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Human Sexuality: How Do Men and mise between the desires of the
male and female partners. In gay
Women Differ? and lesbian relationships, sexual
frequency is decided by partners of
Letitia Anne Peplau1 the same gender, and lesbians re-
Psychology Department, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California port having sex less often than gay
men or heterosexuals. Further,
women appear to be more willing
differences and argued for women’s than men to forgo sex or adhere to
Abstract religious vows of celibacy.
A large body of scientific re- sexual equality with men. Recently,
psychologists have taken stock of Masturbation provides a good
search documents four impor- index of sexual desire because it is
tant gender differences in the available scientific evidence.
Reviews of empirical research on not constrained by the availability
sexuality. First, on a wide vari- of a partner. Men are more likely
ety of measures, men show diverse aspects of human sexuality
have identified four important than women to masturbate, start
greater sexual desire than do masturbating at an earlier age, and
women. Second, compared male-female differences. These
gender differences are pervasive, do so more often. In a review of 177
with men, women place greater studies, Oliver and Hyde (1993)
emphasis on committed relation- affecting thoughts and feelings as
well as behavior, and they charac- found large male-female differences
ships as a context for sexuality. in the incidence of masturbation. In
Third, aggression is more terize not only heterosexuals but
lesbians and gay men as well. technical terms, the meta-analytic
strongly linked to sexuality for effect size2 (d) for masturbation was
men than for women. Fourth, 0.96, which is smaller than the
women’s sexuality tends to be physical sex difference in height
more malleable and capable of SEXUAL DESIRE (2.00) but larger than most psycho-
change over time. These male- logical sex differences, such as the
female differences are pervasive, Sexual desire is the subjective ex- performance difference on standard-
affecting thoughts and feelings perience of being interested in sexual ized math tests (0.20). These and
as well as behavior, and they objects or activities or wishing to en- many other empirical findings pro-
characterize not only hetero- gage in sexual activities (Regan & vide evidence for men’s greater
sexuals but lesbians and gay Berscheid, 1999). Many lines of re- sexual interest.
men as well. Implications of search demonstrate that men show
these patterns are considered. more interest in sex than women (see
review by Baumeister, Catanese, &
Keywords Vohs, 2001). Compared with SEXUALITY AND
human sexuality; sexual desire; women, men think about sex more RELATIONSHIPS
sexual orientation; sexual plas- often. They report more frequent sex
ticity fantasies and more frequent feelings A second consistent difference is
of sexual desire. Across the life span, that women tend to emphasize
men rate the strength of their own committed relationships as a con-
A century ago, sex experts confi- sex drive higher than do their female text for sexuality more than men
dently asserted that men and age-mates. Men are more interested do. When Regan and Berscheid
women have strikingly different in visual sexual stimuli and more (1999) asked young adults to de-
sexual natures. The rise of scientific likely to spend money on such sex- fine sexual desire, men were more
psychology brought skepticism ual products and activities as X-rated likely than women to emphasize
about this popular but unproven videos and visits to prostitutes. physical pleasure and sexual inter-
view, and the pendulum swung to- Men and women also differ in course. In contrast, women were
ward an emphasis on similarities their preferred frequency of sex. more likely to “romanticize” the
between men’s and women’s sexu- When heterosexual dating and experience of sexual desire, as seen
ality. For example, Masters and marriage partners disagree about in one young woman’s definition
Johnson (1966) captured attention sexual frequency, it is usually the of sexual desire as “longing to be
by proposing a human sexual re- man who wants to have sex more emotionally intimate and to ex-
sponse cycle applicable to both often than the woman does. In het- press love for another person” (p.
sexes. Feminist scholars cautioned erosexual couples, actual sexual 75). Compared with women, men
against exaggerating male-female frequency may reflect a compro- have more permissive attitudes to-
ward casual premarital sex and to- ual self-concepts, the initiation of timate heterosexual relationships.
ward extramarital sex. The size of sex in heterosexual relationships, Many women who are battered by
these gender differences is rela- and coercive sex. a boyfriend or husband also report
tively large, particularly for casual Andersen, Cyranowski, and Es- sexual assaults as part of the abuse.
premarital sex (d 0.81; Oliver & pindle (1999) investigated the di- In summary, aggression is more
Hyde, 1993). Similarly, women’s mensions that individuals use to closely linked to sexuality for men
sexual fantasies are more likely than characterize their own sexuality. than for women. Currently, we
men’s to involve a familiar partner Both sexes evaluated themselves know little about aggression and
and to include affection and com- along a dimension of being roman- sexuality among lesbians and gay
mitment. In contrast, men’s fanta- tic, with some individuals seeing men; research on this topic would
sies are more likely to involve strang- themselves as very passionate and provide a valuable contribution to
ers, anonymous partners, or multiple others seeing themselves as not our understanding of gender and
partners and to focus on specific sex very passionate. However, men’s human sexuality.
acts or sexual organs. sexual self-concepts were also
A gender difference in emphasiz- characterized by a dimension of
ing relational aspects of sexuality is aggression, which concerned the
also found among lesbians and gay extent to which they saw them- SEXUAL PLASTICITY
men (see review by Peplau, Finger- selves as being aggressive, power-
hut, & Beals, in press). Like heterosex- ful, experienced, domineering, and Scholars from many disciplines
ual women, lesbians tend to have individualistic. There was no equiv- have noted that, in comparison
less permissive attitudes toward ca- alent aggression dimension for with men’s sexuality, women’s sex-
sual sex and sex outside a primary women’s sexual self-concepts. uality tends to have greater plastic-
relationship than do gay or hetero- In heterosexual relationships, ity. That is, women’s sexual beliefs
sexual men. Also like heterosexual men are commonly more assertive and behaviors can be more easily
women, lesbians have sex fantasies than women and take the lead in shaped and altered by cultural,
that are more likely to be personal sexual interactions (see review by social, and situational factors.
and romantic than the fantasies of Impett & Peplau, 2003). During Baumeister (2000) systematically
gay or heterosexual men. Lesbians the early stages of a dating relation- reviewed the scientific evidence on
are more likely than gay men to be- ship, men typically initiate touching this point. In this section, I mention
come sexually involved with part- and sexual intimacy. In ongoing re- a few of the many supportive em-
ners who were first their friends, lationships, men report initiating pirical findings.
then lovers. Gay men in committed sex about twice as often as their fe- One sign of plasticity concerns
relationships are more likely than male partners or age-mates. To be changes in aspects of a person’s
lesbians or heterosexuals to have sure, many women do initiate sex, sexuality over time. Such changes
sex with partners outside their pri- but they do so less frequently than are more common among women
mary relationship. their male partners. The same pat- than among men. For example, the
In summary, women’s sexuality tern is found in people’s sexual fan- frequency of women’s sexual activ-
tends to be strongly linked to a tasies. Men are more likely than ity is more variable than men’s. If a
close relationship. For women, an women to imagine themselves do- woman is in an intimate relation-
important goal of sex is intimacy; ing something sexual to a partner or ship, she might have frequent sex
the best context for pleasurable sex taking the active role in a sexual en- with her partner. But following a
is a committed relationship. This is counter. breakup, she might have no sex at
less true for men. Rape stands at the extreme end all, including masturbation, for
of the link between sex and aggres- several months. Men show less
sion. Although women use many temporal variability: Following a
strategies to persuade men to have romantic breakup, men may sub-
SEXUALITY AND sex, physical force and violence are stitute masturbation for interper-
AGGRESSION seldom part of their repertoire. sonal sex and so maintain a more
Physically coercive sex is primarily constant frequency of sex. There is
A third gendered pattern con- a male activity (see review by Fel- also growing evidence that women
cerns the association between sexu- son, 2002). There is growing recog- are more likely than men to change
ality and aggression. This link has nition that stranger and acquain- their sexual orientation over time.
been demonstrated in many do- tance rape are not the whole story; In an illustrative longitudinal study
mains, including individuals’ sex- some men use physical force in in- (Diamond, 2003), more than 25% of
18- to 25-year-old women who ini- Finally, these male-female differ- interested partner must communi-
tially identified as lesbian or bi- ences apply not only to heterosexu- cate his or her desire. Men typically
sexual changed their sexual iden- als but also to lesbians and gay men. take the lead in expressing sexual
tity during the next 5 years. Changes Several limitations of the current interest. Third, the disinterested
such as these are less common research are noteworthy. First, partner’s reaction is pivotal: Does
for men. much research is based on White, this partner comply or, instead, ig-
A further indication of malleabil- middle-class American samples. nore or reject the request? If
ity is that a person’s sexual attitudes Studies of other populations and women view sex as a way to show
and behaviors are responsive to so- cultural groups would be valuable love and caring for a partner, they
cial and situational influences. Such in assessing the generalizability of may be more likely than men to re-
factors as education, religion, and findings. Second, although re- solve a dilemma about unwanted
acculturation are more strongly search findings on lesbians and gay sex by taking their partner’s wel-
linked to women’s sexuality than to men are consistent with patterns of fare into account. In abusive rela-
men’s. For example, moving to a male-female difference among het- tionships, women may fear physi-
new culture may have more impact erosexuals, the available empirical cal or psychological harm from a
on women’s sexuality than on database on homosexuals is rela- male partner if they refuse. Finally,
men’s. The experience of higher ed- tively small. Third, differences be- sexual compliance illustrates the
ucation provides another illustration. tween women and men are not potential plasticity of female sexu-
A college education is associated absolute but rather a matter of de- ality. In this case, women are influ-
with more liberal sexual attitudes gree. There are many exceptions to enced by relationship concerns to
and behavior, but this effect is the general patterns described. For engage in a sexual activity that
greater for women than for men. instance, some women show high goes against their personal prefer-
Even more striking is the associa- levels of sexual interest, and some ence at the time.
tion between college education and men seek sex only in committed re- The existence of basic differ-
sexual orientation shown in a recent lationships. Research documenting ences between men’s and women’s
national survey (Laumann, Gagnon, male-female differences has ad- sexuality has implications for the
Michael, & Michaels, 1994). Complet- vanced further than research sys- scientific study of sexuality. Specif-
ing college doubled the likelihood tematically tracing the origins of ically, an adequate understanding
that a man identified as gay or bi- these differences. We are only be- of human sexuality may require
sexual (1.7% among high school ginning to understand the complex separate analyses of sexuality in
graduates vs. 3.3% among college ways in which biology, experi- women and in men, based on the
graduates). However, college was as- ence, and culture interact to shape unique biology and life experi-
sociated with a 900% increase in the men’s and women’s sexuality. ences of each sex. Currently, efforts
percentage of women identifying as These four general differences to reconceptualize sexual issues
lesbian or bisexual (0.4% vs. 3.6%). between women’s and men’s sexu- have focused on women’s sexual-
ality can illuminate specific pat- ity. Three examples are illustrative.
terns of sexual interaction. For ex-
ample, in heterosexual couples, it is
CONCLUSION AND fairly common for a partner to en- Rethinking Women’s
IMPLICATIONS gage in sex when he or she is not Sexual Desire
really interested or “in the mood.”
Diverse lines of scientific re- Although both men and women How should we interpret the
search have identified consistent sometimes consent to such un- finding that women appear less in-
male-female differences in sexual wanted sexual activity, women are terested in sex than men? One pos-
interest, attitudes toward sex and more often the compliant sexual sibility is that researchers have in-
relationships, the association be- partner (see review by Impett & advertently used male standards
tween sex and aggression, and sex- Peplau, 2003). Each of the gender (e.g., penile penetration and orgasm)
ual plasticity. The size of these gen- differences I have described may to evaluate women’s sexual experi-
der differences tends to be large, contribute to this pattern. First, the ences and consequently ignored
particularly in comparison to other stage is set by a situation in which activities, such as intimate kissing,
male-female differences studied by partners have differing desires for cuddling, and touching, that may
psychologists. These differences are sex, and the man is more often the be uniquely important to women’s
pervasive, encompassing thoughts, partner desiring sex. Second, for erotic lives. Researchers such as
feelings, fantasies, and behavior. compliant sex to occur, the more Wallen (1995) argue that it is neces-