Algún día tenía que suceder: el héroe se levanta del sillón.

Hay diversos motivos. El principal es la insatisfacción entre lo que quiero hacer y lo que hago, tanto en la bitácora como en mi trabajo. La incapacidad de los medios de comunicación para abordar la sexualidad de un modo que no sea sensacionalista, vinculado a la violencia, los peligros, las infecciones, los abusos, y, en fin, los tópicos más deleznables, me dificulta bastante encontrar artículos que merezcan la pena. Y aunque así fuera, mi deseo sería matizarlos, contextualizarlos, ampliarlos… Lo cual me lleva al segundo punto, que es la falta de tiempo tanto para escribir los artículos como para dedicarme con más ahínco a trabajar por una sexología mejor y más visible.

Así que a partir de ahora solo publicaré muy de vez en cuando, en la medida en que haya tenido tiempo de escribir algo por mi cuenta.

Aquellos que entran a la web para consultar dudas sobre sexo (es decir, el hecho sexual humano, con sus modos, matices y peculiaridades) pueden seguir haciéndolo en el excelente foro de Incisex:
http://www.sexologiaenincisex.com/contenidos/consultas/foro.php

Y a los demás amigos y compañeros que me han animado estos dos años y medio con sus comentarios, les mando besos, abrazos y un mensaje de esperanza: volveré con más sexología.

Yo no creo que el amor sea un fin -es un comienzo. ¿De qué? No lo sé aunque lo presiento: de nosotros mismos

Octavio Paz

[Texto publicado en el Boletín de Información Sexológica nº 55 de la Asociación Estatal de Profesionales de la Sexología (AEPS)]

VIH/Sida en la red

Cuando un buscador de internet arroja 52 millones de páginas relacionadas con el término sida en español, se hace más necesario que nunca filtrar los resultados y ofrecer tan solo unos pocos enlaces fiables y contrastados.

A modo de mapa simplificador, pueden dividirse las páginas sobre sida en tres tipos. Las pertenecientes a asociaciones u ONGs, en contacto directo con el terreno y las dificultades diarias, de tono didáctico y muy actualizadas; las de índole médica, con mucha información científica y bibliográfica, pero más asépticas y desapegadas de lo político-social y las reivindicaciones; y las institucionales, que aspiran a ser un punto de partida válido, con información general, que redirige a páginas más específicas.

Una de las páginas más útiles, de esas de consulta diaria, es la del Grupo de Trabajo sobre Tratamientos del VIH. Es un portal perteneciente a una asociación sin ánimo de lucro con multitud de materiales. Cuenta con una sección educativa (“aprende”), una de noticias (”actualízate”), un foro, edita una revista gratuita (“Lo+Positivo”) y ofrece un servicio de consulta.

De menor alcance, aunque proporciona toda la información necesaria, Stop Sida es una organización catalana que se dirige especialmente al colectivo homosexual. Son muy útiles sus guías de salud, prácticas seguras para gays y lesbianas, profilaxis post-exposición, etc.

The Body es una página de información general sobre VIH dirigida a pacientes, que destaca por su exhaustividad y rigor.

Desde una perspectiva médica, es destacable la página de GESIDA, un grupo de trabajo integrado por profesionales sanitarios de la Sociedad Española de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Microbiología Clínica que promueven y difunden la investigación del VIH y sus complicaciones. Tienen una sección con recomendaciones de tratamiento y documentos de consenso.

Entre las páginas institucionales, no podemos olvidar la del Plan Nacional sobre el sida del Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo y el Programa conjunto de Naciones Unidas sobre VIH/sida, de interés especialmente por los datos que proporciona sobre la situación mundial de la epidemia de sida, además de otras publicaciones y recursos.

Desde una perspectiva sexológica, la página de Cruz Roja ofrece gratuitamente el manual Prevención del VIH/SIDA: claves educativas escrito por Carlos de la Cruz y Silberio Sáez.

Por último, todas las páginas seleccionadas ofrecen su propia selección de enlaces, que merece la pena explorar.

Juan Lejárraga Vera

INFORME | ABSTINENCIA A LA JAPONESA
Crisis sexual en el país del sol naciente
Yasuyo, ama de casa, lleva ocho años sin practicar sexo. Ryotaro, comerciante, dos… Sólo el 34% de los japoneses lo hace una vez por semana, por un 72% de los españoles. La crisis sexual está hundiendo aún más la alicaída natalidad de los nipones
JUNKO TAKAHASHI desde Tokyo

Los japoneses son un pueblo orgulloso. Pero su vanidad se descoyunta cada vez que se publican encuestas sobre sexo. En la nación con menos huelgas del mundo, la gente sólo se abstiene del deber conyugal.

El síntoma más llamativo de esta crisis del sexo son los matrimonios asexuados. Ryotaro Kono, de 39 años, tiene varias empresas de alimentación en Tokio y todavía se acuerda de la última vez que se acostó con su mujer. Fue hace dos años. Ni siquiera le parece demasiado. “Antes de esa vez, esperé otros ocho años”, asegura Kono, casado desde hace tres lustros y con una hija pequeña de 10 años.

El alejamiento llegó al poco de haberse casado, debido al exceso de trabajo. Al principio, su mujer se quejaba de la falta de actividad en la cama, pero en cuanto tuvo el primer bebé, fue ella la que, siguiendo la tradición nipona, dejó de ver a su marido como un compañero de juegos. Así llegaron al acuerdo actual: no importa lo que se quieran, y aseguran que es mucho. En adelante, nada de sexo. “Me da pereza hacer el amor. Además, mi esposa es mi familia, y siento vergüenza de comunicarme sexualmente con ella” explica Kono a Crónica.

Por extraño que parezca, el caso de esta pareja no tiene nada de inusual en el Japón de hoy. “Entre nuestros clientes que quieren construir casas nuevas, la demanda de alcobas separadas está aumentando”, dice Shuichiro Takeshima, empleado de una firma constructora.

El país del sol naciente ocupa el farolillo rojo de los 26 países analizados en un informe mundial recién publicado por la marca de preservativos Durex. La frecuencia en tener relaciones sexuales -48 veces al año- es menor que la mitad de la media internacional. Sólo el 34% de los japoneses tiene relaciones sexuales al menos una vez por semana, por un 72% de los españoles. Una profunda crisis de sexo que amenaza con hundir todavía más la alicaída natalidad japonesa.

A Yuriko Yagi, ama de casa de 40 años, sus dos hijos, de cinco y dos años, le sirven de muro en la cama ante su marido, evitando cualquier contacto sexual. El último fue hace más de dos años. “No queremos que nuestros hijos duerman solos. Además, como no tengo ganas de tener relaciones sexuales con mi marido, es una buena excusa para mí”.

La mayoría de sus amigas también comparten la alcoba con sus niños. Todas han renunciado al sexo conyugal y ni siquiera han pensado en buscarse amantes.

Una investigación conjunta con el ministerio de Salud, Trabajo y Bienestar y la Asociación de Planificación Familiar de Japón, realizada en 2006, muestra que un 34,6% de las parejas casadas no tiene contacto íntimo alguno. La cifra ha aumentado casi tres puntos con respecto a 2002 (31,9%).

El psiquiatra Teruo Abe, especializado en relaciones sexuales, definió el problema en términos patológicos por primera vez en 1991, a través de un estudio publicado por la Sociedad de Ciencias Sexuales de Japón con el escueto título de Sin Sexo. Se trata de casos de parejas completamente sanas que no tienen relaciones durante más de un mes y que no esperan tenerlas -ni lo desean- en el futuro.

DORMITORIOS SEPARADOS

El número de parejas sin sexo aumenta de forma alarmante. La lista de espera de este psiquiatra en su clínica está colapsada. En los últimos 13 años, ha multiplicado por 20 su cifra de pacientes. Ellos, los que solicitan ayuda, son una excepción. Para la mayoría, simplemente, no hay nada extraño en no tener relaciones sexuales.

El caso de Yasuyo Nakata, también en la cuarentena, es más extremo. Nakata no se acuesta con su marido desde hace ocho años. El mismo día en que dio a luz a su hijo. “Mi esposo no me ayudó en nada con el cuidado del bebé. Desde entonces, ya no le considero mi esposo, sino un cohabitante”, afirma Nakata. Ni qué decir tiene, sus dormitorios están separados por un grueso tabique. “Y tengo mucho cuidado en no mostrarle mi feminidad para no estimularle”, dice Nakata.

La socióloga Yuko Kawanishi, de la Universidad Gakugei, identifica la causa de esta abstinencia sexual en el anquilosado sistema familiar. “La expectativa del matrimonio es muy diferente respecto a Occidente. Aquí también existe la cultura del amor, pero fuera del matrimonio. Casarse suele ser sólo un medio de formar una familia y tener hijos” explica Kawanishi a Crónica.

La socióloga japonesa añade otro factor made in Japan sobre los problemas sexuales en el matrimonio: la magnitud de la industria sexual. Una de las últimas modas son los burdeles en los que los clientes son ubicados según sus preferencias sexuales en habitaciones individuales. “Tenemos muchas opciones y una de ellas es este tipo de negocios. No dependo de mi esposa para tener sexo”, sostiene el asalariado Isamu Kurokawa, de 43 años, que asegura no haber rozado a su parienta desde hace dos años.

Una reciente encuesta entre los varones japoneses indica que la mayoría no considera una infidelidad pagar por sexo con otra mujer. La mayoría lo considera una opción más de “entretenimiento”. Como ir al fútbol o al cine.

Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire
By Lisa M. Diamond
Harvard University Press
352pp
£18.95

17 April 2008

How important are sexual attraction, desire and love in shaping our identities? How fixed are our sexual identities? How much choice do we really have in identifying our sexual orientation(s)? And how can we disentangle the biological, psychological and social contexts of our lives to answer these questions successfully? These are among the many problems that Lisa Diamond sets out to answer in Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire.

Demonstrating equal awareness and sympathy for evidence from genetics, endocrinology, neurology, developmental and evolutionary psychology and social constructionist/feminist perspectives, Diamond also provides a balanced and informed critique of the methodological conduct of previous contributions to the relevant debates. That she opted for a ten-year longitudinal study using in-depth interviews with a self-identified “sexual minority” and heterosexual young women, using extracts from these interviews to support her argument, makes a pleasing change from the more typical surveys or experiments that comprise the majority of research literature on human sexuality.

The robustness of the concept underpinning her thesis, that sexual fluidity characterises many women’s experience of sexuality throughout their lives, needs closer scrutiny. Diamond argues that there is a particular set of assumptions that has remained unchallenged about the fixed nature of sexual orientation in both women and men that leads to categorisation as “heterosexual”, “lesbian/gay” or “bisexual”.

Diamond posits that perhaps women’s sexuality is fundamentally different from men’s and researchers have (mistakenly) been too inflexible in explanations of sexual behaviours and orientations. Despite evidence across cultures and time that male homosexuality is not necessarily an immutable concept either, Diamond considers that she has data to show that women’s experience reflects even greater variability in the development of sexual orientation across the life span.

Does this mean that women have choice as to their sexual orientation? The idea, floated during the mid-1970s, that heterosexual relationships were inevitably deeply oppressive raised the possibility that sexual connections between women were the ultimate answer for a balanced, emancipated life. However, feeling passionate about feminist politics and the company of female friends failed to impact widely on women’s sexual desire so that “political” lesbianism was a short-lived fad.

Even so, many women who identify themselves as bisexual, lesbian or heterosexual do report other sexual relationships and attractions and their stories permeate Diamond’s study.

These accounts resonate with my own much earlier study of sexual life histories. I was not then alerted to “fluidity” as a phenomenon. I am now resolved to re-examine the data to seek out how far Diamond’s “new type of model, one that systematically explains both stability and variability in sexuality”, might be applied.

I wonder, though, whether her “dynamical systems model” differs substantially from biopsychosocial or material-discursive-intrapsychic approaches to understanding the human condition.

Sexual Fluidity presents itself as a well-constructed and coherent study. Graduate students with specialist interest would find it informative. So would relationship counsellors and sex therapists.

However, despite its accessibility I fear the potential market is small. Diamond herself indicates: ” … as I have repeatedly emphasised, women’s sexual desires show more variability than do men’s, both over time and across situations.” This message is a difficult one to promote.

Our identities are not fixed. Falling in love has always been unpredictable. Attitudes towards lesbian, gay and bisexual women and men continue to change. The conundrum of whether a feminist can live in a heterosexual relationship without compromise has not been solved.

I have still to be convinced that sexual fluidity is more than a repackaging of what we already knew about female sexuality and women’s psychology. However, this is undoubtedly a fascinating read.

Paula Nicolson is professor of critical, social and health psychology and head of the department of health and social care at Royal Holloway, University of London, and author of the forthcoming book Domestic Violence and Psychology: A Critical Perspective.

Book World: ‘Sexual Fluidity’
‘Understanding Women’s Love and Desire’

Lisa Diamond
Author
Tuesday, April 15, 2008; 3:00 PM

“Setting out to prove the theory that, for some women, love is truly blind where gender is concerned, Diamond presents her evidence in a fascinating, anecdotal fashion — by tracking over the span of a decade the relationships of nearly 100 women who at one point or another had experienced “same-sex attractions.” The women move from men to women and back again (or vice-versa), their sexual identity as changeable as their desires. Additionally, she delves into the brain science behind lust, love and infatuation, revealing that what draws women toward a particular partner is as much a function of biology as it is anything else. To her credit, Diamond avoids scripting her arguments in obtuse academese. With her compassionate, understated approach, she has stepped up the business of gender research.”

Lisa Diamond, author and psychology professor, was online Tuesday, April 15 to discuss her new book, “Sexual Fluidity,” which was reviewed in Book World.

Diamond’s book explores the changing nature of sexual identity and desire, as experienced by many women in America. She is an associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah.

Join Book World Live each Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET for a discussion based on a story or review in each Sunday’s Book World section.

A transcript follows.

____________________

Lisa Diamond: Hello everyone, this is Lisa Diamond. I have enjoyed reading the questions that have been posted so far, and I very much look forward to this interchange! I will do my best to respond as quickly and as completely as I can.

_______________________

Arlington, Va.: I went to a college where it was a stereotype that women “experimented” with same sex relationships as students but dated/married only men after graduation (and certainly have some examples I could think of!). Did your research support this at all - is it an unfair stereotype or does it really happen a lot?

Lisa Diamond: I think that the interpretation of those experiences as “experimental” can be a bit patronizing, but I think that the basic phenomenon, of women acting on same-sex attractions in the relatively safe environment of college, but then returning to heterosexual patterns afterward, is definitely something that happens (how common is it? I don’t think anybody really knows for sure). I think that it’s a good example of fluidity — the environment of college, and especially women’s opportunities to form intense bonds with other women, allows them the opportunity to act upon their capacity for fluidity. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will continue to do so indefinitely. Some of the women in my study adopted exclusively heterosexual patterns after college, others continued to pursue same-sex behavior. So it’s impossible to predict one thing or the other.

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Washington, D.C.: Is the actress Anne Heche a good or bad example of the kind of thing you write about in your book?

Lisa Diamond: I actually mention Anne Heche on the very first page of my book! I do think that she is an excellent example of sexual fluidity. She fell in love with Ellen DeGeneres, having never before had any sort of same-sex experience. She broke up with Ellen, and now she’s married to a man. But in her autobiography, she does not disavow her previous feelings for Ellen, she doesn’t describe it as a phase, or something crazy, she simply states quite forthrightly that she absolutely fell in love with Ellen. So I would interpret her as someone who is predominantly heterosexual, but who had a large enough capacity for fluidity that it allowed her to respond erotically to a particular woman. Many of the women in my research study had similar types of experiences. Sometimes it was heterosexual women falling in love with women, and sometimes it was actually lesbian women falling in love with men!

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Washington, D.C.: I had gay friends as far back as early high school because they were usually funny and eager to get out of the neighborhood and do things. In college they always described these kinds of fluid feelings, but I never experienced any of it. I have always been on one lane of the double yellow line and never crossed into oncoming traffic.

Lisa Diamond: I think that’s an important point — although I think that women have a greater capacity for fluidity than men, not every woman will be fluid, and some might show the capacity for fluidity at all. I think that fluidity is something that varies quite a bit from woman to woman (and man to man). Some of the women in my study had highly stable and “non-fluid” patterns of attraction over time, whereas others have very fluid experiences. So in the same way that individuals show a lot of variation in personality and other dimensions, I think fluidity is yet another trait that can be extremely high for one woman, and extremely low for another.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: I am very interested in reading your book due to my personal experience. I have dated mostly men but my first serious relationship, which started at age 20 and lasted for two years, was with another woman. She was the first, and so far, the only woman with whom I became involved. I never viewed that experience as a “phase” because, although I love being with men, every once in a while there have been other women who attracted me. How is my experience, and I presume those of the women in your book, different, or not, from being bisexual?

Lisa Diamond: That is a great question, and in fact one of the participants in my study, who I discuss at some length in my book, had an experience that sounds just like yours. I think the main difference between that sort of experience and bisexuality is that individuals who describe themselves as bisexual tend to have more consistent patterns of attraction to both genders. Your experience sounds more similar to a phenomenon that I describe as “being attracted to the person, not the gender.” In other words, someone might have a generally stable pattern of attractions for men or for women, but they might also have the capacity to respond strongly to someone on an emotional and intellectual and interpersonal basis - that sort of general psychological bond can, in these cases, “spill over” into eroticism. Often times, when this happens, individuals will report that they aren’t necessarily even paying attention to the other person’s gender, they are simply drawn to that person as a person. I think that in many ways, this seems like an entirely different form of sexual orientation. In other words, some people are attracted to the opposite sex, some people are attracted to the same sex, and some people have the capacity to respond to folks regardless of their sex. I should also note, however, that some bisexually-identified individuals WOULD call that sort of experience “bisexual.” The truth is that there is no single definition of bisexuality, and it is a topic (and a definition) that is hotly debated among sexuality researchers as well as bisexually-identified individuals themselves.

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Philadelphia, Pa.: I am wondering if you tended to find many similarities or many divergencies, and if you found divergencies, did you also see any relationships between result divergencies and the prior assumptions. For instance, do women with prior single sex experiences all have particular long term tendencies in how they ultimately form long term relationships? If they did not have similar tendencies, were there any prior explanations, i.e. women with more prior same sex experiences tended more towards one result while women with fewer prior same sex experiences tended towards different types of long term relationships?

Lisa Diamond: One of the things that was perplexing — but also exciting — about my research was that I did not generally see consistent patterns over time. Sometimes respondents that had early same-sex experiences would “end up” showing more heterosexual patterns as time went on. In other cases, exactly the opposite would occur. That’s why, toward the end of the book, I argue that female same-sex sexuality is a “dynamic system,” meaning that it is a highly fluid and situationally responsive system, which can often undergo abrupt changes depending on the circumstances. In many cases, it is difficult — if not impossible — to predict its long-term course based upon initial experiences. I’m convinced that there is no point in a woman’s life at which you can look at her past and current behavior and say “okay, I know for sure what type of attractions and relationships she’s going to have for the rest of her life.”

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Washington, D.C.: What do you think of the brain scan studies? My understanding is that — according to brain scans — straight men are honestly only attracted to women and gay men are only attracted to men. There’s almost no indications of bisexuality. However, for women, regardless of how they identify, they’re generally attracted to pictures of both men and women.

Lisa Diamond: The studies that you are referring to (and I discuss these in the book) are not actually brain scans, they’re actually studies of genital response. One thing that is important to keep in mind when interpreting the findings is that for both men and women, there were often discrepancies between individuals’ physiological arousal responses and their subjective feelings of arousal. So in terms of men, these studies did find that men who identified as bisexual tended to show genital responses to erotic pictures that “leaned” in either a same-sex or opposite-sex direction. But what I find fascinating about those studies is that these men FELT that their erotic interest was more evenly split. So what is the “true” measure of erotic interest? What you feel psychologically, or what your body is doing? It might seem that the body is it “truer” measure, but there’s actually no evidence on which to make that claim. And this is particularly relevant for understanding female sexuality because women have long shown rather large differences between their psychological experiences of arousal and their physiological responses. So I do think that those studies point to fascinating differences between female and male sexuality (and certainly, they suggest more fluid and bisexual patterns of erotic response in women than in men) but I do not think that erotic response can be “boiled down” to degrees of blood flow to the genitals (which is what those physiological measures assess).

_______________________

Albany, New York: I probably should read your book, but is it your primary thesis that sexual orientation is more fluid for women than men — more women are likely to be involved with both genders at some point than men are? Do you have any explanation for why this might be true?

Lisa Diamond: Yes, that’s one of my primary arguments. But it’s not necessarily that more women than men are likely to be involved with both genders, it has more to do with the fact that women have a greater capacity to respond erotically, under certain circumstances and to particular individuals — in ways that might be directly inconsistent with their sexual orientation (i.e., lesbian women periodically becoming attracted to men, and heterosexual women periodically becoming attracted to women). So at any one point in time, they might not — in fact — be attracted to both genders, but they have more of a capacity for fluid attractions over the life course. In the book I talk in more detail about the different reasons why this might be true. Certainly, differences in the way that women and men are socialized with regard to their sexuality play a role. But I also speculate that there may actually be some biological bases for these differences, having to do with the neurobiological circuitry for the evolved social behavioral “programs” for emotional bonding, caregiving, and sexuality.

_______________________

Anonymous: Ms. Diamond,

Good afternoon. My question is “Do you think it is much easier for “Sexual Fluidity” to be experienced by females because of easier social acceptance and also because there are more females living the older one gets?”

Lisa Diamond: I’m not sure about whether it matters that as individuals age, there are relatively more women, but I do think that the broader social acceptability of same-sex intimacy for women than for men contributes to the greater prevalence of fluidity among women. For example, it’s perfectly socially acceptable for two female best friends to hug one another, tell one another that they love one another, etc., but in our society such behavior among men friends would be considered indicative of same-sex sexuality.

_______________________

North Carolina: I would like to know what Ms. Diamond thinks about this situation. I am married, for almost 3 decades, to a man who is my best friend, partner, and the love of my life. The problem is that I have very little sexual desire towards him. I married him hoping that it would change because we have a very abiding once in a lifetime love for each other. He is aware of my feelings, and I wish that I could somehow ‘get’ that desire. It is not a totally sexless marriage, but I feel that both of us are somehow being cheated. What do you think I can do, if anything? Thank you.

Lisa Diamond: First, let me say right away that I am not a clinical psychologist, and so I really cannot comment with any sort of expertise on individuals’ specific situations, or give advice. I can do my best to provide my own perspective, based on my research, but please do not construe this as any sort of recommendation or advice. That said, I have encountered many individuals — both men and women — who report similar circumstances. As far as I know, it is difficult for folks to actively “direct” their desires in a particular direction. My own research suggests that some individuals in your situation sometimes end up experiencing spontaneous changes in their desires over time, but usually it is somewhat unpredictable.

_______________________

New York, N.Y.: Did you research brain responses and chemical releases and how women interpret love and lust? I ask because the release of endorphins is very pleasurable to many and often we see that the key to many activities is getting endorphins released, either be it through sex, exercise, etc. Also, parts of the brain react favorable to both pain and pleasure, so sex and the pain of exercising can both register similarly mentally. If I am correct on these, how does the brain and how it operates, and how it releases chemicals into the body, play in how women handle love, lust, romance, etc?

Lisa Diamond: I have not done any brain research myself, but in the book I talk about some of the existing research on some of the neurochemicals that appear to be involved with both sexuality and emotional attachment (for example, the neurohormone oxytocin). I absolutely think that some of the neurobiological interconnections between the brain systems for attachment, caregiving, and sexuality may be related to the fluidity between love and desire that many women experience. But a lot of this is speculative at the current time, and much more research is needed.

_______________________

Philadelphia, Pa.: I believe people can have deep attachments to others, the kind where they would give their life for the other person, and it need not be a sexual relationship and it could be about someone of the same sex and the person can be a heterosexual. Extreme examples of this would be family members or as seen among soldiers in combat. It is possible that love and lust can be two totally separate equations of relationships, and sometimes they exist together, and sometimes they do not, and is it fair to conclude that the most stable relationships are the ones where both love and lust exist? Or am I missing something important here?

Lisa Diamond: I absolutely agree with you, and in my book I make the argument that our culture has really equated attachment and sexuality, when they are totally different systems. Certainly, they overlap, and most people want to form a long-term relationship with someone to whom they are strongly emotionally bonded and also sexually attractive. But there are plenty of cases in which individuals have emotional attachments that “look” like romantic love, yet without sexual desires. As for whether it is more stable for love and lust to “coexist,” I actually don’t think that there is any research suggesting whether that is definitely the case. There are certainly plenty of cases of marriages in which the sexual part of the relationship declines significantly over time, but the emotional bond remains quite intense. For some people, that would be unacceptable. Other people would think that it was fine. I think that it depends on how important sexuality is to each particular person in the relationship.

_______________________

Tenleytown, D.C.: Where did you find the women you write about in the book?

Lisa Diamond: I talk about this in more detail in the book. Basically, I bought a beat-up Toyota Corolla and drove all around New York State, visiting gay-lesbian-bisexual youth groups, Pride parades, local universities, and I made it clear that I was studying women with same-sex attractions (regardless of whether they openly identified as lesbian or bisexual) between the ages of 16 and 23. So I got a pretty good mix of individuals from different backgrounds, and from different regions within the state (I did not sample from the most heavily populated locations, like New York City).

_______________________

Jacksonville, Florida: What measure has sexual fluidity today contributed to the decadence of morality as well as our cultural values?

Lisa Diamond: I’m having a little trouble interpreting this question, due to the way that it is phrased

_______________________

Virginia: I haven’t read your book yet, but it’s always seemed to me that men are more aroused by visuals while women are more aroused by emotions. Assuming this is true, it seems that it would naturally lead to there being more bisexual women and few bisexual men. (Statistically speaking.)

Am I on the right track here? Is there more to it than that?

Lisa Diamond: I think that the distinction you posit between “visuals” and “emotions” might actually be a little misleading. Certainly, a number of recent studies have found that women are actually a lot MORE aroused by visual sexual stimuli than sex researchers have long assumed. We have to remember that women are certainly socialized to think of their own sexuality differently than are men, and are generally socialized to believe that it is more “acceptable” for them to feel strong sexual desires if those desires are experienced in an emotional context. So although women might often report that they are more aroused by emotions, the evidence suggests that women — just like men — are also aroused by visuals. But the issue of gender differences in bisexuality is also a relevant and interesting one. Regardless of whether it has anything to do with being aroused by visual sexual stimuli, versus emotions, certainly a number of representative studies (I talk about this in more detail in the book) suggest that a greater number of women than men experience bisexual patterns of attraction.

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Warren, Ohio: How does the biology of sex fluidity (i.e. intersexuality) intersect with the biology of sexuality according to your work?

Lisa Diamond: Fabulous question! I don’t spend too much time discussing cases of intersexuality (or, using the technical term, disorders of sexual differentiation) in the book, since it is such a huge and complicated topic in its own right, but I do bring up a few relevant examples I think that one fascinating line of inquiry (which links the two) is the degree to which ANY sort of categorical model of sexuality — whether manifested in our physical genitalia or our psychological desires — really provides us with a complete picture of the human experience. Certainly, the many different forms of intersex show us that there are lots of ways that conventional categories can break down. But one thing that is interesting, if you consider all of the different forms of intersexuality, is the fact that they do not always “line up” with patterns of sexual desire in ways that seem to fit our expectations. To take just one example, girls who are born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), who were exposed to abnormally high levels of androgens in the womb, and who are born with somewhat “masculinized” genitalia (despite being completely genetically female) are overwhelmingly likely to identify as heterosexual in adulthood, although they have higher rates of same-sex attractions, compared to the general population. In other cases of intersex, there’s no discernible link to patterns of attraction. So this is one of those absolutely fascinating lines of inquiry that I look forward to following over time.

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Watertown, Mass.: Did the findings of your research surprise you or were they what you expected? And what kind of reaction have you had from colleagues?

Lisa Diamond: I certainly did not expect to find the degree of variability that I ended up finding. I had an idea that women might be more variable than men — that was part of why I started the whole study to begin with, because I was frustrated with the fairly reductionistic portrait of sexual identity development that was out there in the published literature (most of it based on men). But I suppose I expected that a lot of the initial variability would sort of stabilize over time. I was pretty startled to find that at each assessment, every two years, women continued to show these fascinating transitions in their experiences and in the way that they interpreted them. But of course, that’s what made the study fascinating, and motivated me to keep it going. As for reactions from colleagues, I have generally had very positive responses. Of course, scientific colleagues always alert you to the weaknesses in your research, and that is as it should be. When I first began publishing my results, journal reviewers pointed out (rightly) that this was a relatively small sample of individuals, and that it was impossible to know how representative they were of the overall population. But over time, other researchers working in other domains have published findings that are consistent with my own (in terms of greater fluidity in women) and now, it has become much more widely accepted among sex researchers that there is, in fact, a pretty big sex difference here, and one that deserves attention. Over the years, I was actually more worried about how fellow members of the lesbian-gay-bisexual community would respond to my research, and whether they would be concerned that my findings appear to support anti-gay claims that “sexuality can change” as a result of anti-homosexual therapy (which my research does not, in fact, suggest to be the case). So I have taken pains to be very clear about what my findings do and do not suggest. And I have been happy to find that the lesbian-gay-bisexual community has been very supportive of my research, and particularly supportive of the fact that it gives a greater voice to women, who have long been underrepresented in research of this nature.

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Columbia, S.C.: Great discussion and a great book! What do you see as the two or three most important research issues to address in the near future?

Lisa Diamond: One big question is — just how fluid ARE men? In my book I make the claim that women are more fluid than men, and I believe this to be the case, but I also believe that we do not have nearly enough information to know just how fluid men might be, as well. Many times, when I give talks about my research, men frequently come up to me afterward and say “you know, I think that there is a lot more variability among men than most people think .” So I keep hoping that someone will take up the challenge and start a longitudinal study of men! I think another huge area for future research concerns the neurobiological underpinnings of the sexuality and attachment systems more generally. I talk a little bit about some of this in the book, and about some of the exciting new research on neurochemicals such as oxytocin, which is a hormone that is involved in the sexuality system AND the attachment system AND the caregiving system. But most of what we know about oxytocin is based on animal research, and we need much more detailed understanding of how it functions in humans. I think that this can provide some clues as to the physiological mechanisms through which sexual fluidity might operate, which is a huge question. Finally, I’m fascinated by individual differences in fluidity. As I mentioned in one of my other responses, it is clear that not all women are fluid to the same degree. Some women experience their sexuality as very stable, others do not. Why? Is it akin to a personality difference? Does it have to do with early social experiences? Is it temperamental? Is it the environment? Some combination of both? That is something that I am actively investigating by collecting ever more detailed information from my study respondents. Maybe in another 10 years, I will have an answer!

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Washington, D.C.: What is your take on the Kinsey Scale and do you think it is an accurate reflection on how fluid a woman’s sexuality is?

washingtonpost.com: Kinsey’s Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale (The Kinsey Institute)

Lisa Diamond: The Kinsey scale certainly made important strides in putting forth a continuous model of sexuality (in which your attractions could vary along a continuum from same-sex sexuality to opposite-sex sexuality, instead of being “all gay” or “all straight”). But as I point out in the book, it’s pretty depressing to see that many sex researchers administer the Kinsey scale to their respondents, but proceed to turn all of that rich continuous data right back into categories, for example designating everybody in the 0-1 range “heterosexual,” everyone in the 2-4 range “bisexual,” and everyone in the 5-6 range “homosexual.” Well then, if you’re just going to chop it back into categories, what is the point of the scale to begin with? My other gripe is that some folks will ask respondents to fill out the scale several different times, for example once with regard to their behavior, once with regard to their attractions, once with regard to their identification, and maybe also with respect to their fantasies, et cetera et cetera. So you can end up with a whole bunch of different Kinsey scale numbers, representing different dimensions of your sexuality. That is certainly appropriate, since we know that all those dimensions don’t necessarily line up in the same way. But rather than presenting all of that information, in all of its wonderful complexity, a lot of researchers simply take the average of all those numbers! What on earth does THAT number mean? So philosophically, I think the Kinsey scale is a great tool, but I have often been disappointed in the way that it has been applied. Our society as a whole — both sex researchers as well as the community at large — have a real hard time giving up on categorical models of sexuality, no matter how much evidence we have that they don’t do a very good job representing the true diversity and variability of sexuality.

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Seattle, Wash: Has bisexuality increased for women over the past few years? Or is it just an increased awareness in the media?

Lisa Diamond: Great question, but impossible to answer for sure. I think that both things might be true. There is definitely more awareness in the media, and it is certainly possible that as a result of that awareness, a greater number of individuals are discovering their capacity for bisexuality at earlier ages than they would have otherwise.

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Richmond, Va.: Is it that women have a greater capacity for fluidity than men, or that culture supports it in women more than in men?

Lisa Diamond: I think that both are true — certainly there is greater cultural permission for women to have strong same-sex attachments, but I also think that there is an intrinsic sex difference ( I make the case for this in much more detail in the book). When you combine the two, you end up with quite a large difference! I am certainly someone that straddles the nature-nurture divide. I think that it is impossible to really understand differences between women and men without paying attention to socio-cultural factors AND biological factors, in their constant interaction with one another.

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New York, N.Y.: Are there dangers that the chemicals released during pain and pleasure that create emotional attachments can lead people to be more receptive to abusive relationships, and if so, does there appear to be any difference between abusive heterosexual relationships and abusive lesbian relationships? Alternatively, do you see this in loving relationships, such as BDSM relationships, and if so, were there differences between BDSM heterosexual relationships and BDSM lesbian relationships?

Lisa Diamond: Fascinating question, and one that I admit I do not know all that much about. Certainly we know that the neurobiological system that underlies the formation of emotional attachments is a relatively automatic one, and that especially in children, it permits young children to become strongly emotionally attached to their caregivers, even if their caregivers are abusive. From the perspective of evolution, it’s more dangerous to have nobody taking care of you at all, than to have a caregiver who takes care of your basic needs, but is also abusive. So it’s very common to find that, for example, very young children will protest mightily if social service agencies attempt to separate them from abusive caregivers. It might seem crazy that the children would be so strongly attached to people who hurt them, but that’s the way the brain system operates. It is likely that the very same dynamics are responsible for the fact that in adult relationships, the simple experience of being abused does not “turn off” your emotional attachment to the abusive partner. That’s what makes these cases so difficult, in terms of developing effective interventions. I’m not sure that whether it has anything to do with the “chemicals released during pain and pleasure,” as you note in your question, although that’s certainly an interesting question. In terms of abusive heterosexual relationships and abusive lesbian relationships, the research generally suggests more similarities than differences (that goes for gay male couples, as well). As for differences between BDSM heterosexual and BDSM lesbian relationships, that’s a topic that I have really seen no empirical research on, but a fascinating issue!

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Washington, D.C.: Sorry, science geek here, but do you have plans to follow up with your respondents in the future?

Lisa Diamond: Geeks welcome! Yes I do plan to keep following them, in fact I am just beginning the 12-year follow-up assessment now (I’m sending each one of them a copy of the book, hoping that it will keep up their motivation to be patient with my persistent questions). I plan to follow them indefinitely. Their stories get more and more interesting over time. Maybe my next book will be the 20-year data.

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Burke, Va.: Good afternoon. As a follow-up to my original question:”Do you think it is much easier for “Sexual Fluidity” to be experienced by females because of easier social acceptance and also because there are more females living the older one gets?”

The age reference I made is as the older the population gets men die faster so with the lack of available males and given that some females want to continue sexual activities/relationships I am inferring that some females would rather pursue a fluid type of relationship with other females because of availability and sometimes even viability; do you think that is true?

Thanks.

Lisa Diamond: yes, that’s what I thought you were getting at. It is certainly interesting, and there are definitely cases that you read about in which older women will move in with one another and take care of one another after each of their respective husbands have died. In some cases, I’m sure that those are just platonic friendships, but I also think it is fully possible that some of them have an erotic element as well, born out of their intense closeness. Of course, our society does not like to think about older people as having sexual desires at all, which is one obstacle to really seriously considering those sorts of things.

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re: generally attracted to pictures of both men and women.: Attracted to, or turned on by?

Lisa Diamond: A great point, because there are not very good operational definitions of just what it means to be “attracted to” something, versus “aroused” or “turned on” etc. In my book, I spend a fair amount of time talking about the difficulty of interpreting different individuals’ reports of “attraction.” When I asked my own respondents to describe what “attraction” felt like to them, I got an amazing diversity of responses. Some women said that being “attracted” meant being genitally excited, others said that “attraction” was a psychological and intellectual closeness, others said that “attraction” was simply a vague feeling of wanting to be near another person. So that makes it really difficult to interpret the findings of a lot of sexuality studies. Sex researchers tend to ask individuals about their “attractions” without specifying exactly what they mean. Some studies suggest that men tend to have more consistent definitions of “attraction” than women. Most men, when asked about attraction, think of it as being a concrete feeling of sexual excitement and arousal. But for women, you get a much wider range…… As for responses to visual sexual stimuli, studies have found that if you want to produce a strong genital response of sexual arousal and women( i.e., increased blood flow to the genitals, which is typically accompanied by vaginal lubrication) the fastest and most reliable way to do so is to show them pictures of people having sex (women respond more strongly to pictures of sexual activity than to simple pictures of nude individuals).

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Washington, D.C.: Science geek again, but have you considered looking at women in other parts of the life cycle?

Lisa Diamond: I definitely have my hands full with this one study, but one of the reasons that I’m so excited about continuing to follow women over time is that I get to observe those “lifecycle” transitions as they occur. For example, during the most recent wave of assessments, tons of women were either having babies or trying to get pregnant, etc., so it was really interesting to observe how women were making sense of their transitions in sexual experiences and identities in concert with changes in their attitudes toward children, and their experiences raising their children. For example, one thing that always made me laugh was that when interviewing women who had recently had children, I would ask them about their patterns of sexual attraction, and some of them would say “sexual attraction? I can barely even remember sexual attraction. I would love to feel ANY sexual attraction at this point….”

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Lisa Diamond: I want to thank everybody who participated in this discussion — these were great questions, and I’m glad to know that there are individuals who find these topics as interesting as I do.

Best wishes,

Lisa Diamond

When It Comes To Sex, Some Men Are From Mars, Others From Venus

Apr. 17, 2008 — A study by researchers at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University finds that men report a variety of different experiences involving sexual desire and arousal.

Men participating in focus groups expressed a range of experiences and feelings relating to such matters as the relationship between erections and desire, the importance of scent and relationships, and a woman’s intelligence. The Kinsey Institute study, appearing in the April issue of the journal “Archives of Sexual Behavior,” is unique because few studies so far have examined how closely the findings of decades of laboratory studies on sex actually reflect the experiences of men.

“We have a lot of assumptions about how men think and feel and behave sexually,” said Erick Janssen, associate scientist at the Kinsey Institute. “We use all kinds of methods to measure men’s sexual responses; in addition, we use questionnaires and surveys to ask about sexual behaviors. It’s less common to sit down with men and ask them to talk about their experiences.”

The focus groups involved 50 men divided into three groups based on their age (18-24 years, 25-45 years and 46 and older). Below are some examples of the different experiences reported by the men:

* Some factors, such as depression or a risk of being caught having sex, were reported by some men as inhibiting sex, while other men found that they can enhance their desire and arousal.
* An erection is not the main cue for men to know they are sexually aroused. Most of the men responded that they can experience erections without feeling aroused or interested, leading researchers to suggest that erections are not good criteria for determining sexual arousal in men.
* Many men found it difficult to distinguish between sexual desire and sexual arousal, a distinction prominent in most sexual response models used by researchers and clinicians.
* The changes in the quality of older men’s erections had a direct effect on their sexual encounters, including, for some, a shifting focus to the partner and her sexual enjoyment. Older men also consistently mentioned that as they aged, they became more careful and particular in choosing sexual partners.
* The sexual history of women also mattered to the men — but differently for different age groups. Sexually experienced women were considered more threatening by younger men, who had concerns about “measuring up,” but such women were considered more arousing for older men.

Janssen and his colleagues at the Kinsey Institute have been working for more than 10 years on a theoretical model that focuses on sexual excitation and sexual inhibition. They refer to this as the dual control model of sexual response. It holds that separate and relatively independent activating and suppressing sexual systems exist within the central nervous system and that the balance between these two systems determines a person’s sexual response in any particular situation. Janssen relates this to the gas and break pedals in a vehicle — both can influence a car’s behavior (you can slow down by letting go of the gas or by pressing the brake) but they do so in different ways.

This model is used around the world by sex researchers in studies on topics as varied as sexual dysfunction and sexual risk taking. To measure the propensity for sexual excitation and inhibition, the researchers designed a questionnaire.

The original questionnaire was developed for men, leading researchers at the Kinsey Institute to conduct focus groups with women in an effort to create a similar questionnaire that would be more relevant for women. Janssen said the success of women’s focus groups led him and his colleagues to conduct the focus groups with men.

The findings of this latest study ultimately could lead to a more effective questionnaire for the dual control model but also can inform research efforts to better understand the variability in sexual behavior.

“One of the main conclusions of the focus group study is that, just like women, men are different,” Janssen said. “Sex researchers tend to focus a lot on differences between men and women, while not giving as much attention to the differences that exist among men, and women. This research is part of a larger agenda at the Kinsey Institute of looking at individual differences. This dates back to Alfred Kinsey’s original research, but in our current research we not only try to capture the variations in men and women’s sexual experiences — we also try to understand better what explains variations in those experiences.”

Co-authors of the study are Kimberly R. McBride, IU School of Medicine; William Yarber, Department of Applied Health Science; Brandon J. Hill, Department of Gender Studies; and Scott M. Butler, Georgia College and State University.

Adapted from materials provided by Indiana University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Sexual Intercourse: Let’s All Be Brief and Average
By Sue Katz, Consenting Adult. Posted April 16, 2008.

The Associated Press, under the headline “Sex Takes 3 to 13 Minutes,” has given the world a sneak-peek at the science of quickies. A study to be published next month in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, based on a survey of sex therapists, concluded that the “optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes.”

I scratched my head on that one, until I read that “the time does not include foreplay.” And then the bulb went on. Well, two bulbs went on. First, why are they using those tired, narrow definitions of “sex” and “foreplay” — as if they were separate activities? And second, what if “intercourse” isn’t in your sexual vocabulary, although you’re having fabulous erotic experiences? Or if your idea of intercourse involves neither a penis nor a vagina?

What’s sex?

This conflation of “sex” and “sexual intercourse” is as outdated an idea as the prohibition on wearing white shoes after Labor Day or the belief that birth control causes promiscuity. Let’s get real.

Penetration is one of many sexual activities. Others are oral sex, nipple pinching, butt squeezing, clit rubbing, ball tickling, breast binding, toe sucking and, did I say clit rubbing? The actions that constitute “sex” — undistinguished from “foreplay” — are as varied as the people who do them.

If a couple has kissed and touched and teased and stroked and sucked until both of them are totally satiated — but they haven’t screwed — is that not sex? If someone has a fetish — say they are wild about stockings — and they get off humping the silk-encased thigh of their partner — is that not sex?

What’s intercourse?

Intercourse isn’t right for everyone and isn’t required for reaching an ecstatic orgasm. Sometimes you want penetration and luckily there are a number of possible spots to penetrate with a number of body parts — from fingers to tongue to penis — and non-body parts — from dildos to ben-wa balls to fruit.

But the AP report on this study seems to be all about heterosexual penile/vaginal intercourse and even that is very limited and limiting. Not only do people feel varied levels of enthusiasm about such sexual intercourse at various times of their lives (or months), some people cannot perform that particular activity at all. There are plenty of reasons for this, including the thinning of the vaginal walls with age, medications that prevent strong erections, a personal safer sex guideline or simply no inclination for copulation.

Don’t gay and lesbian people have sex? Do their activities fit this definition of “sexual intercourse”? And the woman who drizzles lubricant in her cleavage and then presses her breasts together as her male lover pumps, is that intercourse? Does anal sex constitute intercourse? What about fisting?

The article’s general thrust is that you shouldn’t feel bad about having such short-lived sex, since it appears to be the norm. In fact, the piece includes a promise that this study will “ease the minds” of those worried about the stopwatch. In support of low expectations, Marianne Brandon, a clinical psychologist, is quoted as saying, “There are so many myths in our culture of what other people are doing sexually. Most people’s sex lives are not as exciting as other people think they are.”

Perhaps if the sex therapists encouraged the broadest exploration of pleasure, we wouldn’t have to resort to measuring such a narrow notion of sex. Separating “foreplay” from “sex” is as logical as separating tea from water. It’s in the mix that we find the thrill and satisfaction.

Sue Katz has published journalism on the three continents where she has lived; her topics range from Middle East peace movements to the impact of aging on sexuality. Visit her blog at www.suekatz.com

Before you pop that Viagra, read this
Nayer Khazeni, M.D.
Sunday, April 20, 2008

If you’re a man past 40 experiencing impotence, consider it a sign you may need a medical evaluation. With the easy availability of Viagra and other drugs to counter impotence, men now have a way to “fix the problem.” But there may be an underlying problem you’re not aware of that might need fixing too. An increasing number of studies show that erectile dysfunction may be an early warning of coronary artery disease.

A study described in the February 2008 American Journal of Cardiology found that men with erectile dysfunction and no history of heart disease were more likely to have cardiac stress test findings that put them at increased risk for heart attacks and cardiac deaths. What’s the connection? Coronary artery disease (the type of heart disease that causes angina and heart attacks) occurs when vessels that supply blood to your heart get clogged and damaged. The same lifestyle habits (unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, smoking) and risk factors (high blood pressure, diabetes, genetics) that can contribute to clogged arteries and damage heart arteries can block arteries in other parts of your body, too.

Arteries in the penis are smaller than those in the heart. There is evidence that they may get blocked and damaged sooner than those in the heart. In a study in the December 2007 International Journal of Clinical Practice, men with erectile dysfunction were more likely than those without to be diagnosed with coronary artery disease - often as long as five years after the onset of erectile dysfunction. This gives physicians an early opportunity to diagnose blood vessel and heart disease and to work with patients to reverse it - but only if patients tell their physicians about erectile dysfunction. With the “black market” availability of impotency drugs over the internet, many men no longer see a physician to obtain the drugs. Even if they do consult a physician, that physician may not pursue the possibility of heart disease.

In men younger than 40, psychological factors frequently play a role in erectile dysfunction. That may be true for men older than 40 as well, but it’s still important to have a complete medical evaluation. (Prostate cancer, side effects of medications, stress and depression may cause erectile dysfunction.) Don’t be hesitant about discussing sexual problems with your doctor. We’ve seen and heard almost everything, and while erectile dysfunction may be an embarrassing subject for you, for us it’s just another medical diagnosis and an opportunity to help.

If you’re already on medications for heart disease, it’s especially important to consult a physician before using medications for erectile dysfunction. The drugs can cause dangerously low blood pressure or shock when taken with certain blood pressure or heart medications. Remember that sex is a form of exercise, and can be a precipitating factor for a heart attack in patients with underlying heart disease. If you seek help for heart-related symptoms within 48 hours of taking Viagra or a related drug, be sure to tell your health provider. The information will help prevent dangerous drug interactions.

Several studies show that exercising, losing weight, quitting smoking and treating high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes improve erectile function, as well as decrease your risk of developing heart disease. It seems fitting that what’s good for your heart is good for your love life too.

Dr. Nayer Khazeni specializes in internal medicine and pulmonary/critical care, teaches and conducts research at Stanford University Medical Center.

Enlaces relacionados

http://sexualidad.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/viagra-y-jovenes/

http://sexualidad.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/viagra-aumenta-la-oxitocina/

http://sexualidad.wordpress.com/2007/04/21/historia-cultural-de-la-impotencia/

http://sexualidad.wordpress.com/2006/07/17/obsesion-por-la-ereccion/

http://sexualidad.wordpress.com/2006/04/27/vendedores-de-enfermedades-pfizer-y-viagra/

http://sexualidad.wordpress.com/2006/09/29/%c2%bfes-viagra-la-solucion/

La medicalización de la conducta sexual

La invasión de los preescolares pervertidos

Mark Steyn

¿Es la enseñanza pública norteamericana una forma de pederastia? Hace una semana, Brigid Schulte, del Washington Post, contaba que el pasado mes de noviembre un estudiante llamado Randy Castro, que asiste a una escuela de Woodbridge, en Virginia, le dio una palmada en el trasero a una compañera de clase durante el recreo. La profesora lo llevó al director. Los funcionarios del centro redactaron un parte y después llamaron a la policía.

Randy Castro está en primero. Pero, a la avanzada edad de 6 años, ha sido declarado agresor sexual por la Escuela Elemental de Potomac View. Es culpable de acoso sexual y el informe sobre el incidente permanecerá en su expediente por el resto de sus días lectivos (y quizá más allá). Tal vez sea una de esas cosas que aparecen una y otra vez en las comprobaciones de antecedentes: quizá a los 34 años Randy Castro solicite un empleo y en el ordenador de su futuro jefe aparezca de nuevo su ficha de acosador sexual. O tal vez pueda mantenerlo en secreto hasta que tenga 57 y se presente a gobernador de Virginia y su carrera política explote inesperadamente cuando los sórdidos detalles de su patología sexual se den a conocer. Pero eso es lo que es ahora: Randy Castro, agresor sexual. El título del informe expone su crimen: “Toque sexual contra estudiante, ofensivo”. La coma, extrañamente colocada, también podría considerarse ofensiva si no fuera porque los empleados del centro tienen que emplear tantas energías en combatir la epidemia de acoso sexual entre los escolares que ya no pueden permitirse perder el tiempo adquiriendo habilidades secundarias como la puntuación.

Randy Castro no fue detenido hasta que tuvo 6 años, de manera que ¿quién sabe cuánto tiempo duró su reinado de terror sexual? Hace 16 meses, un funcionario escolar en Texas acusó a un niño de 4 años de acoso sexual después de que el chico fuera observado apoyando su rostro sobre los pechos de la ayudante de aula cuando la abrazaba antes de subir a la ruta del colegio. Afortunadamente, el centro tomó medidas radicales y expulsó a ese monstruo enfermo.

A propósito, ¿fue aquella la primera vez en que se empleó en lengua inglesa la expresión “acusó a un niño de 4 años de acoso sexual”? Bueno, pues no será la última: el año pasado, en el estado de Maryland, 16 alumnos de un jardín de infancia fueron expulsados por acoso sexual, así como 3 de parvulario. Los empleados del centro de Virginia se negaron a hacer declaraciones al Washington Post acerca del caso del sátiro Castro por motivos de confidencialidad. Sin embargo, sí afirmaron que la decisión de llamar a los polis fue “producto de un malentendido”. Y no es que le aplicaran porras eléctricas ni nada parecido.

Cuando los empleados de la escuela llaman al 911 a causa de “un malentendido” con un chico de 6 años, la culpa es de ellos: él es un crío; y ellos son docentes que se supone están formados y generosamente remunerados para saber cómo tratar con niños. Por cierto, el término “funcionario escolar” no es ni de lejos tan infrecuente como “ayudante de aula de 37 años acusa a niño de 4 de acoso sexual”, aunque le suene raro a la profesora de antaño que daba sus clases en un colegio de una sola aula. Allá por entonces, los centros tenían alumnos y maestros, y eso era más o menos todo lo que había. Pero ahora los colegios están llenos de “funcionarios”, exactamente igual que el Departamento de Interior.

De manera que, ¿quién mete mano en las escuelas americanas hoy en día? Obviamente, no los viejos verdes de 4 años y los pervertidos de 6: el sistema está haciendo un trabajo excelente persiguiendo a esos pervertidos. No, si usted quiere pillar cacho ha de ser “funcionario escolar”. El tribunal de apelaciones del distrito noveno celebró recientemente la vista preliminar del caso de Savana Redding. Allá por el 2003, Savana era una alumna del equivalente al segundo de la ESO de la escuela secundaria de Safford, en Arizona, cuando el subdirector, Kerry Wilson, “actuando por un chivatazo” descubrió que una compañera tenía un puñado de pastillas de ibuprofeno en su bolsillo. La otra chica dijo que las consiguió de Savana, quien lo negó. No tenía ninguna pastilla en sus bolsillos ni en su cartera. El subdirector Wilson, cuyo cerebro funciona de manera peculiar, decidió a continuación que Savana podría estar ocultando el ibuprofeno en el escote o en la entrepierna. De modo que, sin llamar a los padres de la chica, ordenó a una funcionaria escolar que realizara un cacheo a Savana, que fue obligada a mostrar sus pechos y “su zona pélvica”.

Si el subdirector Wilson hubiera sido un párvulo de 4 años implicado en un episodio como ése, ahora sería un agresor sexual registrado de por vida. Pero afortunadamente es “un funcionario escolar”, así que si decide aplicar técnicas de registro asociadas con el narcotráfico internacional, tiene todo el derecho a ello. Después de todo, el ibuprofeno es un asunto serio. En palabras de Jacob Sullum, de la revista Reason, “es bueno que el centro tomara medidas decididas antes de que alguien pudiera eliminar sus dolores menstruales sin receta”.

Las políticas de estos “funcionarios de la enseñanza” son dignificadas por la denominación “tolerancia cero”. Una descripción más atinada sería “cordura cero”. Un día de estos echaremos la vista atrás a este período de locura estatalmente instituida y nos preguntaremos por el motivo de que aquellos a los que se confía el cuidado de los menores (o más exactamente, aquellos que disfrutan del monopolio estatal de facto del cuidado de los menores) sean incapaces de hacer lo que los profesores de las sociedades civilizadas han podido hacer a lo largo de toda la historia de la humanidad: ejercer el juicio humano individual.

Esta semana, Michelle Obama instaba a los americanos a apoquinar aún más pasta para su sistema público de enseñanza. Estados Unidos gasta más por estudiante que cualquier otra nación desarrollada excepto Suiza, y por lo menos los suizos tienen algo para justificarlo. Se mire por donde se mire, al menos un tercio del dinero que se gasta en las escuelas americanas se desperdicia por completo. Si en vez de derrochar ahí el dinero, lo utilizáramos para enviar a todos los niños a un internado en los Alpes, los párvulos tendrían la gran oportunidad de llegar a segundo sin ser designados acosadores sexuales.

Pero no creo que Michelle Obama lo vea así. La semana pasada nos enterábamos de que una delegada de Obama había dicho a los hijos de su vecino de al lado que se bajaran del árbol y dejasen de jugar “como monos”. Desafortunadamente para ella, eran afroamericanos, de modo que fue “multada” por la policía de Carpentersville por sus palabras racistas. Tras difundir la solemne declaración de rigor deplorando unos comentarios tan burlescos, el senador Obama expulsó a la delegada de su campaña metiéndola en un molde de cemento y arrojándola a las aguas del río Chicago. También él sigue una política de “tolerancia cero”. En medio de los escombros de las vidas humanas entrampadas en estas estupideces, también hallaremos las ruinas de un elemento indispensable de la sociedad civilizada: el sentido de la proporción.

Men, women and work

Vanilla is not the only flavour
Apr 17th 2008

The Sexual Paradox: Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap.
By Susan Pinker.
Scribner; 352 pages; $26. Atlantic Books; £12.99

WHY can’t a woman be more like a man, wondered Henry Higgins of his protégée Eliza Doolittle? Susan Pinker, a psychologist-turned-journalist, thinks the question is still being asked, sotto voce, by those who fret about the absence of women in boardrooms and laboratories.

Male, she says, is the “vanilla gender”; the norm from which female deviates. Now that women are free to work in any field, their choices are expected to mirror those of the men around them. So discrimination, albeit covert, is often held to be the cause when more women study biology and education than computing and physics, or take part-time and public-sector jobs rather than work the 80-hour weeks needed to get a seat on the board or a partnership in a law firm.

Ms Pinker sets out a different hypothesis: that the Western women who on average do different work from their brothers do so freely and with reason. The theory is attractive, given that the common alternative view is that women are all too often “either patsies or victims”. It is also controversial. Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard University in 2006 because of the fuss caused by his suggestion that discrimination might not be the only reason so few women make it in science. But Ms Pinker marshals much evidence to back up her contention (some of it more contested than she acknowledges) of differing brain structures, hormones, motivation, empathy and risk-aversion.

Some of the material is familiar from such books as Simon Baron-Cohen’s “The Essential Difference”, and there is the occasional sloppiness (she cites, for example, a correspondent with a degree from the “University of Oxbridge”). But the meat of the book is original: Ms Pinker finds out why men and women travelled along different career trajectories by the simple method of asking them. Able women who left academic science or stepped off the corporate ladder tell her they wanted something different from life, and insist discrimination had little to do with it. Successful men with learning difficulties such as dyslexia, autism and attention deficit disorders, including some she met as children, explain how an unpromising start can sometimes act as a springboard.

Ms Pinker is surely right that understanding the causes of workplace gender gaps, rather than mulishly insisting sex differences do not exist, will ultimately be better for both women and men. “Simply letting the chips fall where they may has a discriminatory effect,” she points out. Gender-blind parental-leave policies at universities often load the dice against women; many return to work with nothing more than a backlog, whereas men tend to advance their case for tenure by coming back with a book.

Ms Pinker’s “vanilla male” hypothesis is supported by the shame felt by the women she interviewed about having made choices that differed from men’s: those who decided against careers in mathematics or science, despite excelling in those fields, or who found themselves emotionally torn on becoming mothers, worried they were “letting the side down”. One interesting detail is that all the women she interviewed asked for their identities to be concealed; no man did.

March 9, 2008
Hormones, Genes and the Corner Office
By EMILY BAZELON
Skip to next paragraph

THE SEXUAL PARADOX
Men, Women, and the Real Gender Gap.
By Susan Pinker.
340 pp. Scribner. $26.

Why do girls on average lead boys for all their years in the classroom, only to fall behind in the workplace? Do girls grow up and lose their edge, while boys mature and gain theirs?

Ten years ago, no one would have thought to ask. The assumption that boys dominated at school as well as at work, while girls were silenced or ignored, seemed beyond dispute. But in her new book, “The Sexual Paradox,” a ringing salvo in the sex-difference wars, Susan Pinker stacks up the evidence of boys’ classroom woes and girls’ triumphs. “In the United States, boys are three times as likely to be placed in special education classes, twice as likely to repeat a grade and a third more likely to drop out of high school,” she writes. Tests of 15-year-olds in 30 European countries show girls far outstripping boys in reading and writing and holding their own in math. Boys are overrepresented in the top 1 percent of math achievers, but there are also more of them at the bottom. A 2006 economics study showed universities practicing affirmative action for men so that superior female applicants wouldn’t swamp them. “If you were to predict the future on the basis of school achievement alone,” Pinker writes, “the world would be a matriarchy.”

And yet, of course, it is not. Once they move from school to work, men on average earn more money and run more shows. They particularly dominate in national government, the corporate boardroom and the science laboratory. Meanwhile, women are more likely to leave the labor force and to end up with lower pay and less authority if they come back.

Pinker, a psychologist and a columnist at The Globe and Mail in Canada, is careful to remind her readers that statistics say nothing about the choices women and men make individually. Nor does she entirely discount the effect of sex discrimination or culture in shaping women’s choices. But she thinks these forces play only a bit part. To support this, Pinker quotes a female Ivy League law professor: “I am very skeptical of the notion that society discourages talented women from becoming scientists,” the professor writes. “My experience, at least from the educational phase of my life, is that the very opposite is true.” If women aren’t racing to the upper echelons of science, government and the corporate world despite decades of efforts to woo them, Pinker argues, then it must be because they are wired to resist the demands at the top of those fields.

Thus, Pinker parks herself firmly among “difference” feminists. Women’s brains aren’t inferior, she argues, but they vary considerably from men’s, and this is the primary explanation for the workplace gender divide. Women care more about intrinsic rewards, they have broader interests, they are more service-oriented and they are better at gauging the effect they have on others. They are “wired for empathy.” These aren’t learned traits; they’re the result of genes and hormones. Beginning in utero, men are generally exposed to higher levels of testosterone, driving them to be more competitive, assertive, vengeful and daring. Women, meanwhile, get a regular dose of oxytocin, which helps them read people’s emotions, “the truest social enabler.” Then there’s prolactin, which, along with oxytocin, surges during pregnancy, breast-feeding and caretaking. Together, the hormones produce such a high that mother rats choose their newborns over cocaine.

Many of the scientific claims are familiar from previous books that pump up findings on sex difference, like “The Female Brain,” by the neurologist Louann Brizendine. Pinker goes even further by drawing a straight line from those blissed-out rats to human mothers who dial back at work. Because of their biological makeup, she argues, most women want to limit the amount of time they spend at work and to find “inherent meaning” there, as opposed to domination. “Both conflict with making lots of money and rising through the ranks,” she points out.

Pinker is surely right to contest what she calls the “vanilla male model” of success — “that women should want what men want and be heartily encouraged to choose it 50 percent of the time.” Or that when employers say jump, employees should always say how high. Even as they work fewer hours for less status and less money, on average, more women report that they are satisfied with their careers. Maybe men might well think the same if more of them felt they could cut back. But Pinker’s difference feminism doesn’t really allow for that possibility. She is a believer: “The puzzle is why the idea of sex differences continues to be so controversial,” she writes.

In her zeal, Pinker veers to the onesided. She doesn’t acknowledge that some of the research cited in her footnotes is either highly questionable as social science (Louise Story’s 2005 article in The New York Times, for instance, about her survey of Ivy League women’s aspirations) or has never been replicated — like the findings from Simon Baron-Cohen’s laboratory that newborn girls showed more interest in looking at human faces, while newborn boys preferred mechanical mobiles. Pinker omits the work of scientists who have shown that sex-based brain differences pale in comparison to similarities. We shouldn’t wish the role of sex differences away because they’re at odds with feminist dogma. But that doesn’t mean we should settle for the reductionist version of the relevant science, even if the complexity doesn’t make for as neat a package between hard covers.

Pinker also doesn’t acknowledge that some scientists wouldn’t accept the premise behind her chapters about male fragility. She cites men with Asperger’s syndrome and attention deficit disorder as examples of what she calls the “extreme male brain.” These men are train wrecks in school but then get on track in adulthood, when they can focus singlemindedly on their chosen fields. Pinker argues that their experience helps explain the general male lag at school and jump ahead at work. It’s true that men are more likely than women to suffer from Asperger’s and from some forms of A.D.D. But do their particular outsize talents and deficits really shed light on the workings of the average man’s brain? That question is hardly settled, and Pinker seems a bit glib when she fails to say as much.

Pinker also skips past an answer to the book’s central question that may have more explanatory power than her other arguments, even if it’s more prosaic and familiar to many a parent. Boys lag dramatically behind girls in terms of psychological development and physical resilience and then start to catch up as teenagers, as a long-running and wellknown study Pinker cites documented. Maybe after a few years as girls’ developmental equals, boys are ready to compete in the work force — and then zoom ahead as cultural norms and discrimination push women back. After all, why would girls’ hard-wired predilection against competition stay on ice while they blithely sweep all the academic honors and then kick in only at work?

Despite such unanswered questions, Pinker deserves credit for hacking away at the vanilla male model. She is right to point out that “grueling hours do not always translate into productivity” and to seethe at employers for ratcheting up their demands “even while extolling the virtues of gender balance.” And she is also right to call on schools to give the troubles of boys a fair share of attention. Pinker may not convey all the complexity that goes into making many men’s and women’s lives different, but she has a good prescription for helping more of us be our best selves.

Emily Bazelon is a senior editor at Slate.

April 4, 2008
Is your ex in bed with you?
If your ex is overshadowing your new romance, it’s time for an exorcism

Andrew G. Marshall

It’s an inescapable fact that when we fall in love, we bring all our previous sexual experience and conquests into the new relationship. However much we want to make a fresh start, and in the words of Madonna approach our new partner “like a virgin”, it’s hard to throw off the past. For many people, the legacy is a positive one, especially if the ex has helped them to feel safe and secure. However, if he or she was possessive, abusive or unfaithful, the past can cast a shadow over subsequent relationships.

Surprisingly, the ghosts of ex-lovers is less of a problem at the very start of a relationship. This confuses many of the couples in my marital therapy office. Rachel and Mike, both in their early thirties, sought help because their sex life had gone from being a source of great pleasure to one of conflict.

“It was really passionate for the first six months, but once we moved in together sex started to dwindle and now it happens only if I initiate, and then not always,” said Rachel.

So how can things change so quickly? When we first make love, we are very aware of past lovers and how we measure up. As intercourse is all about possession and surrender, casting out the ex is part of the excitement, drive and passion. However, once lust, the other ally at the beginning of a sexual relationship, has begun to wear off, ghosts can creep back into the bedroom.

If the sexual honeymoon has been a short one, I normally discover that the problems are as much rooted in a past relationship as the current one. This proved to be the case with Rachel and Mike. He had been springing out of bed early at the weekends, not to get on with chores, but in case he felt pressured to perform. He had fallen for a common myth about male sexuality: “A man is expected to be interested, always ready,” he said. Worse still, Mike’s previous partner had also bought into the myth. “If I was not interested in having sex, she’d assume there was something wrong with her, that she’d put on weight or that I didn’t fancy her. She couldn’t accept that I might just be tired or that I simply had a lot on at work.”

Past performance casts a shadow

On a couple of occasions in his previous relationship Mike had not been able to sustain an erection and his previous girlfriend would sulk. So now, unless he was 100 per cent sure of delivering, he stayed on his side of the bed. Once Rachel understood the shadow cast by Mike’s ex, she saw her own behaviour in a fresh light: “So if I come across the bed, even though it might be just for a cuddle, you interpret that as a demand for sex?” Mike nodded. With this understanding, Rachel and Mike were able to put his past behind them and lovemaking became a pleasure again.

For other people, the ex is not a turn-off but a turn-on. Alice, 48, had become preoccupied with her first teenage love: “When I’m having sex I imagine my old boyfriend. I’ve started having day dreams about tracking him down and meeting for a coffee in a hotel lobby. Except it doesn’t stop there; we’re soon upstairs naked in a four-poster bed.” She had started to question her 20-year marriage and whether she and her first love were destined to be reunited.

However, it soon became clear that Alice’s fantasy boyfriend and the real one were only tangentially connected. “Of course, he would probably have lost that long Seventies hair and the tight waist, and he wasn’t that good a lover: hurried and a bit rough,” she admitted. So I asked a couple of questions. How did Alice appear in her fantasy? “I’m young and beautiful, too.” What did that time in her life symbolise? “I was about to go to college. So, I guess, new possibilities, doors opening.” By contrast, her life today seemed stuck and dull. The fantasies were indee