Darryl B. Hill

In the last 10 years, researchers have developed separate rating scales for men and women that purport to measure a person's thoughts about their sexual self or sexual self-schema. While these scales are promising, there are some problems intrinsic to these measures. This study addresses these concerns and tests a combined measure for use among both men and women, while retaining internal consistency and a factor structure similar to the women's scale. Having both men and women complete the same scale permitted a comparison of how men and women think about their sexual selves. In this study, gender differences netted a small effect, with men scoring lower on both the loving/warmth and reserved/conservative factors compared to women. Results are discussed in terms of future research with this new scale and the meaning of gender differences along these dimensions.

Little is known about the sexual lives of “feminine” heterosexual men (i.e., men who eschew traditional rigid “masculine” gender roles in favor of more stereotypically “feminine” gender roles and characteristics). Based on an analysis of gender and sexuality discourse, mostly from social psychology, this paper proposes a model of the sexual subjectivity of the feminine heterosexual man. This model suggests that these men may find it difficult to attract a partner and maintain satisfying sexual relationships, but once established they appear to build strong relationships. This conceptualization proposes that feminine heterosexual men subvert overly restrictive heteropatriarchal sexual scripts, freeing both traditional and nontraditional men to explore ways of being sexual with women outside a dominant-submissive dialectic.