and romance remained reasonably good indicators of sexual orientation. Whether millennial participants are more likely than previous generations to express their dispositional characteristics through sexual and romantic conduct is worthy of future investigation.

In regard to research question 2, there was a clear distribution of sexual orientation indicators along a spectrum with little evidence that participants coalesced into two or three sexual orientation labels or identities. Depending on the indicator, they differentiated themselves into labels ranging in size from seven (attraction) to four (romantic relationship). Although these labels were statistically distinct, they did not match up on all indicators. For example, bisexual women formed a unique group on attraction, but they did not on the other four indicators (e.g., distinct from bisexual-leaning straights and bisexual-leaning lesbians on fantasy). A second indication of the noncategorical nature of sexual orientation was the considerable overlapping ranges within the sexual orientation labels across indicators. Thus, although sexual orientation labels had a characteristic mean level of an indicator, each often shared its range with several other adjacent labels.

In regard to research question 3, the use of sexual identity to designate a sexual orientation label was generally accurate on the extreme ends of the continuum but less so among nonexclusive individuals (the middle of the continuum). For example, bisexually identified individuals could be of any sexual orientation label except heterosexual or exclusively gay/lesbian; a queer individual could be of any sexual orientation label except exclusively heterosexual or heterosexual. Despite the popular appeal and simplicity of these terms, participants were consistent with the lack of cultural consensus regarding the appropriate sexual identity names that should be attached to nonheterosexual and nonhomosexual individuals. Supportive of this position, youth in one study reported that a measure of sexual identity with the options heterosexual, bisexual, gay/lesbian, and unsure was the most difficult to answer, largely because most preferred an assessment tool that provided intermediate options which reflected their experience of feeling between categories (Austin et al., 2007). Thus, to avoid ambiguity, researchers should use sexual orientation labels rather than sexual identities.

There were relatively few sex differences. Although correlations between sexual orientation labels and indicators were slightly higher among men than women, with women displaying marginally lower boundaries between sexual orientation labels, many men occupied nonexclusive labels, counter to previous research (Bailey, 2009). In terms of sex differences, men experienced marked increases in same-sex genital contact and women in same-sex romantic infatuation within the bisexual range (bisexual straight, bisexual, bisexual gay/lesbian). Perhaps this reflects the greater significance of romantic indicators among women and genital contact among men to switch from heterosexuality toward homosexuality. For both sexes, however, romantic relationship was the one indicator that lagged most in becoming same-sex oriented, with a marked increase occurring among bisexual-leaning gays/lesbians. To have a small degree of same-sex attraction and fantasy, to develop crushes on another girl or boy, or to engage in genital contact with someone of the same sex and maintain some degree of heterosexuality is perhaps possible for this millennial cohort, but to fall in love and have a romantic relationship with another girl or boy likely reflects a more substantial personal and public marker of one's same-sex sexuality.

An alternative possibility is that although sexual and romantic orientations are identical for most individuals, for some individuals the two operate somewhat independently of each other, especially in their timing of expression. One study found that youth clearly distinguish between their sexual orientation (a physiological, uncontrollable desire for a specific gender, person, or attribute of a person) and their romantic orientation (being or wanting to be in love with a specific gender) (Friedman et al., 2004). Lags in the association between romantic relationship and sexual orientation might confuse some individuals as to the nature of their sexuality. Future investigations should assess separately sexual and romantic orientations, especially regarding intraindividual congruence.

One novel aspect of the study was the expansion of Kinsey's original 7-point scale to nine by adding one point to each end of the continuum. This decision was based on the considerable data that not all heterosexual and homosexual individuals are exclusive to their preferred sex on all indicators (Vrangalova & Savin-Williams, 2012). In the present study, although separating exclusively heterosexual and gay/lesbian from merely being heterosexual or gay/lesbian did not result in distinctive groups, the latter groups were slightly less exclusive than the former. Yet despite the inclusion of the term exclusively, not all such identified individuals were so restricted. Exclusively straight and lesbian women were only exclusive in genital behavior and romantic relationship, exclusively straight men were only exclusive for genital contact, and exclusively gay men were not exclusive on any indicator. Based on these findings, just as some gays/lesbians have nonpreferred sex/romantic interests, so do some heterosexuals.

Finally, in regard to bisexuality, it is difficult to disagree with Haslam (1997, p. 868) that bisexuality “may simply be a matter of people acting in accordance with their continuously graded dispositions.” Construed in this manner, the broader term bisexuality is less a category and more a continuous range of relative degrees of attraction, fantasy, infatuation, genital contact, and/or romance toward women and men—with variability across individuals and indicators. In the data reported here, one bisexual person might be nonexclusive in fantasy and behavior, while another might be nonexclusive in infatuation and romance; a bisexual might be 80% or 40% oriented toward the opposite or the same sex with variability dependent on the indicator. Thus, in addition to indicating nonexclusivity, bisexuality has further meaning when it is specified in terms of its indicators.

The most important limitation of the present study is that participants were not drawn from a representative sample and thus results are not necessarily generalizable to other populations. Participants were specifically recruited for a study on sexuality and to enhance diversity in sexual orientation. In particular, no general conclusions should be reached regarding the prevalence of sexual orientation labels or a sexual spectrum in the larger population or to other age groups. Neither is it known if participants had a shared understanding of the sexual orientation indicators, not only in terms of definition but also in intensity, quality, and frequency. For example, a male in a sexual fantasy might be a peripheral figure or a central component necessary to maximize the intensity of the fantasy. Genital contact includes not only touching someone's genitals but also intercourse, with perhaps considerably different motivations and meanings for individuals. Partners might differ in terms of whether their relationship constitutes a romance. Whenever studies can afford detailed questions, more specific information regarding the meaning, frequency, intensity, and quality of sexuality should be asked. In addition, given the nature of data collection and the limited number of participants, potential differences related to race, ethnicity, and class were not addressed.

Based on data presented here, heterosexual, bisexual, and gay/lesbian labels do not constitute the universe of sexual orientations. Although the usual procedure when sexual orientation indicators are highly intercorrelated is to create a single composite score, this process disguises variability and complexity within the sexual orientation construct. The results of this study indicate that sexual orientation is a continuously distributed characteristic of individuals, and all decisions to categorize it into discrete units, regardless of how many, are ultimately external impositions placed on individuals’ experiences.

Acknowledgments

The author is indebted to Dr. Gerulf Rieger for statistical assistance and comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Notes

+First line = mean percentage (range) of sexual indicator for each sexual orientation label. Second line = lower and upper 95% confidence levels; sexual orientation labels in row that share same letter do not significantly (p < .05) differ from each other.
*ANOVA for each indicator across sexual orientation labels at the p < .0001.

References are available at The Journal of Sex Research site.