Archives of Sexual Behavior

, Volume 46, Issue 1, pp 167–178 | Cite as

Category Specificity of Self-Reported Sexual Attraction and Viewing Times to Male and Female Models in a Large U.S. Sample: Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Demographic Effects

Special Section: The Puzzle of Sexual Orientation
First Online:
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Revised:
Accepted:

Abstract

Recent research has documented large and robust sex differences in the category specificity of self-reported sexual attraction and viewing times to men and women, with men showing more polarized responses to the two sexes than women. However, this research has been limited by the use of small and restricted samples. To address this, the current study assessed a representative sample of more than 2800 U.S. adults on demographic and attitudinal variables and on two measures of category specificity: one based on self-reported sexual attraction and the other based on viewing times to male and female swimsuit models. Key findings were replicated. On average, men were considerably more category specific in self-reported sexual attraction and viewing times than women, and this was true for both heterosexual and homosexual participants. Self-identified bisexual and asexual participants tended to be lower on category specificity than other groups. Although demographic and attitudinal factors such as age, ethnicity, state and region of residence, social class, political liberalism-conservatism, and religiousness were sometimes weakly related to category specificity, sex differences in category specificity remained robust despite demographic and attitudinal variation.

Keywords

Asexuality Bisexuality Heterosexuality Homosexuality Sex differences Sexual orientation 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a generous grant from the American Institute of Bisexuality.

Funding

This study was funded by the American Institute of Bisexuality.

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

Richard Lippa declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical standard

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PsychologyCalifornia State University, FullertonFullertonUSA

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