Women’s implicit preferences reveal surprisingly high levels of gynephilia

[Trionyx]

In an interesting study looking at people’s attraction to members of the same sex, it was found that women’s implicit attraction to women was far greater than their explicit attraction and was also greater than previously assumed. It was also far greater than men’s implicit attraction to men. This was found across many cultures but they admit that the study was skewed towards younger women.

https://www.psypost.org/womens-implicit-preferences-reveal-surprisingly-high-levels-of-gynephilia/

To me this makes sense. I believe that women generally make more same-sex friendships than men do and are more comfortable with physical gestures of friendship such as hugs, handholding and kissing with other women than men are with other men.

Some may call this a “duh, that’s obvious” moment but I believe it can account for the number of stories here that describe close heteroidentified female friends who drift into full lesbian sexual relationships.

 

[LoneMilf]

That's a very interesting article - thank you
I found it particularly interesting how they argued for applying Darwinian selection at the family level instead of only in individuals

 

[Dearelliot]

That's because ladies are prettier, more huggable, smellable , kissable, lickable, sweeter, and have such nice soft parts.

 

[Scareltt]

That was a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing, and posting your thoughts. I don’t think I would have taken a few minutes to read that if you hadn’t made that comment.

 

[Bramblethorn]

In an interesting study looking at people’s attraction to members of the same sex, it was found that women’s implicit attraction to women was far greater than their explicit attraction and was also greater than previously assumed. It was also far greater than men’s implicit attraction to men. This was found across many cultures but they admit that the study was skewed towards younger women.

https://www.psypost.org/womens-implicit-preferences-reveal-surprisingly-high-levels-of-gynephilia/

It also depends on IAT as a measure of attraction, which (as noted in that article) is controversial. The basic idea of IAT is that if somebody mentally associates two things, even subconsciously, then they will be faster at pairing those things in an experiment than they would with two unassociated things. It's not implausible, but especially when measuring something as complex as sexuality I'm reluctant to lean on it too heavily; these findings could equally be reported as "IAT shown to be bad at predicting people's self-described sexuality".

To me this makes sense. I believe that women generally make more same-sex friendships than men do and are more comfortable with physical gestures of friendship such as hugs, handholding and kissing with other women than men are with other men.

Lot of cultural variability in this though, which makes it difficult to separate out what's intrinsic from what's just learned behaviour.

 

[Britva415]

Nutshell for me what “implicit attraction” vs “explicit attraction” means?

 

[LoneMilf]

Explicit attraction: They say they are attracted to women.

Implicit attraction: They indicate it in other ways (e.g. selecting more females when asked which people in a mixed group are attractive)

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I mean it sounds right? But I’ve been conditioned to be wary of papers that contain a healthy dosing of ‘seems’, ‘appears’, and ‘may’ in its conclusions… particularly in an Elsevier journal. interested to see their methodology, though not enough to pay for it

 

[alohadave]

Explicit attraction: They say they are attracted to women.

Implicit attraction: They indicate it in other ways (e.g. selecting more females when asked which people in a mixed group are attractive)

Show vs tell

 

[gunhilltrain]

Look into A.S Neills book Summer Hill. A radical approach to child rearing. He ran a school in England for over 40 years where the kids made up their own rules at a weekly meeting. He claims not one child was ever homosexual or ever had a single pimple in almost 50 years.

Yeah, I read that book years ago. I'm not sure of his qualifications to make those statements or if he just made up or interpreted certain things to fit his ideas. Who knows? (Pimples?)

If I had to weigh in on this (I don't have qualifications either), I'd go with the studies that suggest that orientation is a spectrum or sliding scale, not a series of categories neatly lined up. Kinsey had that view and it seems to fit with whatever I've seen myself. Culture is a huge factor. In a sexually repressive society (I won't name one), people may be so far in the closet that they may not even admit to themselves what they are feeling.

 

[Gamblnluck]

I don't believe women are more friendly to each other. From what I see they might appreciate other women's attitudes a little more. For the most part women compare each other far more than men do. Who has the biggest breasts, the best looking body, hair etc. They tend to want to emulate each other more (look how influential the Kardashians are- that is female driven). The skinny model ideal and wild clothes is far more a female thing and THEN they bitch about how body shaming makes them feel bad.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Is that all their is? They are not more generous or funnier that's for sure. None of those attributes demonstrate a higher capacity for friendship. Woman don't value that in other women

Lots of painting with huge broad strokes happening here in this thread

 

[SimonDoom]

I think I agree with Jackie. I have no opinion on the study or the issue because I don't know enough to know whether to give the study credence. There's so much bad "social science" out there.

My gut tells me it seems plausible that women would be more likely than men to be physically attracted to one another for reasons other than sexual preference, but "gut" doesn't mean much more than "personal bias."

 

[AwkwardMD]

I don't believe women are more friendly to each other. From what I see they might appreciate other women's attitudes a little more. For the most part women compare each other far more than men do. Who has the biggest breasts, the best looking body, hair etc. They tend to want to emulate each other more (look how influential the Kardashians are- that is female driven). The skinny model ideal and wild clothes is far more a female thing and THEN they bitch about how body shaming makes them feel bad.

 

[AwkwardMD]

The Kardashians are products of Kanye, and have everything to do with his eccentricities and tastes. Acting like the Kardashians represent women on any level, even superficially, is like assuming sex is like porn.

 

[AwkwardMD]

I really don't think you should dignify an incel with a response.

“We can all plague and punish one another. Tease him — laugh at him”

My ignore list  was looking a little lonely.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Look into A.S Neills book Summer Hill. A radical approach to child rearing. He ran a school in England for over 40 years where the kids made up their own rules at a weekly meeting. He claims not one child was ever homosexual or ever had a single pimple in almost 50 years.

Well that's bollocks, because I know at least two gay guys that went there.

Research on sexuality is prone to huge confounding factors, especially when trying to tease out what people may be attracted to vs what they admit to being attracted to vs what actions they actually do. Bailey and others tried to measure male arousal with shock treatment and girth measurements - leading to a funny moment where a guy argued with Bailey that he's probably just found out how many guys like electricity on their cocks.

A mate of mine mentioned that research shows that if men haven't had thought about other men and at least wanked over the idea, by the time they're 20, they're very unlikely to later. Whereas women's sexuality seems genuinely to shift over time and fancying another woman for the first time in her 40s or later isnt unusual - and we've probably seen the last of women who weren't admitting it to themselves earlier, because so many more women than men feel able to admit to at least some same-sex attraction if they're bisexual - if they're totally gay it may not be as easy. And there's huge cultural variation, of course.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Look into A.S Neills book Summer Hill. A radical approach to child rearing. He ran a school in England for over 40 years where the kids made up their own rules at a weekly meeting. He claims not one child was ever homosexual

...that he knew of.

 

[StillStunned]

...that he knew of.

"I tried them all, and none of them liked it!"

 

[SimonDoom]

Look into A.S Neills book Summer Hill. A radical approach to child rearing. He ran a school in England for over 40 years where the kids made up their own rules at a weekly meeting. He claims not one child was ever homosexual or ever had a single pimple in almost 50 years.

"My research methods are unimpeachable. I know this because I set them up myself."

 

[Belegon]

I think I agree with Jackie. I have no opinion on the study or the issue because I don't know enough to know whether to give the study credence. There's so much bad "social science" out there.

My gut tells me it seems plausible that women would be more likely than men to be physically attracted to one another for reasons other than sexual preference, but "gut" doesn't mean much more than "personal bias."

I haven't read the article, but on the "going with your gut level," personal experience tends to lead me into some contradictory situations. I do agree with Simon's last sentence. I also wonder how much of things are attributable to the social dynamics that, IMHO, dictate that a same sex attraction between women is more acceptable than one between men. However, the offset of that is that women also become more aggressive towards other attractive women. I base that opinion more on my own experiences. I did almost 30 years in retail of some kind, and I can't recall a single incident where I had a male become upset because they were being helped by a man they felt was more attractive than they were. Never had a man upset over another guy showing too much skin, but can't count the times I received complaints from women about how one of my bank tellers was wearing a blouse that showed too much cleavage. And that's just the explicit mentions. Had far more where the discussion carried a subtext along those lines and it was never actually acknowledged. I think that part of it may be that men are more likely to be judged on things that aren't purely physical. Things like ambition, or income, or even job title.
I do wonder how much of that external focus on physicality is attributable to the competition for male attention. I say that at least partially because I believe I've seen more jealousy and aggressiveness regarding this issue in gay men than straight men. This would seem to indicate that at least part of such behavior has to do with reacting to beliefs about what men are thinking... as in the women upset about the cleavage issue, for example, are likely reacting to how they believe the men around them are reacting.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Historically, females who end up together have received much less social condemnation than men who do the same thing. From 1800 to 1999, Boston marriages, romantic love, and other euphemisms were used. Of course, there were those who were as hateful to these women as to any men in a similar situation, but that haterade was less frequent.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I'm glad the study acknowledged the limitations of any implicit feelings testing. So much of that is pseudo scientific nonsense.

Modern western society certainly favors women's looks over men's. Name a male supermodel. Female models out earn male models by massive amounts. They aren't just appealing to men, and in some cases don't appeal to men much at all.
Had a discussion in a marketing class about the fashion industry and a guy mentioned how he never found the runway model look attractive and all the guys joined the chorus.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Name a male supermodel. Female models out earn male models by massive amounts. They aren't just appealing to men, and in some cases don't appeal to men much at all.
Had a discussion in a marketing class about the fashion industry and a guy mentioned how he never found the runway model look attractive and all the guys joined the chorus.

Well, the basic supermodel look is haughty and pretentiously dressed.

We all sense that the difficulty in attracting one would in no way be proportional to the amount of actual fun you'd have with them.

I can't name a single male model but I also realized that I can't name a single female supermodel who isn't from the 1990s (the name of the super obese model who was a topic of constant discussion a few years ago is right on the tip of my tongue, but...)

 

[MillieDynamite]

I modeled a character in an upcoming 750-word story on Iman from her appearance in Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country.

Well, the basic supermodel look is haughty and pretentiously dressed.

We all sense that the difficulty in attracting one would in no way be proportional to the amount of actual fun you'd have with them.

I can't name a single male model but I also realized that I can't name a single female supermodel who isn't from the 1990s (the name of the super obese model who was a topic of constant discussion a few years ago is right on the tip of my tongue, but...)