Gender differences in the sexual rating of words

The present study investigated whether gender-based differences in the rating of sexual words still exist in the late 1990s. Men and women evaluated 400 English-language words on the characteristics of sexual charge and sexual ambiguity. Data gathered from these ratings were compared with other factors such as religious involvement, sexual experience, sex guilt, and social desirability. Men and women did not differ in their sexual ratings of the list. However, because the list contained a large number of words that had no sexual content at all, gender differences were examined for ratings of a sample of 30 sexually ambiguous words. As hypothesized, men rated these words as significantly more sexual than women. Significant gender differences were found on a number of sexuality and personality measures. Women were more religious than men, and religiosity was significantly correlated with most of the other measures. Women also had higher social desirability scores, which implies that they may have been responding in a socially desirable manner and were not completely honest. Overall, gender differences followed gender-oriented stereotypes: (a) Women have greater sexual guilt than men, (b) women are less sexually arousable or more "erotophobic," and (c) women are less comfortable answering questions about their sexuality and rating words.