Female sexual Objectification Among Gay Men: Neural and Cultural Insights

Abstract

Research on sexual objectification has mostly taken a heterosexual perspective and has studied gay men to understand when they become victims rather than agents of this phenomenon. In three studies we investigated gay men as agents of sexual objectification and the underlying motives that guide their biased perceptions. In Study 1, using electroencephalography, gay men showed to objectify women more than men. In Study 2a and Study 2b, results confirmed this tendency and demonstrated that exposure to sexually objectified depictions of women on content-rather than relational-based (social) media was positively related to the sexual objectification of women. Media exposure to female sexualization can increase and explain why women remain the target of sexual objectification regardless of one’s sexual orientation.