"This is an extraordinary testimony to the idea that feeling sexy is very different than having sex," Gill said. "Or that even sexiness and the sexual act can be totally unrelated."
She said she believes there could be several factors that determine these responses from within the home and within society.
"It can depend if they're in a relationship, if they're not getting any ... they're not getting any," Gill said. She explained that pressures to look good in the workplace can be consuming.
"My friends that work in New York literally say that if they don't dress right, they will be eaten alive at their jobs," said Susan Davis, professor in the Institute of Communications Research and colleague of Gill.
This pressure, according to Gill, can take away from any confidence that is built at home with one's partner.
"In our culture, confidence is gained by outward appearance, even if you are getting an emotionally rewarding, satisfying experience at home that often it isn't enough to help you out in the work place," Gill said.
Reshmi Mukherjee, teaching assistant in gender and women studies and graduate student in comparative and world literature, also agrees that the pressure of making a good appearance at work could be the determining factor to many of these women's responses.
"It would be really stupid to say, 'oh look, women don't like sex.' Clothes are important for not just women, but also men (at work)," Mukherjee said. "It's not so much a personal choice, it's a political, economic choice."
Mukherjee, like Gill, believes that whether or not these women were in relationships or had regular sexual partners is a major factor in their responses. She said, however, that she also thinks there are several other contributing elements.
"It depends on where you are coming from as in what social background, your economic background, your political background," she said.
Regardless of these attributes, Mukherjee said that a very important reason some women may prefer clothes to sex lies in how clothes can help define one's identity.
"How many of us actually define ourselves in terms of our sexual preference?" Mukherjee said.
There are numerous reasons as to why these women responded with a preference to clothes over sex. Whether women find that their clothes boost their confidence and therefore make the idea of feeling sexy more appealing than sex itself, or that they simply aren't satisfied, remains unknown. Gill acknowledges all of these reasons and is not surprised that women would choose clothes over sex.
"I think it would be foolish not to suggest that sexual pleasure is not always so overwhelmingly wonderful that it supersedes a great wardrobe," Gill said. n
Spring Break
