Long ago, scientists wanted to believe that women and men have different brains.

In the 19th century, it was argued that women are dumber than men because their brains were smaller. However, this argument was quickly abandoned when the question was asked if elephants were thus smarter because of their bigger brains. Later on, it was argued that the best estimate of intelligence was by dividing the brain size by body weight. However, this was also discarded when women were found to be smarter according to this method [1]. (It might be curious to note that although men’s brains are generally bigger; they lose brain tissue three times as fast with age. Factors uncertain at this point [2].)

The quest for the link between brain size and intelligence has fizzled out. Today, research is working on how the brains are organized and how sex differences in the brain might contribute to differences in behavior. It is hypothesized that different organization of the brain is responsible for behavioral differences between men and women, as well as sexual orientation.

Let’s start with some difficulties of generalizing results of brain research:

(Courtesy of Yawning Bread, a most respected and incisive place for countless thought-provoking and insightful articles.)

A Swedish researcher has found that lesbians’ brains respond in a way that is distinct from heterosexual men’s and women’s, to two hormone-derived chemicals. This is yet another piece of evidence that there is a biological basis to sexual orientation.

Ivanka Savic from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm carried out the study using two chemicals.

One, labelled “AND”, is derived from progesterone and found in men’s armpit sweat. In heterosexual women, she found that sniffing this chemical triggers a response in the anterior hypothalamus of heterosexual women’s brains. This area is involved in sexual interest, lying as it does very close to the pituitary gland. In homosexual women however, AND triggers a response in another part of the brain, the olfactory region. This is the region where smells are normally processed.

The brains were imaged using positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.

What the results show is that where heterosexual women respond to a male smell in the sexual part of their brains, lesbians respond to it as just another smell. The lesbians’ response is similar to heterosexual men’s. The latter too handle AND as just another smell, in the olfactory part of their brains.

The other chemical that Savic worked with was derived from oestrogen and found in pregnant women’s urine. It was labelled “EST”.

Savic knew from earlier studies that EST produces responses in heterosexuals that are opposite to the effects of AND. In straight men’s brains, EST triggers a response in the hypothalamus (the sex area). In straight women’s brains, the response is located in the olfactory region, as just another smell.

Labels- why do you hate them?

Some people hate labels because they don’t fit into any category:
“I am not femme; andro or butch!”
“I am a little femme… a little andro, what does that make me?!”
“I behave differently at different occasions. What does that make me?”

Some people hate labels because they don’t identify with the stereotype of that category:
“I am femme BUT i am not passive DAMMIT. I wanna take control!”
“I am butch but that doesn’t mean that i want to give (in bed) and not receive!”

It is a Saturday night, and you head off to the club for a night out with the girls. After knocking back a few drinks, you notice a hot girl standing off to the corner of the bar, nervously looking around. You head over to her, ask her for a dance. During one of the slow dances, you get close... you kiss. You take her home, and give her the best sex she has ever had in her life, though it seems that she has little idea what to do.

You wake up with her the next morning, and she’s talking to her boyfriend on the phone.

Damn. The bicurious woman strikes again.

If lesbians hate bisexual women, they hate bicurious women even more, though in many quarters, bicuriousity is equated with bisexuality. *cough*Fridae*cough* To reiterate the existing stereotypes: they break lesbian hearts by the dozen, and leave them for a man with a big dick and a bigger wallet. Or worse, they grope girls in the club in order to attract attention from men.

While Pleinelune makes no judgement about the truth of these stereotypes, she has to make a crucial distinction in this discussion, as she did previously. Bicuriousity is natural, because most people are generic bisexuals [outside the range of 2.5-3.5 on the Kinsey scale]  hence they are not to be equated with true-type bisexuality.