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A request was sent out today to many of those involved in sex research asking us to find participants for an Internet survey run by Prof. Richard Lippa and his students. Lippa is one of the good guys, though he still needs to learn more about gender diversity.

Strategically it would be great if EA folks could fill this out and furthermore let the researchers know their status (preferred gender designation, sexual orientation, and hormonal status, etc.) at the end. It would help to get Lippa et al. to start thinking about hormones and much more about diversity. His work has a significant impact on other researchers and this may be one more step toward greater recognition of Male-to-Eunuch and of BIID.

Here's Lippa's response to a question from Richard Wassersug about forcing all participants to choose "male," "female," or "transgender" as the first question:

No offense intended. Sometimes it's hard to cover all possibilities. If I were you I would have entered "male." Then, at the end of the survey there is a text box where you could make any comments you wanted about the study and about yourself (but of course, you couldn't know this before completing the survey).

 We definitely weren't trying to exclude anyone from the study.

Here's Lippa's original request for participants:

I'm writing to announce a new Internet study that I and my students are conducting. In this study, participants are asked to rate their degree of sexual attraction to male and female swimsuit models (which are represented as drawn illustrations). Models vary in their attractiveness and ethnicity.

THE SURVEY IS BRIEF!!—it takes about five minutes to complete. [Actually, closer to 10 minutes.] Participants first answer a short set of survey questions and then rate about 30 swimsuit models.

TO ALL POTENTIAL PARTICIPANTS: We would like to collect data from a sexually diverse group of participants—so feel free to pass this link on to any group, publication, or online discussion group that serves gays, lesbians, bisexual, trangendered, transsexual, and asexual individuals (and other groups in the rainbow spectrum).

The link to the survey is:

https://csufullertonpsych.qualtrics.com ... BuaKoifxXv

Thanks for your help!

Richard Lippa, PhD

Interesting that the photos were sketches and I didn't see a single African male in them though there was an African female.

I'll be interested to hear the results when they are compiled.

--LT

I will ask Richard Lippa for PDF copies of articles based on the survey so that I can send them to anyone here who is interested. I will also post information so that they can be found in the library for anyone who prefers to find them that way.

I hope that the survey will get a lot of response from the EA community. It's important to make the academic world aware that we exist.

I responded to it. It's a little difficult to express sexual attraction for crudely drawn figures. I tried my best, and although I self identified as bisexual, I found few of the male figures sexually attractive. I voted for more female figures than male figures, and some female figures got higher ratings than any of the male figures.

Yes, interesting survey, but i must agree that I suspect that the sureyor is no expert on sexuality if he ignors MtE when asking the good folk of EA to help.

I tried, but as ever with with this sort of thing, binary choices are demanded of non-binary matters.

I just responded to the survey. I tried it earlier at work but on the iPhone parts of the survey were not visible. They need to get a better sketch artist.

My list had a very hot looking black guy,

stocky, well muscled

It would have been fun to pick twosomes or threesomes.

I found the survey very... Umm... Is 'milktoast' a good description? I think whoever wrote it might not be ready to hear what people are really attracted to.

If my time here on the EA has taught me anything, it is that people are attracted to much more than just male/female body types, but also complex situations, scenarios, and a host of things not accepted by polite society.

It was a very binary prejudiced survey.

Oh well. I did my part and found none of the images sexy. I am just not wired that way. I guess my responses will just skew the results, and bring down all the averages.

I hope they can account for someone like me.

Losethem (imported) wrote: Thu May 02, 2013 5:53 am Interesting that the photos were sketches and I didn't see a single African male in them though there was an African female.

I'll be interested to hear the results when they are compiled.

--LT

Given the statistics about an overweight population, the drawings seemed almost routinely emaciated. The single largest minority I saw was Oriental. I'm not sure how balanced a survey it was. I have difficulties with the drawn figure particularly then seemed more like illustrations from a medical text showing "conditions" to look for during a primary and cursory examination.....

A couple of points. Has anyone taken the test and indicated that they were black on the ethnicity question. I would be very interested in whether they were shown the same sketches as those who specified white. Also in this sort of survey, what they are actually surveying is not always exactly what they imply it is. If ethnicity was a primary thing they were studying there would have been more sharply defined racial types. Would suspect they are more interested in body types and fat phobia than actually what we are attracted to racially.

Transward

transward (imported) wrote: Thu May 02, 2013 8:36 pm A couple of points. Has anyone taken the test and indicated that they were black on the ethnicity question. I would be very interested in whether they were shown the same sketches as those who specified white. Also in this sort of survey, what they are actually surveying is not always exactly what the imply it is. If ethnicity was a primary thing they were studying there would have been more sharply defined racial types. Would suspect they are more interested in body types and fat phobia than actually what we are attracted to racially.

Transward

I reject the commonplace notion of there being more than one "human race." I have never observed, or heard of, anyone who is actually "white" or actually "black."

Of course, words can have more than one meaning. There is a range from light-complected (people who can produce reasonable amounts of vitamin D from sunlight in far-from-the-equator regions) and dark-complected (people who resist skin cancer while living close to the equator), all of whom I deem to be, however diversely, "colored." "Black," to me, is the absence of light, and, therefore, the absence of color; "White," to me, is the presence of all light, and , therefore, the presence of all color. No person I have ever met or heard of is either totally without color or is of every color in perfect parity. What masquerades, often with socially disastrous results, as "race" is merely cultural diversity.

I found many of the questions to be plagued with biologically false, yet sometimes culturally prized, dichotomies. Perhaps I can re-state that: I strongly agree with daifu-orchid's post.

What is my "race"?

Not the Green Bay Marathon.

Not the Door County Half Marathon.

My "race" is a collaborative race, not a competitive race; the scientifically-grounded race to solve the enigma of human destructive violence, including child abuse and terrorism as aspects of a single evolutionary (or evilutionary?) biology phenomenon worthy of becoming a practicably and pragmatically solved sociobiological problem.

People who, in the social, but not biological, sense are deemed to be "black" and who accept that label as appropriate (including some of my closest relatives) deem my dad's biological mom (who died when my dad was two), from a high-quality photograph of her, to be "black."

I am reminded of Walter White, who was the president of the NAACP, who identified as being Negro (based on cultural norms and ancestry) while readily passing for white. My solution to race questions is to ask which race (the quarter mile, a century, or whatever). A century? One hundred miles in one day on a bicycle?

I thought that the gender categories were too restrictive. I wanted to go back and change my answer on gender but its not allowed. Also I'm not aerated to drawings of people so much as I am to actual people.

Yes, really nice of someone to try with a survey. Really. They are not easy. Been there. Done it.

<rant>

"Milktoast?" Maybe, but you are kinder than deserved. This academic clearly did not take the trouble to become familiar with the subject matter, or the questions and pictures would not be as they are.

One of my favorite professors warned of the 5 Ps of a questionnaire. (Prior Preparation Prevents a Piss-Poor Performance.) Be that as it may, respect for your subjects should always be a foundation. I saw scant evidence of it here.

</rant>

Even so, it is good to be included. I hope we were able to help.

Maybe the Required Reading should include EA. There is so much good here -even if the very occasional "meadow-muffin"!