Women sexual fluidity as: Overall erotic responsiveness to one’s less-preferred gender; situational variability in erotic responsiveness to one’s less-preferred gender; instability in day-to-day attractions over time; & other types

Who Counts as Sexually Fluid? Comparing Four Different Types of Sexual Fluidity in Women. Lisa M. Diamond et al. Archives of Sexual Behavior, December 9 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-019-01565-1

Abstract: Previous research has examined the phenomenon of “sexual fluidity,” but there is no current consensus on the specific meaning and operationalization of this construct. The present study used a sample of 76 women with diverse sexual orientations to compare four different types of sexual fluidity: (1) fluidity as overall erotic responsiveness to one’s less-preferred gender, (2) fluidity as situational variability in erotic responsiveness to one’s less-preferred gender, (3) fluidity as discrepancy between the gender patterning of sexual attractions and the gender patterning of sexual partnering, and (4) fluidity as instability in day-to-day attractions over time. We examined how these four types of fluidity relate to one another and to other features of women’s sexual profiles (bisexual vs. exclusive patterns of attraction, sex drive, interest in uncommitted sex, age of sexual debut, and lifetime number of sexual partners). The four types of fluidity were not correlated with one another (with the exception of the first and fourth), and each showed a unique pattern of association with other features of women’s sexual profiles. The only type of fluidity associated with bisexuality was overall erotic responsiveness to the less-preferred gender. The findings demonstrate that future research on sexual fluidity should distinguish between its different forms.

Keywords: Bisexuality Sexual orientation Sexual fluidity Individual differences Women


Discussion
These results provide the first systematic study differentiating
between distinct forms of sexual fluidity, and they provide
powerful evidence that sexual fluidity is not a single overarching
individual difference dimension, but a multifaceted
phenomenon that takes different forms and which has different
implications for sexual experience. We theorized four
potential types of fluidity: (1) overall erotic responsiveness
to one’s less-preferred gender, (2) situational variability in
erotic responsiveness to one’s less-preferred gender, (3)
discrepancy between the gender patterning of one’s sexual
attractions and the gender patterning of one’s sexual partnering,
and (4) instability in day-to-day attractions over time.
We used a combination of questionnaire data, daily diary
assessments, and laboratory data to derive meaningful indices
of each form of fluidity, and tested how they related to
one another and to other features of sexuality in a sexually
diverse sample of women. The results significantly expand
our understanding of sexual fluidity by demonstrating that it
is not, in fact, a unitary construct. The four types of fluidity
were uncorrelated with one another (with one exception), and
each showed a different pattern of associations with other
features of women’s sexuality.
A notable finding is that the only type of fluidity associated
with bisexuality (i.e., the lack of polarization in a
woman’s attractions) was overall erotic responsiveness to the
less-preferred gender. This concords with previous research
suggesting that heightened erotic responsiveness to one’s
less-preferred gender is a defining feature of bisexual attractions,
and it helps to explain why the construct of sexual
fluidity is often conflated with (or attributed to) bisexuality.
Yet the findings of the present research substantially expand
our understanding of the association between sexual fluidity
and bisexuality by demonstrating that this association
only holds for one specific type of fluidity: general erotic
responsiveness to one’s less-preferred gender. Women with
less polarized (i.e., more bisexual) attractions were not more
likely to show any of the other types of fluidity we assessed
(situational variability in attractions, discrepancies between
sexual attraction and sexual partnering, or temporal instability
in day-to-day attractions). Additionally, we found that
although the first type of fluidity was also associated with
women’s sociosexuality (interest in uncommitted sex) and
total number of sexual partners, these associations were no
longer significant after controlling for women’s bisexuality.
Hence, one possible interpretation of our findings is that the
first form of fluidity—erotic responsiveness to the less-preferred
gender—should not be considered fluidity at all, but
rather bisexuality.
The second form of fluidity—situational variability in a
woman’s attractions—is theoretically closest to the notion
that fluidity represents a heightened sensitivity to contextual
influences on sexuality (Diamond, 2008a, 2008b), since it
captures the degree to which a woman’s erotic responsiveness
to the less-preferred gender varies across different domains
of assessment (self-report of attractions over the past year,
average day-to-day attractions reported in the diary, and selfreported
arousal to sexual stimuli in the laboratory). Unlike
the first type of fluidity (average responsiveness to the LPG
across different contexts), the second type of fluidity was
unassociated with the polarization of a woman’s overall
attractions. Hence, women with more bisexual patterns of
attraction do not show more variation in their erotic responsiveness
to the less-preferred gender across different contexts.
This finding significantly clarifies the persistent debate
over links and distinctions between fluidity and bisexuality.
As argued by Diamond et al. (2017), the key difference
between the construct of fluidity and the construct of bisexuality
concerns the element of change: Bisexuality is typically
theorized as a consistent pattern of sexual responsiveness
to both genders, whereas situational fluidity represents as
a capacity for variation in responsiveness across different
contexts. Whereas women with greater situational variability
in their erotic responsiveness did not have less polarized
attractions, they reported an earlier age of sexual debut and
a greater total number of sexual partners, perhaps reflecting
the fact that women with high situational variability in erotic
responsiveness are more responsive to situation-specific
opportunities for sexual contact. This might amplify their
total opportunities for sexual contact, thereby increasing their
total number of sexual partners and accelerating their initial
transition into sexual activity.
Discrepancies between women’s attractions and their
sexual partnering were not associated with any other features
of women’s sexuality, which may be attributable to the
aforementioned fact that sexual partnering is more directly
circumscribed by cultural and opportunistic factors than
subjective sexual responsiveness. Hence, when a woman’s
sexual partnering deviates from her pattern of attraction, it is
impossible to know whether this reflects her own desires, her
responsiveness to an unexpected opportunity, social pressure,
or the dynamics of a specific relationship. Additionally, our
measure of sexual partnering focused on the ratio of same-sex
to other-sex partners in adulthood. This is clearly not the only
way to represent the gender patterning of women’s behavior:
consider a woman who has 50 sexual encounters with the
same man, and a single sexual encounter with a woman. Her
percentage of same-sex partners would be 50%, but her percentage
of same-sex sexual activity would be less than 2%.
Future research investigating fluidity between one’s attractions
and one’s behavior should explore different assessments
of behavior, across different time scales, in order to determine
the relevance of different types of discrepancy. Additionally,
qualitative research should investigate women’s motives for
engaging in “uncharacteristic” or “less desirable” patterns of
sexual activity, the proximal contexts for such activity, and
women’s interpretations of their subjective meaning (Diamond,
2008a, 2008b).
The last type of sexual fluidity—temporal instability in
attractions—is the most conceptually and empirically novel,
having been used in only one other investigation of temporal
variability in sexuality (Diamond et al., 2017, although
see Farr, Diamond, & Boker [2014] for a related dynamical
systems approach to modeling temporal change in attractions).
A particular advantage of this approach is that it
focuses not on the simple observation of change in attraction,
but on what happens after this change occurs. Does the
original pattern reassert itself? If so, the underlying pattern
can be viewed as stable, anchored to the individual’s own
personal setpoint. If not, the underlying pattern can be viewed
as unstable, and more prone to perturbations from and disruptions
in the setpoint. This type of instability is conceptually
quite distinct from the other types of fluidity assessed
in the present study. The only form of fluidity with which it
was associated was the magnitude of women’s average erotic
responsiveness to the less-preferred gender (and this association
was independent of the overall polarization of a woman’s
attractions). We found that women who showed greater overall
erotic responsiveness to their less-preferred gender across
different contexts also showed more temporal instability (i.e.,
less “anchoring” to their own setpoint) over the 2-week diary
assessment. This concords with the notion that individuals
with a greater readiness to be attracted to their less-preferred
gender are more fluid than those whose attractions are more
strongly anchored to their more-preferred gender.
The lack of an association between temporal instability
and situational variability presents interesting questions: On
the one hand, one might expect that women with high situational
variability in their erotic responsiveness will show
less temporal “anchoring” in their responsiveness within a
single situation. Yet this presumes that similar factors drive
both temporal and situational change in attractions, and this
presumption remains untested. A key direction for future
research is to assess temporal instability across different
time scales, and to compare the proximal “drivers” of both
temporal change (across different situations) and situational
change (over time).
Notably, all forms of fluidity were unrelated to sex drive
and sociosexuality (as described above, general attraction
to the less-preferred gender was initially correlated with
sociosexuality, but this was no longer the case after controlling
for the polarization of women’s attractions). The lack
of associations involving sex drive runs counter to previous
research. As noted above, Lippa (2006, 2007) found that
among heterosexual and bisexual women, high sex drive was
associated with greater attraction to both their more-preferred
and less-preferred genders, suggesting that sex drive might
amplify non-dominant sexual responses. Yet we did not
find that women with higher sex drive were more erotically
responsive to the less-preferred gender (the first form of fluidity)
or to the other forms of fluidity. Given that Lippa found
different linkages between sex drive and sexual attraction
among lesbian, heterosexual, and bisexual respondents, we
conducted ancillary analyses to examine potential interactions
between the polarization of a woman’s attractions and
her sex drive in predicting any of the types of fluidity, and
found no such effects.
One potential explanation for the difference between Lippa’s
findings and the present research may concern cohort
effects. Lippa’s research was conducted over a decade ago,
during which there was less cultural visibility and more skepticism
regarding individuals who described their attractions
as “bisexual” or “mostly heterosexual” (Savin-Williams &
Vrangalova, 2013). Hence, one possibility is that the individuals
in Lippa’s study who were most likely to notice and
disclose attractions to their less-preferred gender were those
whose high sex drives made it harder to ignore them. Presently,
individuals may be more familiar with, and comfortable
disclosing, attractions to the less-preferred gender even when
those attractions are relatively mild in intensity. Clearly, further
investigation of the link between sex drive and different
forms of fluidity (not to mention investigation of fluidity in
sex drive itself) is an important direction for future research.