In recent years, more and more people perceive sexual orientation as a variable characteristic, but not a hard mark or personal trait. And it all began in the middle of the 20th century, when American biologist Alfred Kinsey published a number of works on sexology, which caused a heated debate in society. In them, he developed the Kinsey scale, which measures sexual orientation on a scale from 0 to 6, where 0 is absolute heterosexuality and 6 is exclusive homosexuality. It is clear that the world, where the rules of black-and-white approach to sexuality, such views seemed revolutionary.
A new study by a team of scientists from Cornell University and Essex University confirms the existence of a spectrum of sexual orientations. In order to draw this conclusion, they conducted an experiment in which men and women watched erotic films, while researchers watched how much when a picture appears on the screen they expand pupils. Let us recall that pupil dilation is one of the most accurate and easy-to-measure indicators of sexual and/or romantic interest.
"You can't control pupil dilation. And this is the main reason why we paid attention to them, — explains rich Savin-Williams, co-author of the study and Professor of psychology at Cornell University. - Another good way is to analyze the excitation of the genitals, but it is, if we talk about the laboratory study, too intimate moment.”
As a result, the experiment showed that women who identified themselves as lesbians had a stronger reaction to attractive women than attractive men on the screen. However, women who identified themselves as heterosexual were to some extent interested in both sexes, medical Daily writes citing a study.
If we talk about men, the experiment showed that they were almost always attracted to the moment of Masturbation of a woman or a man on the screen (and, regardless of whether they identify themselves homosexual or heterosexual). However, with the interest of heterosexual men actors male problems arose. Savin-Williams believes that the reason for this should be sought in toxic ideas of masculinity that has long been firmly rooted in society: they suppress so much of men, which when they have even a minimal sexual attraction to the same sex, they try not to show it.
Thus, scientists say, almost all of us are a bit bisexual. The researchers do not deny the fact that there are absolutely heterosexual and absolutely homosexual people, whose opposite sex does not cause any sexual emotions at all. And yet this is more of an exception than a rule.