Dr. Meredith Chivers, a 36-year-old Queen's University assistant professor is garnering international attention from the media and in scholarly circles for documenting how men and women are sexually aroused in very different ways, The Globe's Anne McIlroy wrote Saturday in her article Charting new territory in feminine libido
Dr. Chivers's research suggests women can be physically aroused by a wide variety of sexual imagery but not feel any lust or desire - a disconnect in essence between the vagina and brain.
Men, on the other hand, reported arousal not in response to sexual imagery but rather on the basis of what was happening with their penises.
Dr. Chivers's work helps explain why Viagra and similar drugs work for men, but why no one has yet come up with one that is effective for women.
Those drugs help to improve the blood flow to the genitals, which for women, doesn't equate with feeling aroused.
In the future, she hopes to investigate whether the genital arousal female volunteers experience during her experiments leads to greater sexual activity in the days that follow. This will help her learn more about the connections between the two spheres of arousal.
She also wants to follow up on her hunch that for women, feeling desired is an important component of lust.
She says she hopes her work will give women insight into their sexuality and ultimately, help them have better sex.
Dr. Chivers was online earlier today to answer your questions about her research and the issues it raises.
Dr. Chivers has been approached by the Oprah show, and her work was featured prominently in a recent New York Times magazine story.
She joined Queen's this fall after taking a year's maternity leave and is now analyzing data from the experiment in which volunteers listened to tapes about the various scenarios in her research.
She was studying psychology at the University of Guelph when she took her first course in human sexuality.
"I knew that if I could do that for the rest of my life I would be a pretty happy person."
She says she became fascinated by the female sexual response. After graduate work at Northwestern University in Chicago, she became a research fellow at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
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Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Thanks for joining us today, Dr. Chivers. Let's get right to the questions.
N.J.: This research is interesting, but I do hope you're also considering how socialization affects women's sexuality.
The indisputable fact is that most women grow up being told - in ways both subtle and less-than subtle - that their sexuality is something to be hidden. A woman who gets horny is easily dismissed as a (you know the word), regardless of her sexual activity. "Good girls don't" is a classic sexist cliché suggesting that women don't enjoy sex as much as men.
I wouldn't be surprised if many of the women in your study indicated they weren't aroused regardless of the reality. Many women would be afraid of being viewed negatively (and some are highly conditioned to reject their own arousal as "inappropriate").
In particular, given that (a) the popular stereotype is that women hate pornography, despite some research suggesting at least one-third of porn users are women, and given that (b) "alternate' sexualities" (e.g., homosexuality) are still too often considered "perverse," I suspect that at least some women in this study simply weren't comfortable admitting what turned them on.
In short, I'd like to see more specifics from your research: Where was there disparity between arousals? How did you ensure the women weren't simply lying about what aroused them? Did you interview the women on their backgrounds, their feelings about sex & arousal?
There are a lot of unanswered questions here.
Dr. Chivers: Yes, we interviewed women about their sexual histories, experience with erotica, sexual attitudes and the like. These factors did not show an association with their patterns of sexual responses in the laboratory.
As for women lying about their responses, we cannot rule out this possibility, but I think this is an unlikely explanation for the disconnect between self-reported and physical sexual arousal because the pattern of results I have observed in sexual response has been shown in other psychophysiology research where taboo and lying is not a concern.
Research on perception of other physical cues, like heart rate, has also shown gender differences. Men are more accurate at detecting and reporting the frequency of their heart rate than women are in a laboratory setting.
Woman of Reason, London, England: I reject the idea that our culture forces women to repress their sexuality because of a supposed double standard. That was true in the bad old days before the feminism and the 1960s.
However, I'm in my late 30s and have yet to encounter the double standard in any meaningful way. So far as I can tell, women of my generation have refused to accept it and have pretty much done whatever we fancied.
Most men seem to rather like sexually liberated women. Why wouldn't they? Those that don't should be avoided.
[Did your research find any difference among your female subjects, based on age?]/p>
Dr. Chivers: Women have different experiences of societal constraints on their sexuality, depending on many factors such as culture, religion, and geographical location. You have been very fortunate to have such freedom to express your sexuality.
In our meta-analysis of 130 studies, we looked for effects that would suggest that older women had more conservative or restricted sexualities, but we did not obtain results to support this hypothesis.
Name Withheld: My deepest thanks to Dr. Chivers for her research and to Anne McIlroy for writing this article.
Nine months ago, I was raped while on vacation in the Caribbean. One of the many problems which resulted from this horrific experience was that my husband did not believe that I had been an unwilling participant.
One reason that he didn't believe me was the lack of physical injury to my vagina because I was sufficiently lubricated to prevent it. I have been struggling with this for months, asking myself if I somehow provoked or invited the attack. I couldn't explain even to myself why I was "ready."
The information in this article has given me the missing piece of the puzzle and it is such a tremendous relief.
Intellectually, I know that I am not to blame for what happened. But emotionally, it is much harder and you have blessed me tremendously. Thank you both and God bless you.
Dr. Chivers: I am so sorry this happened to you. You are not alone. Your experience of physical arousal during sexual assault is not uncommon.
I am so glad to hear that my research could help you find a way to understand your experience of sexual assault and to find some peace. Thank you very much for sharing your story.
R.M., Saskatchewan: I believe the federal and Ontario governments shouldn't be allowing this type of research to be undertaken at our public institutions, using public facilities and funds.
[Would you care to respond?]/p>
Dr. Chivers: I wonder why the writer believes that public support of sexuality research is so problematic. The alternative is for researchers to seek support from industry and thereby restrict the breadth of inquiry.
Sexuality is a fundamental aspect of our human nature. To not study it would be a major oversight in health research and an injustice to other taxpaying Canadians such as the woman in the question above who shared her experience of rape.
Perhaps the writer might consider how s/he might feel about public funding for sexuality research if the previous question from Name Withheld was written by their mother/sister/daughter/aunt/friend.
Should we ban public support for sex research, even if what we are learning is difficult and disquieting, but ultimately helping women?
Ruby Christal, Edmonton: Thinking of the Kinsey spectrum of human sexuality, there could be more variation than these limited studies could be expected to detect.
Some women and a few men are multi-orgasmic. There are also some known genetic factors. Some men seem to require fantasy, akin to most women. Culturalization is also going to be a factor too, you would think.
I wonder if discrete gender or sexuality categories are appropriate, since they amount to biased assumptions that are likely to affect experimental outcomes.
What would Dr. Chivers say on the difficulties of experimental design in this area?
Dr. Chivers: As the reader suggests, there are many factors that are likely to influence women's sexual response.
My research has examined only a small number of these factors in the laboratory and I plan study others using other methods of investigation as I continue my program of research.
Snowy Lander, Edmonton: I wonder if the study would have been better if you had used a brain wave/scanner monitor instead of relying on the subject to describe/key in how she felt.
Maybe they were really aroused mentally but didn't want to admit it? Did I miss something in the description of the study?
Dr. Chivers: It is possible that women were reluctant to admit to arousal but, as mentioned earlier, the pattern of results we've reported is not unique to sexuality research.
Using fMRI could be helpful but this technology is not a panacea. A study would have to be carefully designed to compare a woman's brain activity while she lied with her brain activity when she was reporting sexual arousal to a non-preferred sexual stimulus in order to be revealing about the veracity of a woman's self-report under typical conditions.
Peter Crane, Toronto: This is very interesting research which shows just how difficult exploring and explaining the subject of female sexuality really is. It will take many years to explore and we are just in the infancy of its research.
Most mature adults know that in women, the brain is the sexiest part that gets the knees unlocked or not.
This is such a taboo subject in our society that it is refreshing that we can at least start discussing it. It is a good sign of (slow) progress that The Globe is willing to publish it. Perhaps we are finally maturing as a society? Would you comment on that?
Dr. Chivers: I am very pleased to see several major media sources willing to present research on women's sexuality in a frank and mostly nonjudgmental manner.
N.A., Quebec: Hi, I feel that you are 100% right, that desire is a very important component for female lust.
Sadly, a lot of guys confuse desire with neediness or borderline desperation and dispense it at inappropriate moments.
The way I see it, a women wants a bold guy who does not apologize for his desires but is not necessarily attached to them. This frustrates her ego because no matter how strong they are, he is still in control of himself and will not jump to her tune.
From my experience, women are quite intrigued when a guy is unapologetically bold, provocative, upfront and straightforward about his erotic/romantic intentions and interests without being presumptuous or forceful nor attached to a certain outcome. It's like in the movie 9½ weeks when Kim Basinger criticizes Mickey Rourke for moving too quickly and he responds: "Take off your shirt...or just ask me to leave."
My main question: Does your research provide an analysis about romantic novels/erotica as that constitutes almost 50% of the books women buy. Do women feel aroused when reading them?
Dr. Chivers: I just completed preliminary data analysis for a study that examined women's arousal to sexual stories instead of the audiovisual depictions of sexual activity I have used in all my other studies.
Based on those preliminary results, yes, women are physically sexually aroused by reading these stories.
Other research has shown, however, that women show their highest sexual response to films, rather than pictures or stories. Although women might prefer reading erotica over watching a sexual film, women respond with greater sexual arousal to the latter.
Political Crone: What is new about any of this?
I write and publish in the romance market. Do these researchers know what women read? Not just romances which feature hundreds of scenes such as the example of the woman and the real estate agent given, but the very explicit erotica lines now published by half a dozen companies. Years ago, Nancy Friday published two books of women's sexual fantasies - from animals to rough sex the fantasies run the gambit.
I hear from my readers and I have every reason to believe that women are physically aroused by their own fantasies during sex. The brain is the most important sexual organ. Sure, some women are turned on by animal fantasies but far more are turned on by slave-girl syndrome, as I like to call it. I have found that the stronger a woman is in the business world, the more likely she is to be turned on by fantasies where she is dominated by a male.
I am in my seventies and I don't think there is any new research in this area.
[Would you comment on that?]/p>
Dr. Chivers: Nancy Friday and many others have written about women's sexuality with refreshing and unapologetic honesty.
My research is certainly informed by their pioneering contributions and knowledge of what women are reading but, as a scientist, I approach these forms of discourse on women's sexuality as hypotheses to be tested, rather than proven facts.
Stephen Nelson: What accounts for the tremendous variation in female sexual behaviour across human cultures?
For example, every adult Mosuo girl in China has a special Azhu house of her own where her lover can visit during the night. But he must leave early the next morning. If the girl wishes to stop the love affair, she simply closes the door.
The lovers have no economic or legal ties. Their relationship is based only on mutual love and affection, where the will of the female is highly respected. If children are born into the family, they belong exclusively to the mother's side and inherit her surname. They are raised with their mother and uncles and are not introduced to their father until their adult ceremony.
Would your study produce the same results in a culture like that of the Mosuo?
Dr. Chivers: Cross-cultural research on sexuality is sorely needed to understand how our societal architecture shapes sexuality and sexual expression in women and men.
Whether or not women from a matrilineal society, like the Mosuo, would show a similar pattern of sexual psychophysiology as Western women do is an empirical question: Do women raised in a society that supports the expression of female sexuality and involves women in business decision-making, but has male-dominated political system, have sexual responses that are radically different from that of other women?
I doubt it but I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
Jim Sheppard, Executive Editor, globeandmail.com: Thanks, Dr. Chivers, for taking the time to answer questions from our readers today. I'm sure they appreciated your insight and analysis. Any last thoughts?
Dr. Chivers: I am grateful to The Globe and Mail for this opportunity to educate women and men, and to have a dialogue about sexuality with readers.
I would encourage interested readers to obtain the actual research papers themselves for more specific information about this and other research.
Media coverage of research is rarely able to provide a high degree of resolution on any topic because of factors such as space limitations, and readers should be aware that they receive only very limited information on any topic if they do not read the primary sources themselves.