Bisexuality in women could be a lifelong, distinct and consistent sexual orientation, rather than a phase, a new study has suggested. A finding which runs counter to the idea that Bisexuality is an experimental or transitional period on the way to either Lesbianism or Heterosexuality.

Research published in the journal Developmental Psychology, by Lisa Diamond, associate professor of Psychology and Gender studies at the University of Utah, sheds some light on the complex nature of sexual orientation in women.

In an attempt to define female Bisexuality, using a small scale study which began in 1995, Diamond interviewed 79 women in New York state, who were aged between 18 and 25, and who identified themselves as either Lesbian, Bisexual or “Unlabeled”. Respondents were interviewed five times over the course of a decade, and gave detailed information on their sexual identities, attractions, behaviours and their social and familial relationships.

What the study discovered was that Bisexual and Unlabeled women were more likely than Lesbians to change their sexual identity over the 10 years. The Bisexual or Unlabeled women tended to switch between Bisexual and Unlabeled rather than to Lesbian or Heterosexual. For those women, Bisexuality seemed to be a natural state.

17 percent of respondents switched from a Bisexual or Unlabeled identity to Heterosexual, during the course of the study, but more than half of those women had switched back to Bisexual or Unlabeled, at the conclusion of the study.

Diamond also noted that at the 10-year follow-up interview, 89 percent of the self-identified Bisexual women in the study were involved in long-term monogamous relationships that had lasted at least five years, as were 85 percent of those who preferred to remain unlabeled; making them more likely to be in such relationships than the Lesbian respondents.

Additionally, 15 percent of the women who identified as Lesbian in the last round of interviews reported having sexual contact with a man during the prior two years. However, women who settled on a Heterosexual label in the last interviews reported having no sexual contact with a woman within the previous two years.

Professor Diamond said:

If Bisexuality really were just a passing phase, then one would certainly expect to see some evidence of that over a 10-year period, but this study shows that women who reported Bisexual patterns of attraction back in 1995 continued to report Bisexual patterns of attraction all the way through to 2005, even if they eventually settled down with either a man or a woman.

Hopefully, the media, the general public, and professional Psychologists will no longer treat the phenomenon of female Bisexuality with scepticism.

The original paper can be found here:

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Posted by Jonathan in Psychology, Sociology

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