The less gender differentiation, the less sexual desire. [for straight couples] In other words, in an attempt to be gender-neutral, we may have become gender-neutered. Its interesting to note that when I asked Justin Garcia, a research scientist at the Kinsey Institute, whether lack of gender differentiation affects the sex lives of gay couples, he said that male couples, who have more sex than lesbian couples, tend to differentiate by choosing partners sexually unlike themselves who, say, want to be in the more submissive sexual position and that lesbians dont follow as much of a pattern of seeking their sexual opposites. I posed the same question to Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington who coined the term lesbian bed death, and she pointed out that gay male couples differentiate from each other in other ways, too. For gay men, she said, the initial filter is erotic, so theyre more likely to end up with somebody whos very different in terms of education or social class. But, she continued, a gay woman thinks like the heterosexual woman who asks: Do we share common goals? Do we like to do things together? Is he smart? She believes that lesbian and heterosexual couples share sexual challenges because both relationships involve women who tend to seek similar mates. As she put it, most men, regardless of sexual orientation, prioritize the erotic, but heterosexual men have to deal with heterosexual women.