Sunday 17 August 2008

Women - More experimental or simply more open minded?

According to Hog Gadling, his observations lead him to conclude that while men are either straight or gay, women tend to be more experimental. Hence his hypotheses that there could be a higher number of bisexual women than men. He asked me what my views were. Are women really more experimental?

Now, I am not the most qualified person to answer this question with authority. However, if I were to consider the driving factors of what drives men and women into relationships, then I think I would tend to agree with Hob. To begin with there is the common knowledge that while physical intimacy is typically more important for men in a relationship, for women it is emotional intimacy that is more essential. Next, there are probably more societal pressures on single women to get out of the situation than there are on men. And lastly, women can tend to have more expectations from a relationship than men.

If I take all these three factors together then I would think that in the absence of expectations being met and faced with societal pressures, it is highly probable that women enter into a relationship with their own gender as that is also more emotionally satisfying. So there is a possibility that women become more experimental. For men however, given their need for physical intimacy it would be very difficult to experiment with a gender that holds no attraction or possibility of satisfaction!

The truth none the less could also simply be that women are simply more open minded than men. Any views, ideas, research anyone?

1 comment:

Hob Gadling said...

No that's not quite it.

What I observed was that a lot of seemingly straight women in the West have had lesbian encounters. But a lot fewer men have had gay encounters.

This led me to hypothesize societal factors in the West tend to view bisexuality in women a lot more favorably then bisexuality in men.

Or as an alternate hypothesis "men are either straight or gay, women tend to be more experimental" by nature.

Two hypotheses. You need to comment on the other one also no?