My Androgynous Brain

A while ago on Integral Naked Tiki started a fascinating thread called What sex is your
brain?. Her first post there includes a link to an online assessment hosted by the BBC which uses a variety of tests assessing cognitive functions which tend to be different in men and women. The tests are a lot of fun to take, and at the end you get a composite score which will tell you roughly how masculine or feminine your brain is. If you score 50 points to the left, your brain is utterly female, 50 points to the right and your brain is hyper masculine. Many people were surprised by their scores, and the amusing theory was floated that the site is set up to correctly evaluate your score - and then give you the opposite score just to play with your mind.

Which still wouldn't explain my score, which was zero - exactly halfway between the male and female poles. This surprised me. At one time I would have expected my score to be in the female range, based on my almost universal propensity at that time to have close friendships with women, and more difficult, distant relationships with a few token men. More recently I would have expected to have a score somewhere in the masculine range, as I feel I've been getting more in touch with an underlying masculine core which had been covered up by a feminine shell in my particular development. Thus, for me to get a score of zero was a bit startling - but rather cool, actually. I feel - perhaps with great appropriateness in this case - rather ambivalent about having a score so evenly balanced between male and female; but ultimately I love it. It sounds to me like the best of both worlds and of course makes me ever so fascinatingly unique and special.

I'm curious as to how this might fit in with other aspects of my being. For example, if my brain truly is androgynous, does that necessarily mean that my masculine/feminine essence (in the manner that David Deida discuses) is also at the center point? It does not feel like that subjectively. According to Deida, such people are not particularly interested in sexual relationships, as they are completely balanced in their own being - as opposed, say, to someone who is much more feminine, who feels a need to balance their nature with someone who is very masculine, and who therefore will feel powerful sexual attractions to masculine people. No one who knows me would describe me as uninterested in sexual relationships. So assuming this test is valid (and I'd like to think it is), the relationship between my sexual essence and the gender of my brain must be more complex than it would first appear.

a.