During my years of junior-high/high school, many of my cadre (myself included) would speculate what we would do if we were able to magically switch genders for a day. The consensus was that we’d stay inside, stare at ourselves in the mirror, and masturbate. At the time these seemed highly attractive activities, and I must admit, remain so. But a few months ago I was pondering the issue of bisexuality. It’s no secret that more women than men are willing to openly admit same-sex attraction. Some will suggest that this is largely due to women being more comfortable with expressing homosexual desire, and this may be true, but I theorized that another component may be women’s tendency to place less emphasis on the physical/visual.

If, as is generally accepted, women are more aroused by emotional factors than visual ones, or if women are more able to ignore visual simulation, could they just care less whether their partners are women or men? Might the greater expressed prevalence of female bisexuality be due not to greater levels of comfort, but lower levels of importance given to visual cues?

This line of inquiry further made me wonder if gay people (men specifically, given the above reasoning) are more attracted to themselves/consider themselves more attractive than do straight people? For instance, when I look in the mirror after exiting the shower (or see myself naked at any other time), I’m far more interested in my pores than my body. If I were to think about my image, it would probably be something along the lines of, “Naked guy….. Ehh.” I have about as much interest in seeing myself nude as I do any other man, which is to say, none. But is that the same for someone homosexual, given the attraction to one’s own gender, or does the sense of self nullify that factor? Put more simply, is a gay man (or woman) turned on by himself?

These are important questions, and America wants answers.