Reddit reviews Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire

I've read and studied under Lisa Diamond. The research they're referring to is likely the Sexual Fluidity of Women. Basically the study shows that women can form emotional and sexual relationships across the gender spectrum throughout their lives. However, it also shows that during those times they express specific identities, or often shed all identities. So, it's not that you could take a lesbian and turn her straight, that is unless you were going for the long troll and waited 50 years and maybe she might have a shift in sexual orientation.

This isn't the first time that this study has been misrepresented. The AFA really likes to tout this study as some proof that you choose to be gay. The difference between the AFA and Paul Clement is that Paul Clement is educated enough to actually understand the study.

Here's a book written ten years ago about the same subject.

Don't be afraid! My girlfriend of three years is actually going through this same issue herself--we've decided to expand the rules of our open relationship as a result. I highly recommend you read this book. It's all about how women may find themselves desiring different things at different stages in their lives and in varying circumstances. Most of all, don't feel like you're all alone--I think this is a more common predicament than the lesbian community is willing to admit, and no one should be ostracized for it.

You are whatever you want to be. Gay, straight, bisexual. It doesn't matter. Don't pigeonhole yourself with labels or identifications. Realize you're in a transitional period in your life. So take your time. Don't rush your identification. This is an excellent opportunity to think about yourself with out being a total narcisis. Just be yourself and do what you feel is right for you.

Don't feel stupid about missing red flags. I was with a women once who started to explore her feelings at 55 years old. (She was a total fire cracker in bed by the way. Sooooo hot.)

If you want to explore your homosexuality then do that. If you meet an awesome chick, ask her out. Enjoy yourself. Have fun. Conversely, if you meet an awesome dude, go for it. The point of life is to be happy not live up to other peoples bullshit standards.

Listen, this is your life. You need to work your ass off to do what makes you happy. And so what if its taken you a little longer then others? I took me 24 years to try a Big Mac. Once I finally tried it, it blew my fucking mind, it was so good. Moral of the story, it's easy to miss obvious things sometimes.

Read books. Here's a good starting point.

http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Fluidity-Understanding-Womens-Desire/dp/0674032268/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321058655&sr=1-4

Basically, this means you are a total bad ass for being brave enough to do something that you feel is right for you. You're taking a risk and I for one commend you.

Good luck and my the force be with you.

I'm sorry for your pain. And pain is a part of life. There's no way around it. That said, I'd recommend a couple of books to help you explore your feelings:

Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire https://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Fluidity-Understanding-Womens-Desire/dp/0674032268

Living Two Lives: Married to a Man & In Love with a Woman https://www.amazon.com/Living-Two-Lives-Married-Woman/dp/1461177464/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=lving+two+lives&qid=1570996899&s=books&sr=1-1-spell

I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK HIGHLY ENOUGH https://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Fluidity-Understanding-Womens-Desire/dp/0674032268

Eh, women have more fluid sexual attraction than men do -- much more fluid. See this book.

The expression of this fluidity depends on environmental factors (culture, social, etc.). Today, lesbian pairings are "chic". Hollywood and the related supermodel world are peppered with it now, from Cara DeLevingne to Amber Heard to Kristen Stewart to countless others. For a hot young woman to have a GF is now not only accepted but celebrated in the media culture. So when that is the context -- lots of celebrity women who are quite attractive being in lesbian relationships, or going back and forth between being with men and women -- it provides a context where that underlying sexual fluidity in most women, which was always there, expresses itself more freely and openly. That's what we're seeing today.

Note that this is quite independent of how women identify themselves. Only a very small number of women self-identify as exclusively lesbian (it's a smaller percentage of women than the percentage of men who say they are exclusively gay). Not very many more women identify as bisexual, probably because they define bisexual in a way that excludes them, regardless of their behavior. So you can have women who have hooked up with a number of women sexually saying that they are not bisexual, or even women who have been in a relationship with a woman before as GF/GF saying they are not bisexual -- which really only means that they are defining bisexual as being something much more limited than the standard definition of someone who is attracted to some degree to both sexes. So, as with everything else, you can't really go by what they are saying (in terms of whether they say they are bisexual), but look at what they are doing (have they hooked up with (beyond 1-2 times experimentation), or dated, other women) to see what is really going on.

So, bottom line, yes all (not literally all, but most) women are bisexual in potential to some degree -- some more than others, but most have at least some latent attraction to other women, whether they have acted on it or not. The current environment strongly, strongly encourages women to act on this, because it celebrates GF/GF relationships among admired, hot, young celebrity women. So in that context you're going to see more of it going on. I think the rise of porn has an influence, too (when women watch porn, lots of them are watching lesbian porn), but that influence is much smaller than seeing many hot young female celebs hooking up with other hot young female celebs. Herd culture and all that.

Good question! Lisa Diamond is a feminist who addresses this issue in her book Sexual Fluidity.

>In case you haven't noticed, "Developmental Psychology" is not Amazon.com. She published the results in Developmental Psychology, which is a peer reviewed journals published by the APA.

In case YOU haven't bothered to read your own link:

http://karenbooth.goodnewsmag.org/do-homosexuals-change/

Quote:

>Her research since the mid-90s has primarily focused on the “fluidity” of women’s sexual behavior, attractions (orientation) and identity labeling; and when she published her findings in 2009 the shock waves were felt almost immediately throughout the LGBT community.

Click on that "published her findings" link. Where does it take you? Oh right, Amazon.com:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674032268?pc_redir=T1

I can't believe I have to keep telling you this, but AMAZON.COM IS NOT A SCIENCE JOURNAL! IT IS A RETAIL SITE!

Writing a book and selling it on Amazon.com does not count as "peer reviewed and published in a science journal".

What a joke.

>I already gave you the Jones and Yarhouse reference, complete with page numbers in the peer reviewed journal and issue.

Why have you failed to link it?

Is this what you're talking about?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21961446

If so, where is the actual paper? That's an abstract. What was the methodology? What controls were put in place? How were participants selected? What was the hypothesis? What is the null hypothesis? Where is the statistical data? Why is the sample size so small?

>So, given I pointing toward two peer reviewed, scientific studies published by journals, and you call that credible, what is the problem?

The problem is that you don't understand what peer review is, you think Amazon.com is a science journal, and you have no concept of what credibility is.

>It's like you're just trying to troll me or something

Are you trolling? Seriously, the Amazon.com thing is a strong red flag for trolling.

I would also recommend this book, as I found it very interesting: Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire. Personally I don't agree that all women are sexually fluid, though many women do experience changes or fluctuations in their sexual orientation so it's worth learning more.

I myself have experienced shifts in my orientation over time, as I used to crush on men more but these days find I am mostly attracted to women. I've also found the "types" of people I crushed on shifted as I got older. I've always been a bit bi but have moved a lot closer to the homoflexible end of the spectrum.

The existence of sexual fluidity isn't just anecdotal. It's been studied for years.

The groundbreaking work on it was Sexual Fluidity by Lisa M. Diamond. At the time, she was focusing on female sexual fluidity, but later research found male sexual fluidity to be a thing, as well.

Basically what /u/ForkUK said. Like you'd almost never here a guy say, "I met this girl and it was love at first sight. She was just so confident and funny." Anyway there's a good book on the topic called: Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire

So far, it sounds like you're doing it RIGHT. It's important that you don't push her to do anything she's not comfortable with- where coming out is concerned, more is not necessarily better. She may need years of careful acclimation before she accepts the fact that she's queer, and reaches a point where she's okay with it. In the meantime, it may be true that even the thought of being inches away from another queer woman will drive her wild with confusing want and gut-churning terror.

I would recommend that you offer her resources to fuel her own, independent research, like the chat rooms she's already joining. Maybe some magazines she can read when the kids are asleep, or books of adorable coming-out stories. Make it clear that you support her exploring, or not exploring, these parts of herself. You're already doing a good job of not imposing your own agenda, so I say keep it up. (heh.)

When I realized I was queer, I burned two whole months of my life in the "HQ" section of my uni library, reading all the les/bi/an books I could find. I recommend the following to you and/or your lady. Also, my fedora's off to you, as you're clearly one upstanding fellow.

Coming-out stories to warm even the most closeted of hearts

Bisexuals narrate their lives

Studies show women's sexuality is more fluid, anyway

Hell yeah bisexual erotica

More where that came from

Most men seem to know theyre gay very early in life. For women, some know very early in life, while others tend to move along a spectrum of sexuality from homosexuality to heterosexuality (or in the other direction) as their lives progress. There is a good book about women's sexuality called Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire. http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Fluidity-Understanding-Womens-Desire/dp/0674032268

I have a bi bf and even he agrees, that its still cheating, no matter what the sex. If he were to hook up with men, it would still be cheating and I would be done with him. If I were to hook up with women, it would still be cheating. end of story. its cheating. get out of that relationship, she obviously isn't fully committed

edit: If she thinks that way then shes falling into the bisexual steriotype. I suggest this book to her sexual fluidity

Although it's a bit more specific than you're looking for, check out this book by Dr. Lisa Diamond:
http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Fluidity-Understanding-Womens-Desire/dp/0674032268/

Dr. Diamond is a leading researcher in this area (she has several journal articles that might be on topic for you as well).

I just asked this question in r/books and got back the recommendation of Undoing Gender by Judith Butler; reflections on gender and sexuality from Feminist Theory and Queer Theory. I haven't read it but I'm waiting to order it.

http://www.amazon.com/Undoing-Gender-Judith-Butler/dp/0415969239/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343950959&sr=8-1&keywords=undoing+gender

One I do like is Lisa Diamond's Sexual Fluidity, a longitudinal (10+ yrs) study focusing on bisexuality. She defines sexual identity as something in flux that changes and is molded over our lifetime.

http://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Fluidity-Understanding-Womens-Desire/dp/0674032268/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343951135&sr=8-1&keywords=sexual+fluidity

it has.

extensively.