This entire project was actually inspired by an experience I had earlier this fall. I spent most of my free time this semester pledging for a fraternity. As part of that experience, we were asked to interview as many of the members as possible with a set of seven pretty basic questions, the last of which was "make your own question."
Unfortunately, I had already interviewed most of the brothers by the time I could've thought to use it to my advantage for this project. However, one of my pledge mates asked nearly every brother the same question, which of two sexualized parts of women's bodies do they prefer. Or, as he put it colloquially: "Tits or ass?"
This turns out to be a very polarizing question for many men, I've witnessed more than a few arguments over whether it makes more sense for a man to be, colloquially, a "tit man" or "ass man."
I feel that it's important to elaborate a little bit on these distinctions. It doesn't necessarily mean that a man of either orientation fetishizes the respective body part, nor does it mean that he doesn't find both body parts, as well as the rest of women's bodies and minds to be attractive. The idea is that a given man's preference influences whether he is attracted to women, but it isn't necessarily some strict benchmark that he imposes upon every woman he looks at.
The distinction is somewhat irrational as well. Most men will say that they are one of the two types of "men," but still admit they are attracted to both features and many others. In fact, most men who have been with a woman are likely to say that the part of a woman's body they receive the most pleasure from is neither of those two. But for some reason the orientations within orientations persist, as do their arguments.
The arguments I've witnessed tend to range from whether breasts or butts are more aesthetically pleasing, to which one is more important during actual sexual encounters. The arguments often include raised voices and exaggerated body movements. The competitiveness of having this distinction between two types of "men" and then not just debating, but arguing about who is superior reminds me of the articles in class about penis size, and how men's insecurities stem from the competitiveness instilled in them by our culture.
When I first thought about these experiences in my head, I thought they were rather funny: men getting so fired up over an argument about which of two idealized body parts is superior. I didn't initially consider it as a project topic because it seemed somewhat vulgar. But the more I told the story and thought about it, and with some encouragement from my girlfriend, I decided to consider how other genders/sexualities debate about their attraction and subsequently form into de facto groups from it. So as I went on to explore these ideas through conversations with individuals from different sexual cultures, I decided to explore a few central questions:
-What types of discourse do groups of a given sexual orientation have about the targets of their attraction? By this I mean what TYPE of discussion: talking, debating, arguing?
-What characteristics does a given group focus on during this discourse? Is it usually physical or personality characteristics? Both? Does the discussion tend to focus on the same characteristics over and over, or is it different every time?
-Do any types of official or unofficial groupings of people within a given sexual orientation form based on these discussions?
So in the case of straight men, the answers to these questions based on my experiences are that men tend to be very competitive and argumentative when discussing sexual attraction. They often focus on women's bodies, although it is not uncommon for some men to talk about what type of personality they find attractive. Men will debate what the best "type" of any body part or personality trait is best in women, but the only argument that I've seen which results in the emergence of invented vocabulary to describe the preferences is the argument between "tit men" and "ass men."
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