As I prepare to address issues of sexual orientation and fluidity (see Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Presentation, and Biological Sex), it seems appropriate if not necessary to review “first principles” related to my mission and central message, including:

• Assumptions of Mating Straight Talk

• General differences between men and women in sexual psychology and response

• The twenty-two (22) domains of male-female difference. Domain #13 is related to the influence of context, and domain #15 is about sexual orientation, preference, and response variability.  These domains will receive special attention in coming posts. But nearly all domains have an impact on sexual fluidity.

Denial of Sex Differences is Problematic

Part of the mission of Mating Straight Talk is to affirm the differences between the sexes as revealed by evolutionary science and psychological research.  My motivation?  The denial of relevant sex differences in our culture is nearly as problematic as the denial of similarities related to race, ethnicity, and religion.

We Are Uniquely The Same

As a degreed person from a  humanistic psychology graduate program started by a colleague of Abraham Maslow, I am well aware of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Although at least one evolutionary psychologist (Douglas Kenrick at Arizona State) has offered a revision of Maslow’s hierarchy to include sex, mate acquisition, and mate retention, I embrace Maslow’s original ideas describing the universal features of human beings – similar needs of all human men and women.  But from an evolutionary perspective, a salient question remains: How do men vs. women uniquely meet the needs of esteem, belonging, and intimacy as a function of their biological sex?  Is it the same in aggregate?  I think not.

Universal Emotions — Sex-Specific Causes

I believe in exploring universal emotional needs as a pathway for healing interpersonal relationships, perhaps, especially for couples.  All men and women experience anger, sadness, fear, joy, anticipation, surprise, disgust, and trust.*  But there are often sex-specific causes for these emotions.

We are “spiritually” all one.  In the quantum universe, we are the same.  In the material world of dimorphic human culture, we are most often diverse and functionally unique as an expression of our gender and sex.

Assumptions of Mating Straight Talk

Men and women have similarities as human beings and aggregate differences that are primarily a function of biology and evolutionary adaptation.  Our similarities do not often cause conflict.  But our differences, and the denial of those differences, often cause “trouble.”

Women and men have differences that we must acknowledge and understand to have satisfying heterosexual (romantic and sexual) relationships.

Men and women have differences that we must acknowledge to “re-balance” and integrate the biological and social sciences in academia and overcome resistance to the facts of evolved behavioral sex differences and evolutionary psychology.

Women and men have differences that we must acknowledge and understand to clarify the “politics” of sex and gender and challenge pockets of censorship in the public domain.

Men and women need “straight talk” (radical honesty) to uncover and accept our differences.

Women and men need “straight talk” about our differences to empower one another for co-creative relationships.

Vive la Différence

Over the millennia, men and women have evolved with different objectives and strategies of sexual psychology and response related to choosing a mate, reproduction, and parental investment.

General Differences between Men and Women in Sexual Psychology and Response

• Women have their unique sexuality, like a fingerprint, and vary more than men in anatomy, sexual response, sexual mechanisms, and how their bodies respond to the sexual world. Women vary more widely from each other and change more substantially over their lifetime than do men.

• Women are less likely to have alignment (“concordance”) between their genital response and subjective arousal; this causes confusion and misunderstanding for women and their male partners. Men have dramatically more concordance between their genital response and subjective arousal.

• All sex happens in context. Women are more context-sensitive than men, and all external circumstances of everyday life influence the context surrounding a woman’s arousal, desire, and orgasm.

• Women’s sexual functioning is more influenced by their internal brain state — how they think and feel about sex. Judgment, shame, stress, mood, trust, body image, and past trauma influence a woman’s sexual well-being.

• Men and women have significantly different hormones and some variations in brain structure. Differences caused by the amount of testosterone cannot be overstated.

• Women and men differ significantly in visual orientation for physical attraction and production of sexual thoughts.

• Men and women have different preferences and priorities for the traits desired in a mate (with agreement about kindness, stability, humor, and care of children).

• Human sexual response consists of a “dual control” system with an excitation mechanism (“accelerator”) and an inhibition mechanism (“brake”). Men are accelerator-dominant, and women are brake-dominant.

• Related to differences between the sexual “accelerator” and “brake,” men operate primarily from “spontaneous desire” triggers, and women operate primarily from “response desire” triggers.

• Men sell (primarily), and women buy (most often) in the mating economy; this is the predominant evolutionary dynamic. The psychology of the sexual initiator and pursuer is vastly different from that of the one pursued and the one who chooses among her pursuers.

• The psychology of male intra-sexual competition differs from that of female intersexual selection (preferential mate choice.) Also, women’s intra-sexual competition (competing against each other) for male attention is a different behavioral phenomenon than male-on-male competition.

And last but not least:

• Women’s sexual functioning includes sexual attractions, romantic affections, sexual practices/behaviors, and preference/orientation identities that are different from men’s sexual functioning due to biological and cultural adaptations. The fundamental and defining feature of female sexual orientation is fluidity.  Men are not nearly as fluid as women.  Researcher Lisa Diamond (Sexual Fluidity — Understanding Women’s Love and Desire) defines sexual fluidity as “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness.”

Terms of Engagement – Prelude to Understanding Female Sexual Fluidity

Diamond uses the term “sexual orientation” to mean a consistent pattern of sexual desire for individuals of the same-sex, other-sex, or both sexes, regardless of whether this pattern of desire is manifested in sexual behavior.

Sexual Identity

“Sexual identity” refers to a culturally organized conception of the self, usually “lesbian/gay,” “bisexual,” or “heterosexual.”  As with “sexual orientation,” Diamond says we cannot presume that these identities correspond with particular patterns of behavior, especially for women.  Nor can we assume that they correspond with specific patterns of desire.  Women often reject conventional labels in favor of “queer,” “questioning,” “pansexual,” or simply “unlabeled.”

Same-Sex and Other-Sex Orientation

Diamond uses the term “same-sex orientation” to refer to all experiences of same-sex desire, romantic affection, fantasy, or behavior.  She uses “other-sex” sexuality instead of “opposite sex” because (she says) it is more scientifically accurate.  She uses the terms “lesbian” and “bisexual” but considers them problematic (to be addressed later.)  If a person is 100 percent attracted to one sex, they are “exclusively” attracted (in Diamond’s terminology).  All other patterns of attraction are “nonexclusive.”

Domains of Male-Female Differences in Sexual Psychology

Here is a list of the twenty-two domains of male-female differences in sexual psychology and response.  There is overlap and synergy between the domains, but the underlying distinctions are clarifying. These differences are based on statistical aggregates of all men and women from authoritative research studies and cannot predict the unique sexuality of a particular man or woman.

1. Behavioral dynamics in the mating economy
2. Long-term vs. short-term mating strategies
3. Trait preferences and priorities for mate selection
4. Physical attraction and perceptions of beauty
5. Concordance between physiological response and psychological desire
6. Spontaneous desire vs. response desire
7. Sex and love-making that fuels desire
8. Accelerator vs. brake: sexual excitation and inhibition systems
9. Brain structures: sexual pursuit and visual stimuli
10. Hormonal differences
11. Variety and novelty
12. Sexual mentation and “sex drive”
13. Influence of context
14. Female competing intentions and imposed double binds
15. Sexual orientation (and preference) fluidity and response variability
16. Orgasm – purpose and characteristics
17. Meta emotions
18. Romance and desire, together and apart
19. Psychology of monogamy
20. Infidelity – reasons and response
21. Jealousy – triggers, tactics, and consequences
22. Sexual fantasies

I will eventually examine each domain as a distinct phenomenon of difference. However, some domains will be addressed together because they are related or parallel in physiological or psychological response.  Differences between men and women in genetic make-up and physical morphology are not included as separate domains (see Biological Differences).  But genetic differences will be addressed in a future post about “biological sex.”

*In modern-day “assortative mating” — the economy of mate selection — a similarity of interests, values, and background works better for relationship satisfaction than “opposites attracting.”