Self-labels Among Gay Amd Lesbians In China

Among gay men in Western, Latin American countries, and China, distinctions are commonly made regarding preferences for insertive or receptive intercourse. In China, sex roles are labeled by Arabic numbers. Gay and bisexual men who prefer the insertive position during anal intercourse self-label as "1," those who prefer the receptive position self-label as "0," and those who equally prefer both positions self-label as "0.5." Just as sexual self-labels exist among gay and bisexual men, lesbians also use these terms, but when referring to women,"top" and "bottom" indicate one's likelihood of taking sexual initiative and one's tendency either to give or receive sexual pleasure. Among Chinese lesbians, these terms are replaced by the use of English capital letters."T," meaning a lesbian who prefers the active role,"P," meaning a lesbian who prefers the receptive role, and "H," meaning a lesbian without strong preferences for either role.Previous studies based on gay men indicate that self-labels appear to be associated with psychological and socio-demographic variables. It impacted that self-labels among were not merely based on sex role preferences, but also associated with psychological variables. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between self-labels and psychological variables, and its mechanisms. The study consisted of self-label differences, self-label structure, mechanisms, and label judgment. Self-label differences aimed to explore the relationships between self-labels and psychological variables, including sex-related traits, body satisfaction, personality traits, gender nonconformity, cognition, and partner preferences. The aim of self-label structure study was to examine the relationship between sex role preferences and self-labels. On the one hand, the consistency between sex role preferences and self-labels were examined with Deming regression. On the other hand, the structure of self-labels was explored with exploratory factor analysis. The aim of impacted factors study were examining the influences of psychological and the ratio of index and ring finger lengths (2D:4D, is thought to be a marker of prenatal androgen exposure) on self-labels, respectively. The judgment study was aimed to examine the brain activation mode during label judgments with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results showed that there were self-label differences in various gender-related psychological varibales.On sex-related traits, there were significant self-label differences on sex role preferences, and sex attractiveness among gay and lesbians. In addition, self-label differences were significant on sex drive, sociosexually, and ego-focused sexual satisfaction.On body satisfaction, there were significant differences among the self-labeled groups with regard to age, height, weight, and BMI. There were differences among gay men self-label groups on body satisfaction. Label "0" scored lower on body satisfaction than label "1". There were minor differences among lesbians self-label groups on body satisfaction.On personality traits, There were differences among self-label groups on self-ascribed masculinity-femininity (Self-MF), instrumentality, and expressiveness, with active labels (label1, label T) tend to be more masculine, and passive labels (label0, label P) tend to be more feminine. In addition, there were differences among lesbians self-label groups on extraversion, conscientiousness, and emotion stability of Big Five traits.There were differences among self-label groups on gender nonconformity, with labels inconsistent with gender (label0, and label T) scored higher on childhood gender nonconformity, and adulthood gender nonconformity than labels consistent with gender (label1, and label P).There were significant differences among self-label groups on visuospatial performance for lesbians, but not for gay men. There were significant differences among self-label groups on systemizing. There were not significant differences among self-label groups on empathizing. Labels were different in brain type. Active labels were more likely to have a male brain, passive labels were more likely to have a female brain.The most ranked6traits of partner preferences among gay men were honesty, face attractiveness, dependable, health, and fitness. The most ranked6traits of partner preferences among lesbians were honesty, dependable, values, communication skills, and face attractiveness. Active labels pay more attention to "appearance-orientated" traits. Passive labels paid more attention to "success-orientated" traits. There were significant differences among gay self-label groups on male masculinity preferences. Label1preferred the feminized male face over the masculinized face, label0preferred the masculinized male face over the feminized face, and label0.5did not have a preference.The results label structure shown that self-labels were not equal to sex roles among gay and lesbians. The results of Deming regression indicated that self-labels were inconsistent with sex roles. Predictions of self-labels on psychological variables were larger than sex roles on which. The results of exploratory factor analysis shown that the structure of self-labels consisted of sex roles, inner roles, and dependence.Self-labels were related to masculinity-related variables in term of psychological aspect. The results of logistic regression indicated that sex role preferences and gender-related variables (instrumentality, expressiveness, Self-MF, childhood gender nonconformity, adulthood gender nonconformity, systemizing, inner roles, and dependence) was strongly predicted on self-labels. Self-MF served to mediate the association between self-labels and gender-related variables. Being an indirect marker of2D:4D, self-reported relative length of index finger and ring finger was associated with self-labels. It implicated that self-labels may be related to prenatal androgen exposure.The results of label judgment indicated that lable judgment was highly related to masculinity judgment, it implicated that masculinity was a crucial clue in label judgment. The results of fMRI indicated that the most activation region was right and left fusiform gyrus in label judgment process.Over all, self-labels were inconsistent with sex roles, inner roles and dependence were another two factors of self-label structure among gay and lesbians. Self-labels were significantly different on gender-related variables. Active labels were more likely to be masculinine, and passive labels are more likely to be feminine. Masculinity and its related variables were the most important factors related to self-labels among gay and lesbians. Self-MF served as a mediating variable. Prenatal androgen exposure may be related to self-labels.