The sexual identities of women are likely to be influenced by their romantic opportunities, according to new research conducted by the University of Notre Dame. This suggests that women are more adaptive to change compared with men.
Dr. Elizabeth Aura McClintock, an associate professor of sociology at Notre Dame, and her colleagues examined data collected from more than 9,000 individuals, including 4,191 men and 5,018 women, as they developed from adolescence to young adulthood.
The objective of the study is to explore the differences in sexual identities between males and females.
The researchers discovered that women were more likely to say that they are bisexual compared with men, while men were found to be more likely to say that they are either 100 percent homosexual or 100 percent heterosexual.
The findings also suggest that women were three times more likely to change their sexual identities compared with men.
The Notre Dame researchers asked participants if they have ever been attracted to people of the same sex as theirs or if they had participated in sexual activity with same-sex partners.
McClintock said that women were more likely to be attracted to both women and men compared to men, suggesting that they are more flexible in choosing their partner.
She explained that having this flexibility in sexual attractions can place greater importance on factors that are experiential and contextual in terms of sexual identity.
Women with higher levels of education and those who were more attractive physically were more likely to identify themselves as 100 percent heterosexual compared with others.
For men, those who were more educated compared with others were less likely to view themselves as 100 percent heterosexual, while the idea of physical attractiveness in men did not show a clear link with sexual identity.
McClintock said that men are not as often attracted to both genders compared with women. She said that the sexuality of men is less flexible in this sense. If a man is attracted only to one sex, his sexual identity would only be slightly altered by romantic opportunity.
The findings of the University of Notre Dame study are set to be presented at the American Sociological Association's (ASA) 110th annual meeting.
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