Book club this Sunday! 10/23
Here is a paragraph outline of chapter one so you can be prepared for class ;)
Book Club
October 23, 2022
Lisa M Diamond
“Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire”
Chapter 1: Will the Real Lesbians Please Stand Up, Paragraph Summary
Famous sexually fluid women
Lexicon and Media examples of female sexual fluidity
How research bias makes these cases even more perplexing
Historical dismissal of statistical deviations and official acknowledgement that female sexuality is “poorly understood”
Current situation and the emergence of fluidity as the defining feature of female sexuality
A Brief History of Fluidity
Fluidity is “situation-dependent flexibility in women’s sexual responsiveness.”
The historical presence of fluidity in the data and how it was “submerged in the data rather than explicitly theorized” and how those experiencing fluidity may be new to or familiar with same sex desire.
Attempts by researchers to accommodate sexual fluidity in the research, KSOG “Klein Sexual Orientation Grid” by allowing time to be a factor in identifying desire and it’s shifts
Gilbert Herdt, The fixed notion of sexual orientation is culturally specific. Melanesia men who experience a culturally sanctioned gay adolescence and then transition to hetero marriage
Evelyn Blackwood, anthropologist, The limits of the western notion that sexual is fixed is also apparent in studies of women
Andrienne Rich, poet, lesbian continuum
1980s Growing evidence of sexual fluidity and more sizeable and frequent changes among female respondents because feminism?
Carla Golden, psychologist, women are changing in real time too, not only discovering a latent same sex attraction
Celia Kitzinger/Sue Wilkinson, sociocultural influences and opportunity not biology or subconscious urges are the underlying such changes
Emotional intimacy is a catalyst for change in women’s sexuality, that change causes a reevaluation of identity, sexual component may be delayed or nonexistent
Current Perspectives
Roy Baumeister, psychologist, first comprehensive analysis, female sexuality is more plastic than men
New research that will be covered more in chapter 4 (women v men in visual arousal)
Those who digress and say women’s sexual response is merely a response to social and cultural conditions and not a genuine component of female desire (Blumstein and Schwartz”
This theory is only partially correct and is contradicted by much of the research and many first-person accounts
The data supports the concept of fluidity in female desire, but the notion has not yet been integrated into our popular consciousness
The authors own research over the past ten years observing in real time the change in desire for 100 young women
Acknowledgement of the controversial nature of this new framework for female desire
Does fluidity mean all women are bisexual? No
Does fluidity mean that there is no such thing a sexual orientation? No, only that it may work in concert with orientation, there are not endless variables, but the capacity for some women to experience a wider variety of erotic feelings
Does sexual fluidity mean that sexual orientation can be changed? No, only that sexual orientation is not the only factor determining attractions
Does fluidity mean that sexual orientation is a matter of choice? No. More on this in chapter 8
Does fluidity mean that sexual orientation is due to “nuture” instead of “nature”? Non issue, since fluidity addresses the expression rather than the causes.
Couldn’t all individuals be characterized as fluid? We are all capable of behavior and desire not determined by orientation but also this is unknown because more research is needed although it certainly appears at this time that women are more fluid
Key Terms and Concept
Sexual orientation is a self concept that does not determine desire or behavior and a variety of labels are now used so thus all labels are some what arbitrary, more on this later in the book
Same-sex sexuality and other-sex sexuality, because the genders are different but not opposite and because behavior and identity do not necessarily cluster together because desire, romantic affection, fantasy and behavior may all be experienced together or individually
Orientation v identity, orientation is desire, identity is a self concept ie bisexual orientation and a lesbian identity
Exclusive v nonexclusive, desire and behavior, not measure of fidelity
Sexual Minority
Why It Matters
Minnie Bruce Pratt: I didn’t feel “different,” but was I? (From whom?) Had I changed? (From what?) Was I heterosexual in adolescence only to become lesbian in my late twenties? Was i lesbian always but coerced into heterosexuality? Was I a less authentic lesbian than my friend who had “always known” that they were sexually and affectionally attracted to other women? What kind of woman is a lesbian?
Addressing the conundrum and questions of authenticity that occur when women experience something other than a fixed sexual orientation
To better represent women’s desire in science and public outreach
Fluidity does not imply that sexual orientation can be intentionally changed
From the author: “The only way to guard against the misuse of scientific findings is to present them as accurately and completely as possible, making explicit the conclusions that they do and do not support. This is my goal in this book.”
Conclusion, end of chapter 1
