If it's of interest to anybody
The question posed to me last night was

From an academic perspective though, why do you think it seems odd that a woman would find gay men attractive? Men freely admit to fetishizing (is that a word?) lesbians, and yet the contrary is rarely acknowledged.

My response

I think a lot of it could stem from it being less socially acceptable for women to admit to enjoying anything pornographic than it is for a man to. That'd cause a lot of women to say they don't like it even if they did. It's a bit of a vicious circle I suppose.

Another aspect could be biological. A woman is predisposed to being attracted to a mate that will protect her offspring and gay men making out are making a very clear signal that they aren't going to do that thus making them less attractive to a woman looking for a mate.

A hetrosexual man, on the other hand, is (biologically) only interested in spreading his genes to as many women as possible. A hetrosexual woman might have intercourse with another man thus risking that his own wouldn't fertilise the ovum. A lesbian isn't going to go and sleep with another man thus increasing the chance that his own sperm will fertilise the egg.

Both those traits could conceivably have evolved as they do increase the chance of successful reproduction for the carrier of the trait but it's a relatively minor reproductive advantage which probably explains why there are men that don't find lesbians a turn on and women that do find gay men a turn on.
( Captain V, Thu 11 Dec 2008, 9:35, Reply)