Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and DesireIs love “blind” when it comes to gender? For women, it just might be. This unsettling and original book offers a radical new understanding of the context-dependent nature of female sexuality. Lisa M. Diamond argues that for some women, love and desire are not rigidly heterosexual or homosexual but fluid, changing as women move through the stages of life, various social groups, and, most important, different love relationships.This perspective clashes with traditional views of sexual orientation as a stable and fixed trait. But that view is based on research conducted almost entirely on men. Diamond is the first to study a large group of women over time. She has tracked one hundred women for more than ten years as they have emerged from adolescence into adulthood. She summarizes their experiences and reviews research ranging from the psychology of love to the biology of sex differences. Sexual Fluidity offers moving first-person accounts of women falling in and out of love with men or women at different times in their lives. For some, gender becomes irrelevant: “I fall in love with the person, not the gender,” say some respondents.Sexual Fluidity offers a new understanding of women’s sexuality—and of the central importance of love. |
Contents
Will the Real Lesbians Please Stand Up? | 1 |
Gender Differences in SameSex Sexuality | 17 |
Sexual Fluidity in Action | 54 |
Nonexclusive Attractions and Behaviors | 91 |
Change in Sexual Attractions | 137 |
Attractions to the Person Not the Gender | 171 |
How Does Fluidity Work? | 202 |
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Common terms and phrases
adolescent androgen arousability attracted to women aware Bailey bian biological bisexual women brain changes in sexual considered cultural digit ratios dynamical systems ences environments erotic estrogen example experiences fact factors female sexual fluidity friends friendships gender differences gender identity genetic girls heterosexual heterosexual women homosexuality hormones human sexuality identified as bisexual identified as lesbian identity labels individuals influences intense interview Journal Kinsey Kinsey Scale lesbian or bisexual lesbian-identified lesbian/gay/bisexual male models of sexuality Mustanski nonexclusive attractions notion other-sex attractions oxytocin partners patterns percent person person-based attractions physical attractions potential prenatal proceptivity psychological question reparative therapy responses role romantic love same-sex and other-sex same-sex attractions same-sex sexuality Savin-Williams Sex Research sexual attractions sexual behavior sexual desire sexual feelings sexual identity sexual orientation sexual-minority social specific testosterone tion traits transgender triggered typically unlabeled women variability versus woman women reported women's sexual