I was recently listening to a Scientific American podcast (you did realize I’m totally geeky, right???) and they mentioned a blog post of theirs that refers to a NYTimes article about men and women’s sexual orientation.

While I couldn’t read the NYTimes article (because I don’t have an account and I refuse to get one more account to a place that I may only visit from time to time), I did read the excerpts on SciAm’s page and on The Stranger’s slog. What I come away from these articles thinking about is that they aren’t realizing how much play pop culture would have on this supposed sexual orientation. For instance, SciAm quotes:

Presumably the masculinization of the brain shapes some neural circuit that makes women desirable. If so, this circuitry is wired differently in gay men. In experiments in which subjects are shown photographs of desirable men or women, straight men are aroused by women, gay men by men.

Such experiments do not show the same clear divide with women. Whether women describe themselves as straight or lesbian, “Their sexual arousal seems to be relatively indiscriminate – they get aroused by both male and female images,” Dr. Bailey said. “I’m not even sure females have a sexual orientation. But they have sexual preferences. Women are very picky, and most choose to have sex with men.”

This is my theory: We are bombarded with images of women and sexuality each and every day of our lives, from the moment we are born until the day we die. We see women in all modes of dress in ad compaigns, television shows, movies, and in life. We do not see men in the same way.

I think that it is also the norm for “red-blooded” American men to say that they don’t find other men attractive. Oh, my! Can you believe the gossip? Johnny thinks that Brad Pitt is sexy! He MUST be gay! Even if most heterosexual men did find other men attractive, I doubt they would say so. In fact, I think they would vehemently argue against it.

It’s not the same with women. We have been shown women all of our lives. “Isn’t she lovely? Isn’t she sexy? Isn’t she stunning?” We have had women’s bodies literally shoved down our throats until we naturally agree that women are sexy and beautiful.

Would that not then translate into what we find sexually appealing? When we are told that a certain shape and form is sexy and desirable all of our lives, I can imagine that we’d begin to find them thus even if that wasn’t our “bent.”

I hear men saying that all women are bisexual. I disagree. I just think that we are able to say that we find women desirable because we are open to finding them desirable — even if we would never want to have sex with them.