Hermaphrodites have a vagina, all other futa and traps don't have one. Traps are males, all futa are females, or half females for hermaphrodites. How those differences can not be relevant to porn preferences, when having or not a vagina, and being male or female, is the base of porn preferences ?
When people who like them see a dickgirl, they are facing a female character, that happen to have a dick ; and what matter here is the gender, not the sexual attribute they have between their legs. The only difference between a dickgirl and a girl wearing a strapon is that the dick is made of flesh, not of silicon and metal/plastic.
Saying, or implying, that liking futa is sign of, at least a latent homosexuality, is misunderstanding both sexual attraction and genders. Homosexuality is the fact to be sexually attracted by human beings of your own gender ; not by their sole sexual attributes, by their gender. And it happen that there's way more that make a male than a dick and two balls, like there's way more that make a female than a cunt and two boobs.
It's where the reference to the, astoundingly high (
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place it between 70 and 140 millions, so 1% and 2% of the world population), number of intersex peoples in real life, play a role ; by demonstrating that there's really more that define a male or a female, than their sole genitals. There's, by example, males who suffer from gynaecomastia and, due to the oestrogen level in their body, grow boobs.
Did this make them females ? Obviously not. Did they suddenly become traps against their will ? Once again the answer is no. Yet they now are guy with boobs. But then, did this mean that straight males who like futa would fap to them ? Again no ; what arouse a straight male is female, and they are not.
I was talking exclusively about anime and hentai, where traps ACTUALLY look and act so much like girls, that the fact that they're actually males is revealed a a surprise (therefore, a trap). However, this traps, after their true nature having been revealed, are popular among straight guys, sometimes in porn, but mostly in more mainstream media, like thos harem animes full of fanservice, where you usually find a trap among the group of chicks flocking around the main character. And sometimes this traps even appear out of that harem context, and my best guess is that this trait is extended into an archetype of character that receives a popular opinion from the viewers of such material. I can't think of any of this traps right now, but if have some knowledge of anime you can recognice this trend.
And it's the reason why futa and traps, that have only one thing in common, their dick, tend to have two different public ; well, outside of bisexuals that can possibly like both. It's also why there's both male futa and female futa ; despite the fact that they both have boobs and a dick, they aren't the same thing and don't attract the same persons.
Now, regarding exclusively about hentai, super sissy traps, to give them a name, are virtually girls with dicks and no boobs, like lolis with dicks. And God knows how popular lolis are, so seeing them with a tool down there is likely, too, in hentais. So when I said that there is a common ground between traps and futas, I was exclusively talking about hentai, 2D, especially, where traps have no male element aside from the dick. Now, call me naive, narrow minded or whatever, but for me, a dick is the most relevant male feature (visually speaking) of a male. I think we can agree in that elements like chromosomes, the very definition of hermafrodite and bisexuality are somewhat minor when it comes to just fapping to cartoon porn, where even the line of what makes a human is blurry in many cases.
Now, that is my point of view, and nothing else. A point of view based to scientific facts, but yet just a point of view. Therefore, when someone say that there's a common ground, and like, as I said, a dick is far to be enough for this, yes, I'm curious to know more, because I'm just a human being, therefore I can be wrong and/or have misunderstood something.
But, traps don't looks like a woman. They dress like a woman, they put make-up like a woman, and they try to mimic women, but that's all. Look at their face, and you'll see the man in them. Look at their body, see how it's built, you'll also see a man. Look at their Adam's apple, and again you'll see a man. Traps are males, and they don't try to hide it, they just wear a female costume on top of it.
It's less visible in drawn porn, because they tend to blur the limits, making all traps being sissy or potential sissy, but it's visible in 3D porn (unless it's a really cheap one) and even more in real life.
And if you don't see the man in them, then it's not a trap, it's either a MtF transgender, or a female futa. That for you they are the same, because they have a dick, is just your own point of view ; a point of view that I understand and respect. But, as I said right above, while answering to DownTheDrain, it's limiting the definition of sexual gender to a single and small part, the presence of a dick, when there's way more behind this term.
I'm straight, never be aroused by a man or by a dick during the almost 40 years since the start of my puberty. I'll not say that I effectively tried, but I past trough shared changing rooms and shared showers. Therefore, I had a lot of guys naked in front of me, some that seemed to be good looking, some that, no need to hide it, had bigger dicks, at least when soft, than me, and never ever I felt at least the start of an arousing because of this.
During school, I seen my best friend, so the guy for who I had the strongest feelings, naked more than once, and again no reaction. Sometimes it happened in private places, like him changing in his room by example, so the best place and the best person if I was bisexual, and yet not even the start of a reaction, whatever physical or emotional. I not even dreamed, voluntarily or not, about this after, and never felt that I missed something.
Still at school, I had a good friend who was openly gay. It was a nice and friendly guy, would have been a good opportunity to at least hangout sexually speaking ; to remove the "fuck I'm a virgin to this" effect. All this without the fear to be rejected since he also never hidden the fact that he was perpetually horny, like all teenagers are. Yet, it never crossed my mind.
Be noted that I do not say that to enforce the fact that I'm straight. Honestly, why should I care if someone on internet, so someone that I don't know and who don't know me, say that I'm gay ? It would have absolutely no influence on my life, and I wouldn't doubt of my virility for so few. No, I said this to demonstrate that I'm not "straight just because", and so remove this part from the debate. I lived situations that would have revealed my bisexuality, had the possibility to do it without risk or consequence, and like nothing happened, yes, there's no ambiguity, I'm straight.
Yet I like futa, not all, but many. To this, add the fact that, while it's not what I prefer, I have nothing against pegging. Put a girl with a strapon in front of me, if the girl arouse me, I'll be aroused. If she say that the strapon is for me, I'll be more aroused. If she's good at this, I'll have an orgasm.
But, put a guy in front of me, like I said above I'll feel nothing. Make him sodomize me, I'll perhaps have an ejaculation, because it's a purely physiological reaction, but I'm 99,99% sure that I'll not have an orgasm, that is an emotional reaction. This in the same way that a girl being raped can be wet, because her body respond to the stimulation, but will have absolutely no pleasure from this act.
Yet I like futa... I like it because it's the paroxysm of my sexuality. A girl that have a flesh strapless connected to her nervous system, so a girl that would effectively have pleasure while pegging me, a pleasure that would come directly from the act, and not as reaction from her movements. It would be what sex should always be, shared pleasure, each one of the two partners both taking and giving pleasure.
This said, I prefer my futa to be hermaphrodites, because they would also have a vagina and, like I said, pegging isn't what I prefer ; I found that giving or receiving anal is a too limited choice. But as far as realistic settings can goes, I go with the flow and my futa are generally MtF transgenders ; be noted that, so far, none of the many MtF I encountered effectively aroused me, except one that was really a beautiful girl, but a girl that alas like girls. But well, back to the subject, if the setting is more fantastic, then yes, please give me hermaphrodites, not dickgirls.
But, as I said, for this to be pleasuring, the girl must looks like a girl, act like a girl, think like a girl, have a girl body, so in short be a girl... that happen to also have a dick. And a trap isn't a girl. A trap is a male that try to looks like a girl, try to act like a girl, and sometimes also try to think like a girl, but have a male body and is a guy.
The difference is perhaps subtle, but it's the most important point, at least for me but I know that I'm far to be the only one. The girl have to be a girl despite her having a dick, else I'll not be aroused. And it's the reason why, above, I said that "I like futa, not all, but many", because there's also male futa (so futa that looks like male, not like female), like there's female futa that tend too much on the guy side, acting or thinking like a guy. Those wouldn't aroused me more than a trap or that directly a guy.
So, I'm just a straight guy that don't care this much if some of the girls in my fantasy have a dick. And not caring doesn't mean that I'm gay or bisexual, else I would also like guys, since they all have a dick. I also don't like traps, because they are aren't girls that happen to have a dick, but guys that try to looks like girls.
Be noted that the "in my fantasy" is something important, for me and I guess for most of futa lovers that are straight. It's a fiction. Like I said above, my mind see the dick of those girls as a flesh strapless, because it's not real, so I can interpret it in whatever way I want. But perhaps that in real life my brain would see it as an effective dick, and that it wouldn't arouse me even if it was the most beautiful girl on Earth, and that I would have had the hardest erection of my life if it was a strapon.
This is a very interesting thought, "a futa girl is like a girl with a strapon but with the ability to receive pleasure with it". It really makes sense, and I didn't think about it. About your opinion on traps, I agree that traps are not girls, and thus don't fit within the realm of futa, however, the popularity of this traps (the ones that, as I stated above, are something like girls without boobs and with dick, but with all the other female atributes, like small frame, wide hips and big butts) among presumably straight men led me to believe that there were some degree of connection between this two genres.
The problem is that his argument don't fit the reality, just a part of it, and not really for the right gender.
Unconscious physiological reactions to a sexual stimuli are directly linked to the hormonal level. Automatic arousal will be almost constant during puberty, when the body is under a hormonal overdose, but less frequent after puberty, when the hormonal level will lower enough to let the brain take back part of its control over the situation. It's demonstrated by studies regarding women arousal that take in count the usage of contraceptive pills. Women under such treatment have a lower hormonal level, and appear to also respond less to sexual indirect stimuli (so visual or auditory).
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:
"However, differences between OC [NdA:Women under oral Contraception] and NC [NdA:Women with normal menstrual cycle] groups suggest hormonal influences on attention to sexual stimuli that were unexplained by subject characteristic differences."
And, as I said, it also not apply to the right gender. Between men and women, it's the latter that discriminate less between the source of their arousal. While still being (somehow) aroused, men while react less to stimuli not corresponding to their sexual preferences (sexual orientation, fetishes, etc.), than to stimuli corresponding to their preferences. But at the opposite, if a woman have an arousal response, it will be the same whatever you'll show her, even if it's not at all part of her sexual preferences.
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:
"Greater activation to opposite sex stimuli compared to same sex stimuli was seen in men in the inferior temporal and occipital lobes. Women did not show any areas of increased activation to opposite sex compared to same sex stimuli. Men showed more differential activation of brain areas related to sexual arousal than women, including the amygdala, hippocampus, basal ganglia, and some areas of the prefrontal cortex. Women did not show these differences, suggesting that women do not emotionally discriminate between opposite sex and same sex stimuli in the manner that men do. Women only showed increased activation to same sex compared to opposite sex stimuli in visual cortical areas. These differences may reflect different strategies for women in the cognitive processing of stimuli, specifically in how women focus their attention to sexual stimuli. Increased activation by women in these cortical areas may reflect a more complex approach to sexual stimuli that focuses not only on sexual aspects of a stimulus, but also on nonsexual and perhaps more contextual factors."
In short, women are more likely to be aroused when seeing boobs on a body having a dick, than men when seeing a dick on a body having boobs. This because it's the situation that arouse them more than the participant to this situation, while for men it's the opposite.
Therefore, a woman will be aroused by a futa having sex, whatever with a man or a woman, because they have sex. This while a man would be aroused by the same situation only if futa are part of his sexual preferences. And yet, this arousal will happen only if the act also correspond to his preferences ; so if he don't like pegging, a futa sodomizing a male partner will not arouse him.
So, in the end, his argumentation is circular. A man will be aroused by futa because of a physiological reaction that will happen only if futa arouse him.
Yes, I know from other studies on the subject that women are more aroused by contexts and situations, whereas men tend to be more aroused by the direct images and scenes. Men being more interested in visual porn, and women being more interested in erotic literature, however, the futa phenomenon is extremely popular among men, and the IRL women that I know, and who are open enough to talk about their preferences with me, have clearly manifested a huge interest in male on male, yaoi, or gay intercourse, and not very in any sort of porn revolved around women. I could be that this girls I know are just that peculiar, but that was the idea that I had.
Edit: Well, you wanted an elaborated answer, for sure this is one.