Myth Debunked: Men are more visual than women

It never ceases to amaze me the stories I'm told when I mention to someone, particularly a female, that I'm interested in sexuality. It's as if they don't have a friend to confide in and they know I won't judge them for what they're about to tell me.

Whatever their reasoning, I'm certainly not complaining. Besides making my life a heck of a lot more interesting,  it gives me additional experiences, besides simply my own, to use to debunk popular assumptions such as, "Men are more visual than women." But we can even break it down a bit more than that...

Women are fully capable of being visually attracted to a man's body.

Case in point.

Last week one of my co-workers and I got together for lunch. She is also a Christian and happened to graduate from the same small, private, liberal arts, Christian college that I attended. We hadn't known each other while in school and this lunch was the first time we had ever gotten together to talk. After I mentioned my interest in sexuality she proceeded to tell me that during her time in college, she was often distracted in one of her theology classes by her male professor's butt. She often had to remind herself throughout class to stop looking at it.

Women are fully capable of seeing an attractive man and objectifying him.

Here are just two examples from my own life:

1. Guy runs by with his shirt off, his body glistening with sweat. I find my eyes following him down the path. My mind jumps to all the things I could do to him if I could just reach out and touch him= man as sex toy.
2. Want to know why "Think Like a Man" is one of my favorite movies ever (besides Kevin Hart being hilarious of course)! Michael Ealy.

Enough said. And trust me, his eyes aren't the only parts of his body that are to die for. Do you know how badly I want to be Taraji Henson's character in that movie? Every day of my life! That may be a tad over dramatic, but probably not by much.

 Women are fully capable of replaying sexual fantasies or pornographic scenes in their minds.

One of my male friends recently told me that the first time he realized that women were as visual as men was when one of his female friends told him that she replayed movie scenes in her head while running. These movie scenes weren't erotic in any way. I guess he had taken the idea that women weren't visual to mean that we didn't have the ability to visualize images in our minds.

Now I don't know how other people interpret the idea that women aren't visual, but interpreting it in that way is certainly not true. And not only can we replay scenes we've watched or pull up pictures we've seen (both erotic and otherwise), we've also got a fantastic imagination. Just because I've never seen it, doesn't mean I can't watch it happen in my head.

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As human beings, male and female, we are all wired to notice and be attracted to beauty. With regards to our sexuality, we are all designed to be attracted to people we find physically attractive. I won't pretend to know how it works for you, but usually I notice someone is physically attractive because I see them. Just saying.

As Christians, we are called to live holy lives and this comes into play with how we deal with the visual stimulus around us. How do I react to my attraction to the half naked man running down my street? How do I react to the erotic image that just popped up in my head? The fact these things happen is part of our sexual nature. How we choose to react to them has to come from our understanding of what is means to live a holy life.

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Also, I don't want it to go unsaid that women can be physically aroused by visual stimulus. Don't assume we aren't or can't be. Carry on.