Sins of the Father: Implicit and Explicit attitudes towards children of divorce

1
Sex Differences in the Specificity of Sexual
Behavior, Fantasy, and Romantic Attraction
Jordan Rullo, B.A. 1 Kelly Kinnish, Ph.D.
2 Donald Strassberg, Ph.D. 1
1Department of Psychology, University of Utah,
Salt Lake City, Utah 2 Miami-Dade Regional
Juvenile Detention Center, Miami, Florida
Participant Demographics
Participant Sex, Age, and Sexual Orientation
119 heterosexual women
(age M 45) 163
heterosexual men (age M 46)
158 lesbian women (age M 47)
181 gay men (age M 46)
Ages range from 36 60 years old.
Race 89 Caucasian
Education 94 attended some college
Population of Residence
20 live in cities of 500,000 or more
30 from towns fewer
than 50,000 13
from towns of less than 10,000

METHODS Self-Report Questionnaire Recruitment
Nation-wide
Advertisements in print publications, community
groups, online,
e-mail, discussion lists,
snowballing Measures of Sexual
Orientation Current categorical sexual
orientation 1. What is the term you believe most
accurately represents you? Heterosexual
Bisexual Gay/Lesbian
Other 2. Dimensional
definitions of sexual orientation How would
you rate yourself on the above scale with regard
to _________ in the past 12 months?
Sexual fantasy
Romantic Attractions (e.g., in love,
crushes) Sexual behavior
(sexual acts)
INTRODUCTION For most men, sexual arousal
appears to be quite category-specific.
Heterosexual men demonstrate far greater arousal
(subjectively or objectively assessed) to females
than they do to males while homosexual men show
just the opposite pattern (i.e., more arousal to
males). In contrast, womens sexual arousal,
particularly when assessed plethysmographically,
appears to be far less category-specific,
irrespective of the womans self-identified
sexual orientation (Chivers et al., 2004). This
complicated pattern of category-specificity in
mens and womens sexual arousal was evaluated
further in the present study. Specifically, we
explored the utility of retrospectively reported
sexual fantasies, behaviors, and romantic
attractions as indices of sexual interest among
men and women of all sexual orientations. We
tested the hypothesis that, across at least some
measures, womens sexual interest will be less
category-specific (i.e., less consistent with
their self-identified sexual orientation) than
that of men. Specifically, we wanted to know
1. To what degree does an individuals recent
sexual fantasies, sexual behaviors
and romantic attractions relate to
their categorical, self-identified, sexual
orientation? 2. Are there any sex
differences in these relationships?
Results
Category-Specific Romantic Attraction
Category-Specific Sexual Behavior
Category-Specific Sexual Fantasy
For both gay and lesbian participants, about 95
reported sexual fantasies consistent with their
categorical self-identified sexual orientation.
Heterosexual men demonstrated the same pattern
as gays and lesbians about 90 reported sexual
fantasies that were heterosexual. In contrast,
only 75 of heterosexual women reported sexual
fantasies that were heterosexual in nature.
This difference between heterosexual men and
women was statistically significant (p lt .001).
Gays and lesbians romantic attractions showed a
virtually identical pattern to that demonstrated
with sexual fantasy. That is, about 95 of both
gay and lesbian participants reported that their
romantic attractions were to same sex people.
As with sexual fantasies, about 95 of
heterosexual men reported romantic attractions
only to women. Heterosexual women reported
somewhat lower category-consistency, with 87
reporting romantic attraction only to men. The
difference between heterosexual men and women was
statistically significant (p .001).
For all groups, sexual behavior was quite
category-consistent between 94 (for the gays
and lesbians) and 99 (for the heterosexuals)
reporting orientation-consistent behavior.
There were no statistically significant sex
differences for sexual behavior.