Is love "blind" when it comes to gender? For women, it just might be. This unsettling and original book offers a radical new understanding of th... read full description
reviews
Apr 21, 2008
EBB, FLOW - Review By Hanne Blank
WHAT TO MAKE OF COLLEGE women who are “lesbian until graduation”? Or straight married women who suddenly fall in love with other women? For that matter, what about queeridentified women— Anne Heche, anyone?— who wind up with men? Perhaps they’re really bisexual or “confused” or maybe they were simply repressed or closeted. Alarmists might imagine them victims of predatory dykes and Stockholm syndrome. Or, as University of Utah psychologist Lisa Diamo More...
WHAT TO MAKE OF COLLEGE women who are “lesbian until graduation”? Or straight married women who suddenly fall in love with other women? For that matter, what about queeridentified women— Anne Heche, anyone?— who wind up with men? Perhaps they’re really bisexual or “confused” or maybe they were simply repressed or closeted. Alarmists might imagine them victims of predatory dykes and Stockholm syndrome. Or, as University of Utah psychologist Lisa Diamo More...
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Sep 26, 2009
Julia
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Fun fact about the author: Lisa is a faculty member in my department, and in addition to being a ridiculously prolific researcher, she is an outstanding baker. (At high altitudes, no less!). This includes everything from whatever her grad students request as their special birthday treat to transgender ginger people before winter break.
Back to the book: fantastic. The moral of the story is that for decades, researchers treated a large segment of women as "noise" in their sex More...
Back to the book: fantastic. The moral of the story is that for decades, researchers treated a large segment of women as "noise" in their sex More...
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May 16, 2009
DoctorM
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Diamond asks a number of questions: why do women seem to experience more fluidity in their sexual attractions and involvements over their lives than males do--- and what does such fluidity say about the categories (gay, straight, bi) that society seems to insist on? She also raises a number of very intriguing issues: why do we insist that anything that changes or shifts, that can be described as a 'phase', is somehow 'inauthentic' or false? Diamond looks at a ten year (1995-2005) sample of women
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Aug 29, 2011
Gayle
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I wanted to like this book more. I have a profound respect for Lisa Diamond's research, and I think it took incredible courage for her to propose a new theory of sexual identity development - especially since it contradicts the firmly-entrenched "stage theories" of development. The writing style, however, was not particularly engaging, and I found the book to be tedious. Diamond's work has been groundbreaking, but I think the general public could easily lose interest. I also think that
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Apr 02, 2011
Meg
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Very interesting exploration of how women's sexual orientations are often fluid and changing. I really enjoyed the attention she gave to her participants' experiences. Her theories about why women's sexual orientation is fluid (and why it is more fluid than men's) are very interesting and I am taking away a lot of ideas from this book. I also really liked how she made the distinction between "Sexual orientation can change" and "Sexual orientation can BE changed." That is
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Jan 15, 2011
I am about 1/3 of the way through this book. I chose to read it because I have questioned whether women can more easily move from relationships with women to men and back again. This book's theme is sexual fluidity for women, and it seems to support the idea that women fall in love with a person, regardless of their sex and they are less inclined to fall into fixed categories of gay/straight/other.
In my research with men who have been in relationships with women, it is very unusual More...
In my research with men who have been in relationships with women, it is very unusual More...
Aug 02, 2011
Based on a 10-year study of nearly 100 young women's sexual attractions, experiences and identities, this is a highly readable book that proposes that fluidity in our attractions is a fundamental aspect of our sexuality, and especially women's sexuality, and that our concepts of sexuality and our research approaches must change to account for it. Raises without answering some intriguing questions about what it means to be attracted "to a gender." The author discusses somewhat the small
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Sep 15, 2010
Melinda
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Excellent book. Thoughtful, insightful, thorough. Diamond consistently rejects traditional models and questions scientific and cultural assumptions about sexual orientation, sexual desire, and love. Unfortunately, the early chapters are dense and dull, and the book gets only more engaging as it goes on, meaning, rather than hooking the reader from the beginning, the closer you are to finishing the book the more likely you are to keep reading. I almost gave the book four stars because of this, bu
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Nov 10, 2010
Mary
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Lisa Diamond investigates the hows and whys of the fundamental difference between female and male sexuality: whereas women are more likely to experience desire for both women and men in their lifetime, men are more likely to be exclusively gay or straight. She sheds new light on topics such as women's reluctance to adopt the bisexual label, how queer women are often turned on by gay porn, and the difference between women's emotional connections w/ men and women. An encouraging read for any woman
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Mar 04, 2010
Sara
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Even if you're completely, 100% heterosexual (in other words, a staunch "O" on Kinsey's scale), you've probably at least pondered the fluidity of female sexuality. As far as Kinsey's 0 to 6 scale on a continuum from "completely heterosexual" at zero and "completely homosexual" at six, as the word continuum might suggest, most people fall somewhere in between. However, one topic that is rife with debate, tends to have very passionate opinions, and that is most certai
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Apr 05, 2008
Liza
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Lisa Diamond is a psychologist at the University of Utah (yes, Utah) whose research reinforces the need for a paradigm shift in our understanding of sexuality. Diamond launched a longitudinal study in which 100 females (some of whom are trans) were interviewed about their sexual attractions and experiences every few years for 10 years. The result is the book Sexual Fluidity.
In this book Diamond profiles some of the women she interviewed and also provides excellent descriptions of the biopsychol More...
In this book Diamond profiles some of the women she interviewed and also provides excellent descriptions of the biopsychol More...
Jan 07, 2011
DeAnna
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I've been reading quite a few books about polyamory and sexuality, but nothing has seemed more true to my experiences as Lisa Diamond's book, Sexual Fluidity. I've had questions concerning my own sexual orientation my entire life and have never felt normal. Well, which this book didn't result in feeling any normalcy, it does an amazing job of explaining the complex interaction of genetic, environment, situation, chemistry and human connection plays in female sexuality. Now I finally understand t
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Jul 31, 2011
Sarah
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This seemed like i would be a really interesting book, and it was....but unfortunately, it was also incredibly difficult to wade through. What with all the scientific terms, jargon, and overly-academic writing style, it reads like a Doctoral Thesis, and may be less accessible to "laypeople". Still, valuable for what it is.
Aug 14, 2011
Olga
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I found this book to be horribly fascinating! The amount of time, effort, and sensitivity put into Diamond's research made this an enthralling and illuminating read. I could identify with some of the statistics and accounts featured in the book, and the level-headed narration would be perfect for someone still questioning their sexuality. Just fantastic :)
May 26, 2011
Sarah
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So many methodological problems with this book I don't even know what to say. If you know anything about setting up a good study, you know this is not a good study and then you feel bad because this woman devoted 10 years to creating a pretty worthless study.
Outcomes synthesis: many white, affluent, educated, gay/bi women who fantasized/slept with/were attracted to both sexes in college were still somewhat ambivalent about their sexual preferences/fantasies/partner genders later in li More...
Outcomes synthesis: many white, affluent, educated, gay/bi women who fantasized/slept with/were attracted to both sexes in college were still somewhat ambivalent about their sexual preferences/fantasies/partner genders later in li More...
Jul 23, 2009
Melissa
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Hats off to Lisa Diamond for this book. Even though there's a bit of sampling bias and limitation in her longitudinal study (which could easily be remedied by better grants and more research assistants; no doubt after this book she'll be in a better position to get that), the findings she uncovers are doubtless invaluable to the field of sex research, and will hopefully be taken seriously by the scientific community and laypersons alike. For common readers, the book is very accessible, easy to r
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Aug 21, 2009
Mitch
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This one book may well be the most important work on sexuality in general and female psychology in particular I have come across in decades! Newer research will make us all rethink everything we ever assumed we knew about the subject. Diamond is incredibly balanced and compassionate as much as dispassionate about what the data tells. She is a superb researcher and finally accomplishes what I have begging researchers to do: combine the previously warring and normally antithetical theories of esse
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Jan 28, 2010
AnneJ
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Even though sexual orientation is fairly stable, women in particular possess a certain amount of sexual fluidity. A very important contribution to research on sexualitiy, even though the author is ever so slightly too essentialistfor me.
May 16, 2010
Miranda
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Lisa Diamond's long-term research on a group of women and their sexual histories results in a book of impressive and compelling conclusions about human sexuality. Most important, Diamond's work gives us a new model to represent the ways in which the sexual and romantic behavior of women changes over time. She's smart about discussing the political implications of this model as well.
May 05, 2011
Desiree
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I read this book for mySex and Society course but I really enjoyed it. I've always been a very open-minded person when it comes to accepting people and their sexuality, but I still learned so much from this book. It really helped me to realize even I was a little narrow-minded before.
Jul 31, 2011
Jessica
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Another hard one to track down, but I was finally able to access it ebook form during an overnight at Butler Library. Worth the hassle, it's a gentle but well-researched way in to the concept of sexual fluidity in women. Quite fun to see them seesawing back and forth over the years of Diamond's study, and how so many of her subjects see their sexual orientation based on what's going on at the moment, conveniently forgetting contrary bits of personal history.
Apr 02, 2010
Recommended by one of my favorite professors in grad school...hoping it restores some faith lost in the discipline of psychology.
Jan 27, 2011
Marcie
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Reading this made me think a lot about how I perceive my orientation and it's really, really helped to sort out the mess that is female sexuality. Recommend it to all women, but especially queer women who have questions about their sexuality.
Feb 11, 2010
Laura
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This is a fascinating review of research (both the author's own and other studies in her field) which turns arguments from both the right and left on their heads. Diamond rips apart our society's black & white arguments about genetics vs. choice in the arena of sexuality (and the resulting public policy, political rhetoric and theological interpretations of such simplistic notions) and offers us instead an explanation that is far more complex and subtle.
Aug 06, 2011
An interesting idea, and I think there may be a lot in it, but I'm not finding the way it's written about at all riveting. Bogged down.
Jan 10, 2012
Teresa
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Sexual Fluidity is, despite the supple title, for the most part a blandly academic read. Of the eight chapters only the final three are particularly engaging. That said, those final three chapters were so explosively compelling that I count the book as a must read for anyone interested in better understanding human sexuality. There is much in this book to turn conventional wisdom on its head and it's well worth finding even if you have to wade through five less than riveting chapters to get to i
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Jun 20, 2011
Katrina
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I really loved the unique perspective, clear insight, and honest stories in this book. Really interesting and eye-opening, and something that's not talked about very often. I'd definitely recommend it to people interested in Gender Studies/Sexuality.
