http://www.independent.co.ug/index.php/component/content/article/2379?format=pdf

My response was to DB (who was writing about Diamond) so when you interjected – you were off topic. I’m just saying if you want to discuss the issue of women and change or change in homosexuals, you should become familiar with more of the recent research that is out there.

I was just passing by …and saw the debate on men and women differences. Thought I’d share a few thoughts on that. It’s always a hot topic on this planet.

First of all, the classical idea seems to hold true: women get to sex through some emotional connection stuff that happens first, or through fear. Men get to sex through vision. So, men who feel a lot of fear seem to be on the same wavelength with women attracted to men. But men who are attracted to men don’t get the same almost sex-indiscriminate patterns of arousal as women attracted to men… Odd, huh? Why is that, it’s unknown yet, but it may have something to do with the fact that vaginas don’t need to do anything to have sex but get aroused, so any pattern of arousal is OK to nature as long as the rule is that women are chased.

As I said earlier, women get to sex through emotional connection or through fear. So for women sex is mediated by something emotional that makes the impression safe enough to go all the way to sex. But, on the other hand, there is no 1 single type of attractions for women, methinks. Sometimes women are attracted to men out of fear and other times because they make them feel like they felt when they were little girls around their daddy (which includes some trust, attachment and excitement). What scientists study is the first type mostly, the one that happens in a matter of seconds or even less. What they get is indiscriminate arousal, because women’s sexuality is also narcissistic and females physically empathize with bodies when they are aroused (or hurt).

There are fewer studies on arousal generated by long-term relationship; that type of attraction to their partner is, I think, somewhat different. Women can be attracted to strangers, men, but I think they are more likely to direct their arousal to their long-term partners. Anyway, for women, attachment seems to keep women attracted to their partners even when first-sight attractions are mostly gone.

I’ve made this long introduction to say that when all sorts of people – scientists, journalists, bloggers, or laymen – talk about orientation in sexual attractions, they do not differentiate or think it’s important that there may not be only one way to be attracted and therefore, one way to measure or attempt change. At least for women. Since every person develops using their own combination of half father/mother, half man/woman genes, goes through their own way of attaching to a parent (male/female), enters the social circle of kids (boys/girls) through their own path and grows up in so many ways of interacting with them, much the same I expect when they become adults to have a multitude of ways of feeling man or woman, attracted to women or attracted to men.

Scientists can measure arousal induced by images and videos in a matter of seconds and conclude that change never happens. Individual people who develop relationships through which they become attached and attracted to each other may subjectively feel that as a form of change and report it as such. Who would be those getting their signals mixed up: scientists or real people in real relationships? Is any scientist interested in studying whether gay men have ever had a strong attraction to one particular woman or a great sexual experience with one woman and try to understand how come their patterns of arousal are mostly oriented towards men? Haven’t seen one. THe same question goes for lesbian women who had at least one attraction/great sexual relationship with one particular man. It’d be interesting to see how that’s technically possible, considering the gay patterns of arousal and gay patterns of brains. If there are such cases, then the people affected may understand their experiences as changes in sexuality, either spontaneous or not.

To conclude, change may mean different things to different people because: they develop differently and have different mixtures of factors, they feel some types of attractions but not others or may meet particular people who make them feel something new, which they perceive as change. But for science there is none significant yet that is visible in physical terms.

—Since I haven’t been around here for some time and don’t know when I come back, I wish you a happy new year this year, folks.

As I have said several times now, I have NO problem with the notion that women may experience more fluidity in their sexuality than men. I am not disputing that some gays and lesbians experience some changes.

I was referring to the debate that has been going on here forever — about the meanings of those words.

The “change” discussion gets difficult, in part, because there seems to be no general concensus (as least here) on their meaning. It’s all “debateable” — as years of wrangling over the meaning of these words has clearly shown.