Discussion on Bisexual Identity...Finally!

APA: Ten Year Study Says Bisexual Women's Orientation Is Not A "Transitional Phase"

BYLINE: Autumn Sandeen

LENGTH: 512 words

Jan. 26, 2009 (Pam's House Blend delivered by Newstex) -- From YourTango (New York, NY, USA): A study published by the American Psychological Association recognizes that women can maintain a long-term attraction to both genders. This study, done over 10 years, was intended to refute the myth that bisexual women were lesbians trying to straddle the fence between societal expectations and their true feelings. It also shows that bisexual women are able to commit to long-term relationships.

The media release for the APA adds: Bisexuality in women appears to be a distinctive sexual orientation and not an experimental or transitional stage that some women adopt "on their way" to lesbianism, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. ...Among [Lisa M. Diamond, PhD]'s findings: • Bisexual and unlabeled women were more likely than lesbians to change their identity over the course of the study, but they tended to switch between bisexual and unlabeled rather than to settle on lesbian or heterosexual as their identities. • Seventeen percent of respondents switched from a bisexual or unlabeled identity to heterosexual during the study - but more than half of these women switched back to bisexual or unlabeled by the end. • By year 10, most of the women were involved in long-term (i.e., more than a year in length) monogamous relationships - 70 percent of the self-identified lesbians, 89 percent of the bisexuals, 85 percent of the unlabeled women and 67 percent of those who were then calling themselves heterosexual. • Women's definitions of lesbianism appeared to permit more flexibility in behavior than their definitions of heterosexuality. For example, of the women who identified as lesbian in the last round of interviews, 15 percent reported having sexual contact with a man during the prior two years. In contrast, none of the women who settled on a heterosexual label at that point reported having sexual contact with a woman within the previous two years. "This provides further support for the notion that female sexuality is relatively fluid and that the distinction between lesbian and bisexual women is not a rigid one," Diamond wrote. Tom Miller, from YourTango, added his commentary... We bet that the GLBT community is breathing a collective sigh of relief that someone has finally approved their orientation. Maybe Logo will even do a special on this. When asked if she plans on doing a follow up study on men, Dr. Diamond will probably say, "Nope. Pretty sure they're gay. Or sometimes drunk."Let's hope the last line turns out to be nothing but a punch line ( - without alcohol added to the punch). But in one sense, Tom hit on a truth -- we do kinda need studies to say bisexuality exists, because it seems a significant portion of L&G people don't believe bisexuality really exists as a sexual orientation. And that, to me anyway, seems kinda sad. Acknowledging and embracing the diversity of LGBT people within the broad, LGBT community seems pretty important. Newstex ID: PAMS-0001-31270763