Feminist scholarship highlighting the importance of sexuality suggests the utility of studying beliefs about gender and sexuality, but the public opinion literature on gender-related attitudes has paid almost no attention to this issue. This research report addresses U.S. men's and women's beliefs about several aspects of sexuality: gender differences in sexual drives, gender inequalities in sexual power, and sexual orientation. The results suggest that men and women tend to share similar beliefs about sexual drives and sexual orientation but disagree notably on issues of sexual power. In addition, naturalization of sexuality is associated with greater acceptance of the sexual status quo, suggesting that naturalizing beliefs play a role in maintaining sexual inequality.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adler, Nancy.1981. Sex roles and unwanted pregnancy in adolescent and adult women.Professional Psychology12:56-66.
2.
Barrett, Michelle.
1991. The politics of truth: From Marx to Foucault.Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
3.
Baxter, Janeen
, and Emily W. Kane.1995. Dependence and independence: A cross-national analysis of gender inequality and gender attitudes.Gender & Society9:193-215.
4.
Boswell, John.
1980. Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality: Gay people in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the fourteenth century.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
5.
Brownmiller, Susan.
1975. Against our will: Men, women, and rape.New York: Simon and Schuster.
6.
Burt, Martha R.1980. Cultural myths and support for rape.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology38:217-30.
7.
Connell, Robert W.
1987. Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics.Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
8.
D'Augelli, A. R.
, and M. L. Rose.1990. Homophobia in a university community: Attitudes and experience of heterosexual freshman.Journal of College Student Development31:484-91.
9.
Foucault, Michel.
1978. The history of sexuality. Vol. 1. New York: Random House.
10.
Gavey, Nicola.1992. Technologies and effects of heterosexual coercion.Feminism and Psychology2:325-51.
11.
Greenberg, David F.
1988. The construction of homosexuality.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
12.
Griffin, Susan.
1979. Rape: The politics of consciousness.New York: Harper and Row.
13.
Herek, Gregory M.1988. Heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: Correlates and gender differences.Journal of Sex Research25:451-77.
14.
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia.
1988. Lesbian ethics: Toward a new value.Palo Alto, CA: Institute for Lesbian Studies.
15.
Howard, Judith.1988. Gender differences in sexual attitudes: Conservatism or powerlessness?Gender & Society2:103-14.
16.
Kite, Mary E.
, and Kay Deaux.1986. Attitudes toward homosexuality: Assessment and behavioral consequences.Basic and Applied Social Psychology7:137-62.
17.
Kitzinger, Celia
, Sue Wilkinson, and Rachel Perkins.1992. Theorizing heterosexuality.Feminism and Psychology2:293-324.
18.
Kurdek, Lawrence A.1988. Correlates of negative attitudes toward homosexuals in heterosexual college students.Sex Roles18:727-38.
19.
Lacqueur, Thomas.
1990. Making sex: Body and gender from the Greeks to Freud.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
Larsen, Knud S.
, Michael Reed, and Susan Hoffman.1980. Attitudes of heterosexuals toward homosexuality: A Likert-type scale and construct validity.Journal of Sex Research16:245-57.
21.
Laumann, E. O.
, J. H. Gagnon, R. T. Michael, and S. Michaels. 1994. The social organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
22.
MacKinnon, Catherine A.
1987. Feminism unmodified.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
23.
Martin, Karin A.1993. Gender and sexuality: Medical opinion on homosexuality, 1900-1950.Gender & Society7:246-60.
24.
Morgen, Sandra.
1990. Conceptualizing and changing consciousness: Socialist-feminist perspectives. In Women, class, and the feminist imagination, edited by Karen V. Hansen and Ilene J. Philipson, 277-91. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
25.
Rich, Adrienne.1980. Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence.Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society5:631-60.
