Sexual Fluidity: How Does My Marriage Work?
Shortly after I admitted my same-sex attraction to myself and my husband David, I read Dr. Lisa Diamond’s Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. Here I started to find some context for my lived experience. In Dr. Diamond’s research I heard echoes of my own reality—attracted to women and one particular, amazing man. I started to build a new framework to understand my sexuality, my orientation toward women, the authenticity of my marriage, and how my life could make sense.
I’d like to share with you some of what I learned then and since. I’m not prescribing any choice for you; I’ll describe my key takeaways from Dr. Diamond’s research, coupled with my perspective on what that means for me as a gay woman and what illumination it might offer other women about their own experience. But ultimately, our choices and our individual paths forward are between us and a loving, patient God who is very invested in our growth and learning.
These are my notes from Dr. Diamond’s book, with page numbers—if you find this interesting, I suggest you buy a copy of the book and take a deep dive. I’m just skimming the surface of an incredible collection of research and valuable insights.
Definition
“Sexual fluidity, quite simply, means situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness. This flexibility makes it possible for some women to experience desires for either men or women under certain circumstances, regardless of their overall sexual orientation. …women of all orientations may experience variation in their erotic and affectional feelings as they encounter different situations, relationships, and life stages.”[i] (page 2-3 in Sexual Fluidity)
“…despite abrupt bursts of variability at particular moments in time, individuals tend toward consistency and regularity over the long term. (244)
Bisexuality: in bisexuality, non-exclusive attractions are “a regular feature . . . [in contrast, such attractions are] more sporadic and/or context-specific for individuals who are sexually fluid.”[ii]
Sexual fluidity is not subject to control; it occurs in unintentional and unexpected ways that cannot be harnessed or used to change fundamental sexual orientation.
Four elements of sexual fluidity:
1. Women do, in fact, have a general sexual orientation:
2. In addition to their fundamental sexual orientation, women also possess a capacity for fluidity. Fluidity can trigger either same-sex or other-sex attractions.
3. The sexual attractions triggered by fluidity may be temporary or long-lasting, depending on how consistently a woman encounters the facilitating factors.
4. Not all women are equally fluid. (84-85)
Modified Kinsey Scale
The original Scale developed by Alfred Kinsey went from 0 (exclusive heterosexual behavior) to 6 (exclusive homosexual behavior). Later applications of the scale rated different aspects of sexuality. This makes sense for most women, whose attractions, fantasies, behavior, and identity may land at different places on the scale at various times. (24-25)
Other-sex Same-Sex
0__________Attractions_____________ 6
0__________Fantasies ______________ 6
0__________Behavior _____________ 6
0__________Identity _______________ 6
The value and power of the Modified Kinsey Scale is in observing ourselves with curiosity rather than categorizing or judging.
Factors that affect attraction
Two different types of sexual desire (201-202)
Proceptivity—lust or libido; automatic response; “coded” into sexual orientation
Arousability—situation-dependent, intrinsically more flexible. Greater day-to-day influence on female sexual desire.
Contrast between sexual desire and romantic love (203)
Romantic love functions independent of sexual desire, with different biological underpinnings
Characterized by intense fixation, separation distress, extensive physical contact (the same as infant-caregiver attachment)
Romantic love can develop even in the absence of sexual desire
Romantic love does not have an “orientation” in the same way sexuality does
Insight for a heterosexual woman who unexpectedly finds herself attracted to a friend:
“The psychologist Vivian Cass notes that same-sex emotional ties were particularly influential for women: ‘It is not uncommon to see a woman who in mid-life ‘falls in love’ with another woman for the first time in her life. This experience may not necessarily include sexual responses, although the quality of the emotional experience is similar to other love relationships she may have had with men. Where a sexual component does become present, this may occur after a period of time or after the emotional responses have been reciprocated.’” (6-7)
“…the connection between romantic love and sexual desire . . . makes it possible to start out with strong …nonsexual feelings of love for another person, and sometimes develop new and unexpected sexual desires for that person as a result. . . . we can develop sexual desire for a person of the “wrong gender,” just as we can fall in love with someone of the wrong gender. Such atypical desires might be restricted to one special relationship.” (203)
Insight for a gay woman unexpectedly attracted to a man:
“…virtually all the women with person-based attractions agreed strongly with the statement, ‘When I’m really emotionally bonded to someone, I find myself becoming physically attracted to them.’” (184)
A woman “might experience her newfound same-sex [or other-sex] attractions as long-lasting if the relationship develops into a stable, long-term bond. Alternatively, the attractions might disappear altogether if the relationship dissolves. The key point is that the attractions triggered by fluidity do not alter a woman’s basic orientation, though they might function like an orientation in terms of consistency.” (85)
“…given that most lesbians report at least some other-sex attractions, [sociologist Paula] Rust concludes, “the question is . . . not whether self-identified lesbians will ever again find themselves heterosexually involved, but how they will react to heterosexual involvement.” (111-112)
This situation-specific attraction to a man can’t be hot-wired; it’s not possible to manipulate sexual fluidity by deciding to get married in the temple and finding an available guy to make it work. We can’t force ourselves to fall in love with a certain man any more than we can decide to fall in love with an onion. However, neither can we accurately predict that we would never fall in love with a specific gender. Female sexual fluidity can be full of surprises.
Expression of choice/agency
What is the impact of your values, covenants, and goals on how you choose to respond to feelings of attraction?
Reminder: “…it is critically important to differentiate between the forms of change…which can be described as ‘unintentional’ change, and changes which result from individuals’ effortful attempts to eliminate their same-sex attractions…. There is currently no evidence that therapeutic attempts to extinguish same-sex attractions are effective, and in fact those attempts have been found to cause psychological harm.”[iv]
“Other women, when asked about the issue of choice, spoke of choosing how to think about or act on their feelings rather than choosing the feelings themselves. Sexual fluidity may have given them a wider range of possibilities” (251)
“In the final analysis, perhaps the most important characteristic of human sexual nature, and one that probably applies to men as well as to women, is its capacity for expansion, for broadening an individual’s opportunities for joy and pleasure over the life course instead of cutting them off. Female sexual fluidity heightens this basic capacity, facilitating the development of unexpected, situation specific desires that might not change a woman’s overall sexual disposition, but just might change her life.” (169-170)
Footnotes:
[i] Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from Diamond, Lisa M. Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
[ii] Diamond, Lisa M. “Sexual Fluidity in Men and Women.” Current Controversies, November 4, 2016. https://doi.org/https://psych.utah.edu/_resources/documents/people/diamond/Sexual%20Fluidity%20in%20Males%20and%20Females.pdf.
[iv] Diamond, Lisa M. “Sexual Fluidity in Men and Women.” Current Controversies, November 4, 2016. https://doi.org/https://psych.utah.edu/_resources/documents/people/diamond/Sexual%20Fluidity%20in%20Males%20and%20Females.pdf.
