Women Have "Bisexual Arousal Patterns": Study

Women heterosexual and lesbian tend toward sexual arousal by both male and female erotica, or bisexual arousal pattern, as opposed to men whose arousal does mostly tie to their sexual orientation, according to a forthcoming study from Northwestern University to be published in Psychological Science

The findings "have important implications for understanding differences in sexual orientation between men and women," Northwestern psychology chairman and senior study researcher J. Michael Bailey told the New York Times.

The study, "A Sex Difference in the Specificity of Sexual Arousal," measures psychological and physiological arousal patterns in homosexual and heterosexual men and woman while they watched erotic films, the Times said.

And heterosexual women proved just as sexually aroused watching two women having sex as they were watching a man and a woman having sex, the Northwestern study claims.

"Since most women seem capable of sexual arousal to both sexes," Bailey said, "why do they choose one or the other? Probably, for reasons other than sexual arousal."