Female Sexual Objectification Among Gay Men: Neural and Cultural Insights.

This article investigates sexual objectification from the perspective of gay men as agents, focusing on their tendency to objectify women more than men and the underlying motivations for this bias. Across three studies, including neural (electroencephalography) and self-report measures, gay men were found to perceive sexualized women as more object-like compared to men. The research highlights that exposure to sexually objectified depictions of women in content-based media (e.g., YouTube, TV on demand) rather than relational-based social media is positively associated with this objectification tendency. These findings suggest that cultural influences, particularly media portrayals that sexualize women, contribute to the sexual objectification of women by gay men, independent of sexual attraction. The study expands understanding of sexual objectification beyond heterosexual frameworks, emphasizing the role of pervasive cultural and media norms in shaping perceptions across diverse sexual orientations.