Chemical sexuality

[andrewducker]

Reuters reports on another link between sex hormones and sexuality.

PCOS is strongly linked to high levels of androgens (like testosterone). It's now also strongly linked to lesbians:
"The prevalence of PCOS is two and a half times, almost three times, as high in lesbian women compared to heterosexual women."

The London clinic was among the first centers in Europe to offer fertility treatment to lesbians and single women. In a study of 618 women treated at the clinic, Agrawal discovered that 38 percent of the lesbian women had PCOS, compared to 14 percent of the heterosexual women.

Now, 518 isn't a huge sample size by anyone's standards, but it's yet another link between testosterone levels and sexuality.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

But, you know (I know you know) most of the differences between butch dykes and femme dykes are cosmetic, not real. And I'm not too clear whether the differences that remain after the cosmetic differences are removed actually count for anything: in part at least, tall fat dykes often adopt the butch identity because it's a lot more comfortable than trying to be femme when your bodytype doesn't fit that (and makes it tricky to buy femme clothing anyway). You will get high correlation between tall fat dykes/butch dykes for that reason, but there's an obvious social reason why, without blaming testosterone.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Damn you, hJc, that was going to be my next argument.

Yes, because if there's no social mediation of choices in self-presentation, then why would fashions change, or differ across cultures? It's all about the negotiated response.

I think, actually, when I shorthanded to "butch", I should have said something more like "a subset of butch women who have strongly male-stereotyped or male-correlated social, emotional and physical attributes". I do think that, anecdotally, I know more dykes than straight women who have, for example, very "triangular" body shapes, or lots of facial heair. Of course, that may be a question of people feeling free not to modify their bodies to hide those features.

[andrewducker]

It's all about the negotiated response

I the think the word 'all' there is far too sure of itself.

It's certainly partially about the negotiated response.

[(Anonymous)]

Definately agree- try being a fat, thick waisted, tall, hairy femme- IT DOESN'T WORK.