The MOST IMPORTANT FACT about the Psychology of Men

Abstract of  a Research Article--published by (1) Thomas Paul, Michael Forsting, and Elke R. Gizewski, of the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neurobiology, University Hospital Essen Germany; (2) Boris Schiffer and Thomas Zwarg, of the Department of Medical Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany; (3) Tillman H.C. Krüger and Manfred Schedlowski, of the Institute of Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH, Zurich, Switzweland; and (4) Sherif Karama, of the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada--entitled:

Brain Response to Visual Sexual Stimuli in Heterosexual and Homosexual Males

"Although heterosexual and homosexual individuals clearly show differences in subjective response to heterosexual and homosexual stimuli, the neurobiological processes underlying sexual orientation are largely unknown.  We addressed the question whether the expected differences in subjective response to visual heterosexual and homosexual stimuli may be reflected in differences in brain activation pattern.  Twenty-four healthy male volunteers, 12 heterosexuals and 12 homosexuals, were included in the study.  BOLD signal was measured while subjects were viewing erotic videos of heterosexual and homosexual content.  SPMO2 was used for data analysis. Individual sexual arousal was assessed by subjective rating.  As compared to viewing sexually neutral videos, viewing erotic videos led to brain activation pattern characteristic for sexual arousal in both groups only when subjects were viewing videos of their respective sexual orientation. Particularly, activation in the hypothalamus, a key brain area in sexual function, was correlated with sexual arousal.  Conversely, when viewing videos opposite to their sexual orientation both groups showed absent hypothalamic activation. Moreover, the activation pattern found in both groups suggests that stimuli of opposite sexual orientation triggered intense autonomic response and may be perceived, at least to some extent, as aversive."

Being scientists with their professional reputations to think of, our researchers are not about to tell us that stimuli of opposite sexual orientation triggered intense autonomic response--which they clearly did--but only that "the activation pattern found in both groups suggests" that they did. Neither are they at all eager to explain what, exactly, an "intense autonomic response" is, or, quite, what is meant by "aversive." So I googled the phrase "intense autonomic response" and the word "aversive" and here are a few of the working definitions of these words that I found online:

intense autonomic response

       "Marked tachycardia [rapid heart rate], tachypnea [rapid breathing], diaphoresis [heavy sweating], mydriasis [excessive dilation of the pupil of the eye], incomprehensible vocalisations...."

aversive

            "avoiding noxious or punishing stimuli."

          "of or pertaining to aversion; i.e., a strong feeling of dislike, opposition, repugnance, or antipathy."

In other words:  Ick!   Not just "I am not turned on by that," but "For Christ's sakes get that shit away from me!"  This, you see, is how men are.  Amant et odiunt.  If you are a man and you love cock, you really, really hate cunt.  And, of course, vice versa. There is no middle ground with men. Here we confront the essential core of masculine identity, of men's "pudeur d'homme...toujours plus délicate et plus sincère que [celle des femmes]," which women, and effeminate men, having neither modesty nor a sense of identity, both fear and scoff at.  

Nietzschean hyperbole?  Consider the following which I quote from Sheila Jeffreys' Beauty and Misogyny--Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (page 104):  [Having gratuitously and without substantiation pathologized "the troubled and uncomfortable relationship of gay men to femininity and to women themselves" as signifying "the subordinate position into which (gay men) are cast in relation to heterosexual men," Madam Jeffreys goes on to say,]

"One result can be a clear misogyny as expressed in what has been called the 'ick factor.'  This term is employed in gay male writings to describe the extreme revulsion experienced by some gay men at the thought or sight of women's naked bodies.

"The US queer theorist and activist Eric Rofes, for instance, explains that though he is very Lesbian and feminist identified he experiences the 'ick factor' which consists of 'a visceral response ranging from dislike to disgust when confronted with Lesbian sex and bodies' and is greatly troubled by it. He estimates that one-third of gay men suffer [!] from the 'ick factor' and offers in evidence what he has witnessed over 25 years in the gay male culture.  He has heard 'many men express their revulsion at Lesbian sex and women's bodies' and countless "tuna" jokes' which arise from the habit among some gay men of calling women 'fish' after what they consider to be the repulsive smell of their genitals.  He has seen 'men's faces turn sour when Lesbian sex appears in movies, and watched gay men huddle together in small groups voicing disgust at topless women in political demonstrations.'  Rofes quotes one man as saying he could not become physically close to Lesbians 'because of the odors he believed their bodies emitted.'"  It is disingenuous of Ms. Jeffreys [to say the least] to suggest that the man quoted said that he believed that Lesbians' bodies emitted noxious odors, and that he could never therefore get physically close to them.  Obviously, what he said was that Lesbians' bodies stink. It's Ms. Jeffreys who believes that he believes that they stink; thus discounting the very possibility that Lesbians might stink, or that men could smell them if they did. 

Nonetheless, palpable and rather pitiful liars as Sheila Jeffreys and the late Eric Rofes [he died suddenly of a heart attack, a few years ago at the untimely age of 53] are, yet through their respective ideological distortions [Feminism and Queer Theory--which have aspects, depending on which way you turn them, both of dark Pauline glass and funhouse mirrors] grins out devilishly, pitilessly, the sardonic male ick!  And a beautiful thing it is.