Gender, Sexual Fluidity, and "Naturalness"

For the sex and sexuality geeks out there, here's my response to Dr. Justin J. Lehmiller's recent articles, Sex Question Friday: Are Women More Likely To Be Bisexual Than Men? and Is Bisexuality Really A More Natural Tendency For Women Than Men? Dr. Lehmiller's thesis is that "women of all sexual orientations are capable of being turned on by a wider range of sexual targets than are men", and "women’s sexuality tends to be more situation-dependent, whereas men’s sexuality is more specific to a certain category." He cites evidence including: men are statistically more likely to report having fetishes, and in empirical studies women are aroused by a wider variety of stimuli than men. Please read his posts for his full argument. Here is my response:

What is "natural"? How can we tell?
Sexuality and sexual taboos are both socially and biologically influenced. Gender and biological sex are both different than sexuality. Each person has values that will influence how sexuality is expressed. Our values also influence our beliefs about this question and how we perceive the evidence. All of this makes the situation too complicated for me to feel confident saying *anything* about sexuality is natural except perhaps having a sex drive. Even then there are counter examples. Are people who consider themselves asexual freaks of nature? Saying something is "natural" implies something else is "unnatural" and both terms contain value judgments. If only Dr. Lehmiller had replaced natural with another word in this sentence, like so "while it is indeed possible for both men and women to be bisexual, evidence from a variety of sources suggests that bisexuality may be a more common occurrence among women than men", I would be less inclined to disagree.

Dr. Lehmiller's arguments haven't accounted for socialization.
Social pressure also encourages men to discuss anything sexual and affords men more opportunity to act on fetishes. For example, many more men than women patronize professional fetish and fantasy providers. However, given income disparity and the privileging of male sexuality (in US culture as I've experienced it), I would hesitate to say that this means men have more fetishes across the board. For these reasons,  Women, on the other hand, are often socialized to be cooperative and accommodating. Does that translate to fluidity when it comes to sexuality?

Studies of physical arousal only show us a partial picture.
We are whole beings, regardless of gender. Our thoughts, experiences, emotions, and physical response all influence each other. I am dubious of studies that consider physical arousal as proof of sexual preference. Again, it's so much more complicated than that!

Let's look at the varieties of sexual preference, gender, and physiology instead of binaries.
I do find the question of what other factors, including gender, may correlate with fluid sexuality interesting. I'm very interested to hear from people who have experienced both estrogen-dominated and testosterone-dominated physiology about how they've experienced sexuality differently with different hormonal ratios. Does the fluidity of sexuality change when the amount of certain hormones change in someone's body? Do people with more testosterone experience more rigid sexual preferences? Do people with more estrogen experience more fluidity? How does this vary depending on the values someone holds about gender and sexuality? Are there developmental differences? In other words, do people at different points in their lifelong development of their sexuality tend toward more or less fluidity of preference?

Please join the conversation! Topics like these are much more fun with friends!