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

Journal of Social Issues, Summer, 2000 by Letitia Anne Peplau, Linda D. Garnets

Sexual Fantasies

B. J. Ellis and Symons (1990) reviewed research on gender differences in sexual fantasies. It is likely that most participants in these studies were heterosexuals, although their sexual orientation was not discussed. Ellis and Symons found that women's fantasies were more likely to include a familiar partner, to include affection and commitment, and to describe the setting for the sexual encounter. In contrast, men's fantasies were more likely to involve strangers, anonymous partners, or multiple partners. Male fantasies were more likely to focus on specific sex acts and/or sexual organs. Researchers have not yet investigated the sexual fantasies of lesbians, gay men, or bisexuals.

In summary, patterns of sexual thoughts and behaviors appear to be strongly linked to gender but not to sexual orientation. This point was made most clearly in a study (Bailey, Gaulin, Agyei, & Gladue, 1994) that explicitly compared homosexual and heterosexual men and women on seven aspects of "mating psychology," including an interest in uncommitted sex, frequency of casual sex, and the importance of the partner's physical attractiveness, youth, or status. Male-female differences were found on all seven measures. In contrast, lesbian and heterosexual women were indistinguishable on most measures.

For many contemporary women, sexuality and sexual orientation are closely linked to intimate relationships. An important goal of sex is intimacy; the best context for pleasurable sex is an ongoing relationship. Sexual orientation is not merely about sex, but more broadly about personal relationships. Rust (this issue) suggested that women may be more likely than men to construct personal sexual identities based on elements other than sexual feelings and behaviors. Women, she proposed (p. 215), are more likely to treat their sexual identity as a reflection of their "romantic, social and political relationships with others as well as their sexual feelings and behaviors." Blumstein and Schwartz (1990, p. 307) made a similar point, noting that "if Kinsey had used female sexuality as a model, his scale [to assess sexual orientation] might have been conceptualized not so much in terms of accumulated acts and psychic preoccupations but rather in terms of intensity and frequency of love relationships." Researchers' tendency to accord greater weight to sex than to relationships may be an unintended legacy of male-centered thinking. If we were to conceptualize sexual orientation on the basis of women's experiences, we might well rename it relational orientation and then note that eroticism can be a vital component of intimate relationships. In summary, an adequate understanding of women's sexuality and sexual orientation will require a shift away from focusing on sexual behavior toward studying erotic relationships.

A New Paradigm for Understanding Women's Sexual Orientation

In the preceding sections, we have provided an overview of major research findings about women's sexual orientation. Research has discredited two leading theories of women's sexual orientation: the illness model and the inversion model. Investigations of women's sexuality have also challenged the primacy of biological factors in determining women's erotic attractions and point instead to the importance of personal relationships and sociocultural contexts. Taken together, this body of research suggests the need for a new framework or paradigm for understanding women's sexual orientation. A comparison of old approaches and the newly emerging paradigm is presented in Table 1.