What does sexual orientation orient?

[Siggy]

I can't remember when or why, but someone from AVEN (probably Mandrewliter) linked to this paper called "What does Sexual Orientation Orient?" by Lisa Diamond. When it eventually floated to the top of my reading pile, it sort of blew my mind. Though the paper never mentions asexuality, it has some pretty obvious implications.

"What does Sexual Orientation Orient?" 2015 Edit: New link
"Emerging Perspectives on Distinctions Between Romantic Love and Sexual Desire" (a shorter article with the same thrust) 2015 Edit: New link

Obviously I'm not going to get many people to read the whole thing, so I'll summarize some of the main points.

• Sexual desire and romantic love are functionally independent. They evolved for separate reasons at separate times. Sexual desire clearly evolved for the purpose of reproduction. Romantic love, on the other hand, evolved so that individuals stay together long enough to care for their offspring. The two do not necessarily come together.
  
• Though they are functionally independent, romantic love and sexual desire are often connected. Previous researchers usually assume that sexual desire leads to romantic love, but Diamond argues that it also goes the other way; romantic love leads to sexual desire. I think demisexuals would fit right into this model.
  
• The link between romantic love and sexual desire is stronger among women. Do you think that means that more women will be demisexual?
  
• Most researchers on love think there are two stages of love: passionate (aka infatuation) and companionate. Passionate love is characterized by an intense desire to be close, while companionate love is characterized by feelings of calm and mutual comfort seeking. Companionate love usually only develops when there is sustained proximity with a person. Diamond suggested that the purpose of passionate love is to motivate this sustained proximity.
  
  I wonder, what would happen if someone is missing only the passionate love component? Would that person be effectively aromantic, perhaps with one or two relationships in their life, just enough to confuse them?
  
• Most researchers on love believe that romantic love evolved from a different form of love: the love between infant and caregiver. Evolution sort of exploited the mechanism of infant-caregiver love to create the mechanism of romantic love between adults. This is not the evolutionary path I would have guessed, but apparently it's well-supported.
  
• Infant-caregiver love is not intrinsically oriented towards either gender. In fact, it would be maladaptive if infants or caregivers selectively preferred a single gender. Diamond argues that the same must be true of romantic love--it is not intrinsically oriented towards either gender. This is why, she says, heterosexuals can fall in love with the same gender (or homosexuals with the opposite gender). And since love can lead to sexual desire (especially in women), this could be one reason why people occasionally have sexual desires which are contrary to their sexual orientation.
  
  Something about this idea doesn't seem right to me though. If romantic love really has no intrinsic orientation, that would imply that there are only aromantics and biromantics; homoromantics and heteromantics only exist because of other factors (ie cultural). Anyways, just because romantic love evolved from infant-caregiver love doesn't mean that they share this particular characteristic. Diamond also provided more direct evidence for this assertion, something to do with prairie voles, but I found this meager and unconvincing.

Maybe that was a lot to swallow, but I found it so fascinating, I had to share. What do you all think?

[Lord Happy Toast]

She also has a book called Sexual Fluidity that, while it doesn't mention asexuality, is very interesting and discusses a lot of issues very much relevant to asexuals. It's also very readable.

My thoughts on the paper: I found the argument compelling up until the evolutionary parts. (Granted, I tend to be pretty skeptical of a lot of evolutionary psychology in general--lots of speculation, not so many facts.)

Also, my impression was the that idea that romantic love evolved from infant-caregiver bonds was an approach she was advocating rather than a consensus position. Anyway, you're right about the problem posted by asexuals with hetero- and homoromantic orientations: the theory has no real way to account for them.

In fact, the simple observation that straight people overwhelmingly tend to fall in love with people of the opposite gender and gay men and lesbians overwhelming tend to fall in love with people of the same gender is a real problem for her. In her book, she acknowledges this, and the solution she puts forward is that sexual interest causes them to spend more time with people of the same/opposite gender, which is why those are the people they fall in love with.

But there is simple fact that are major problems with this: lots of people get (romantic) crushes on people they aren't already really close to. The attraction (often) isn't just sexual, a fact clear enough in people experiences, but made extra clear when it occurs in the experiences of asexuals.

Also, the idea that sexual desire evolved for the purpose of procreation is actually pretty absurd if you think about it. If sexual desire existed just for the purpose of reproduction, then we should expect people to be interested in having sex about once every two to four years or so. As it turns out, most people want sex more often than that. The book "Evolution's Rainbow" makes a very good case for sexual behavior evolving for a lot more than just reproduction.

[FallenAngel]

You make some pretty interesting points that I had not noticed before. This is good :)

[kt8]

Oh my god, this article is amazing *saves to desktop*.

"High degrees of time, togetherness, and touch can "stand in" for sexual desire in facilitating the devlopment of romantic love."

EXACTLY!!!

Oh, I am going to use this...

[Siggy]

Also, my impression was the that idea that romantic love evolved from infant-caregiver bonds was an approach she was advocating rather than a consensus position. Anyway, you're right about the problem posted by asexuals with hetero- and homoromantic orientations: the theory has no real way to account for them.

Hmm... That's not the impression I'm getting at all. On page 175, she says "it has arguably become the predominant theoretical perspective underlying research on adult romantic relationships." Then again, she also felt the need to have pages and pages of evidence (completely opaque to me) supporting the evolutionary link. I wouldn't know for myself whether it's consensus or not, I was just taking her word for it.

In fact, the simple observation that straight people overwhelmingly tend to fall in love with people of the opposite gender and gay men and lesbians overwhelming tend to fall in love with people of the same gender is a real problem for her. In her book, she acknowledges this, and the solution she puts forward is that sexual interest causes them to spend more time with people of the same/opposite gender, which is why those are the people they fall in love with.

Agreed. That's quite a problem for her model.

But there is simple fact that are major problems with this: lots of people get (romantic) crushes on people they aren't already really close to. The attraction (often) isn't just sexual, a fact clear enough in people experiences, but made extra clear when it occurs in the experiences of asexuals.

My impression was that only companionate love requires close proximity. Passionate love, which more closely corresponds to the idea of a crush, does not require close proximity.

A thought struck: Maybe it's only companionate love which lacks intrinsic orientation (or has a weak orientation). I didn't understand the whole study with the prairie voles, but it seemed like the argument only applied to companionate love, not passionate love. Granted, I have no evidence for my claim, so it's even more speculative than evolutionary psychology. :P

Also, the idea that sexual desire evolved for the purpose of procreation is actually pretty absurd if you think about it. If sexual desire existed just for the purpose of reproduction, then we should expect people to be interested in having sex about once every two to four years or so. As it turns out, most people want sex more often than that. The book "Evolution's Rainbow" makes a very good case for sexual behavior evolving for a lot more than just reproduction.

You probably know more about it than me. But it seems plausible that reproduction would at least be the first reason why sexual desire evolved, and other things could have been built on top of that. Does this sound right?

[ColBrandon]

In fact, the simple observation that straight people overwhelmingly tend to fall in love with people of the opposite gender and gay men and lesbians overwhelming tend to fall in love with people of the same gender is a real problem for her.

I'm not sure if this is a problem for the theory. Her point is that romantic attraction can follow sexual attraction or vice versa. As long as the former case is more common we would expect to see most people falling in love with those they are sexually oriented towards.

The existence of asexuals with romantic orientations would seem to be a bigger problem for the theory, but I think that it may not be. Here's where I get controversial: It is possible that all asexuals with romantic orientations are not fully asexual, but fall within the "gray-A." We (and I'm counting myself here) have a sexual orientation and a weak sense of sexual attraction, which motivates stronger feelings of romantic attraction.

[New Penny]

I think that sexual desire also functions as a way to assuage hostility in civilized society.

I think - personally - that the ability to eroticize fear is necessary for a person's maturity.

And I don't think that sexual desire has much to do with romantic desire - which is all about caring and protecting, and feeling... sort of... loved up? - Which is all sort of innocent and happy and makes you feel child-like.

[Lord Happy Toast]

In fact, the simple observation that straight people overwhelmingly tend to fall in love with people of the opposite gender and gay men and lesbians overwhelming tend to fall in love with people of the same gender is a real problem for her.

I'm not sure if this is a problem for the theory. Her point is that romantic attraction can follow sexual attraction or vice versa. As long as the former case is more common we would expect to see most people falling in love with those they are sexually oriented towards.

The existence of asexuals with romantic orientations would seem to be a bigger problem for the theory, but I think that it may not be. Here's where I get controversial: It is possible that all asexuals with romantic orientations are not fully asexual, but fall within the "gray-A." We (and I'm counting myself here) have a sexual orientation and a weak sense of sexual attraction, which motivates stronger feelings of romantic attraction.

The main line of argument that Diamond uses is one fairly standard in cognitive psychology and neuropsychology: if you can find double dissociations, you have good evidence that you're dealing with different phenomona (i.e. if you can have sexual desire but not romantic desire, this isn't as theoretically interesting as if it is possible to have either without the other.)

I've got a blog entry How can someone who falls in love not be sexual?, talking about this issue. As for the theory that hetero- and homoromantic asexuals are a variety of hetero- and homosexuals, the most obvious difficulty would be to account for sexual people with discordant romantic and sexual orientations. I'll quote the key parts of my blog.

Diamond did a longitudinal study with about 80 women who had reported feeling at least some amount of same sex attraction, interviewing them once initially and then once every two years for ten years. She asked them to rate the percent of physical attraction they felt to men vs. women (i.e. 60% towards women and 40% towards men) and asked the same question about emotional attraction. In her book Sexual Fluidity, largely based on this study, Diamond writes,

“The percentage of physical same-sex attractions they experienced differed from their emotional same-sex attractions [on average] by 15 percentage points in either direction (in other words, some women were more emotionally than physically drawn to women, whereas others were more physically than emotionally drawn.) A small number of women reported discrepancies of up to 40 percentage points” (p. 77.)

She quotes one woman who was very uncertain how to identify because of this.

“Sometimes I worry that I will never settle down with anyone, because the way I feel about guys is mainly sexual, and the way I way about women is mainly emotional. So I’m always going between the two, and I don’t know what to call that, you know?” (also on p. 77.)

The experience of romantically inclined asexuals fits well with this line of evidence and, in fact, provides even further support for the claim that emotional attraction and sexual attraction aren't the same thing and don't always go together.

2015 Edit - For future reference:

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

How can someone who falls in love not be sexual?

I don’t hear this objection being raised as often as the one about masturbation, but it still is an important issue. Many people seem to think of romantic love and sexual desire as inseparably connected, even if distinct. In many studies, sexual orientation has been defined in terms of the gender(s) someone is sexually/romantically attracted to, collapsing the two forms of attraction into one. However, there are good reasons to doubt the inseparability of the two.

The most obvious is that there is quite a lot of sex that happens in the word with no romantic attachment and no emotional intimacy. People don’t seem to have much difficult recognizing this, but sometimes it can be harder for them to accept that it works the other way too. There can be romantic relationships with strong emotional bonds without sex or sexual desire.

For asexuals in a romantic relationship, separating the two can be important for explaining their experience. Sometimes they have difficulty getting others to accept this. However, in psychology, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the two should be separated. Lisa Diamond of the University of Utah has done a good amount of work on this subject. (This article, titled "Emerging Perspectives on Distinctions Between Romantic Love and Sexual Desire" is a good summary. For a longer argument, a paper titled “What Does Sexual Orientation Orient?”? , is available on her website. It's a scanned copy, so it is a bit big.) In “What Does Sexual Orientation Orient?” she argues that sexual desire and romantic love should be seen as separate for several reasons. First, causation works both ways. Sexual attraction often leads to romantic attraction, but it can also go the other way as well. Many people who become emotionally distant with their partner lose sexual interest, but if they again become much closer emotionally, sexual interest increases. Second, many prepubescent children report feelings of infatuation with people, despite not yet having sexual desires. Third, there are people report feelings of infatuation and/or falling in love with people counter to their sexual orientation (i.e. a straight man falling in love with another man, but still not being sexually interested. This isn’t reported often in present day discourse but can be found often enough in writings from previous centuries.)

Often asexuals will distinguish affection orientation from sexual orientation. As it turns out, asexual people aren’t the only ones whose sexual attractions don’t match their affectional attractions. Diamond did a longitudinal study with about 80 women who had reported feeling at least some amount of same sex attraction, interviewing them once initially and then once every two years for ten years. She asked them to rate the percent of physical attraction they felt to men vs. women (i.e. 60% towards women and 40% towards men) and asked the same question about emotional attraction. In her book Sexual Fluidity, largely based on this study, Diamond writes,

“The percentage of physical same-sex attractions they experienced differed from their emotional same-sex attractions [on average] by 15 percentage points in either direction (in other words, some women were more emotionally than physically drawn to women, whereas others were more physically than emotionally drawn.) A small number of women reported discrepancies of up to 40 percentage points” (p. 77.)

She quotes one woman who was very uncertain how to identify because of this.

“Sometimes I worry that I will never settle down with anyone, because the way I feel about guys is mainly sexual, and the way I way about women is mainly emotional. So I’m always going between the two, and I don’t know what to call that, you know?” (also on p. 77.)

The experience of romantically inclined asexuals fits well with this line of evidence and, in fact, provides even further support for the claim that emotional attraction and sexual attraction aren't the same thing and don't always go together.

While there are other activities/feelings that some asexuals do/have that are sometimes considered inseparable from sexuality, I will not go into these. Hopefully, the two arguments that I have given are representative enough to give an idea of how to maintain the idea that asexuals are not sexual people despite the surprising implications this has.

In my next post, I will begin to explore the option Yes: All people are sexual beings, even asexuals.

p.s. For the duration of this series, I've decided to post every Wednesday and Saturday.

[ColBrandon]

Touche. I suppose I was being a little deliberately provocative. But if romantic orientation really is separate from sexual orientation, why do they usually coincide? It makes sense (from an evolutionary point of view) for most people to be straight on both dimensions, but why are most homosexuals also homoromantic?

[Isaac]

but why are most homosexuals also homoromantic?

Has both being measured independently? How correlated they are?

[ColBrandon]

but why are most homosexuals also homoromantic?

Has both being measured independently? How correlated they are?

I guess I'm making an assumption.

[Lord Happy Toast]

In a number of measures of sexual orientation, people have just assumed it's a measure of sexual/romantic attraction. For quite some time, however, people have known this is a problem because they don't always coincide. How often they don't go together I don't know. I'm not sure if anyone's studied the matter. Of course, why they usually but not always go together is a major fact than any viable theory of attraction will have to account for.

Which is to say, I have no idea.

[Isaac]

In a number of measures of sexual orientation, people have just assumed it's a measure of sexual/romantic attraction.

And we could get surprising results if this parameters were measured separately. Does the macro-survey whence Bogaert obtained the 1% measures separately these attarctions?

[Lord Happy Toast]

In a number of measures of sexual orientation, people have just assumed it's a measure of sexual/romantic attraction.

And we could get surprising results if this parameters were measured separately. Does the macro-survey whence Bogaert obtained the 1% measures separately these attarctions?

If it did, I'm pretty sure he would have included that.

The Klein Orientation Grid measures sexual and romantic attraction separately, but it uses a combination of bipolar scales, and they don't allow for the possibility of asexuality.

[ColBrandon]

In a number of measures of sexual orientation, people have just assumed it's a measure of sexual/romantic attraction.

And we could get surprising results if this parameters were measured separately. Does the macro-survey whence Bogaert obtained the 1% measures separately these attarctions?

If it did, I'm pretty sure he would have included that.

Yes, the Natsal 2000 asks about sexual attraction but does not ask separately about romantic attraction. However, it includes detailed histories of marriage and cohabitation, which presumably are highly correlated with romantic attraction. I'll look into this if I find the time.

[Isaac]

The Klein Orientation Grid measures sexual and romantic attraction separately, but it uses a combination of bipolar scales, and they don't allow for the possibility of asexuality.

Once I wanted to fill it out but in most boxes it was impossible to give an accurate answer, even by approximation. Challenging an assumption encourages to challenging other assumptions not challenged by the proposal. Didn't Storm proposed a bidimensional model because it worked for gender? In may case, thinking about mismatched sexual and romantic orientation allowed me to discover asexuality.

Yes, the Natsal 2000 asks about sexual attraction but does not ask separately about romantic attraction. However, it includes detailed histories of marriage and cohabitation, which presumably are highly correlated with romantic attraction.

But if people will merge both if they're not asked separately. Probably, it might be better to ask firstly without distinguishing attractions and there repeat the questions precede by something like "now, focusing on sex, discarding love" and "now, focusing on love, discarding sex".

[AllyCat]

This is the first time I've been able to make sense of the concept of romantic anything. Thanks, Siggy.

[*]Though they are functionally independent, romantic love and sexual desire are often connected. Previous researchers usually assume that sexual desire leads to romantic love, but Diamond argues that it also goes the other way; romantic love leads to sexual desire. I think demisexuals would fit right into this model.

This makes me think I'm sexually oriented toward men and romantically oriented toward women, and just have a lot of trouble separating romantic desire from sexual desire. (I've rarely experienced sexual desire alone, and never experienced romantic desire alone. I want sex and intimate friendship with people of both sexes, but I can see the point of objectifying men much more readily.

[*]The link between romantic love and sexual desire is stronger among women. Do you think that means that more women will be demisexual?

Unless they're big hornballs like me.

[Lord Happy Toast]

But if people will merge both if they're not asked separately. Probably, it might be better to ask firstly without distinguishing attractions and there repeat the questions precede by something like "now, focusing on sex, discarding love" and "now, focusing on love, discarding sex".

In Diamond's surveys, which I mentioned earlier, she did ask about emotional and physical attraction separately, but had people answer in terms of percentages. (x percent towards women, 100-x percent towards men.) Obviously, her numbers aren't going to be representative of people generally because a) she restricted her study to women who had experienced some amount of same-sex attraction, b) bisexual women seem to be more numerous that lesbians, and c) bisexuals (and asexuals) seem to be the main groups where discordant sexual and romantic attractions emerge.

I saw a paper published in '77 suggesting using four separate scales for same/other sex sexual/romantic attraction. But I don't think anyone ever used that proposal.