Explaining Diversity in the Development of Same-Sex Sexuality Among Young Women

Journal of Social Issues, Summer, 2000 by Lisa M. Diamond, Ritch C. Savin-Williams

Lisa M. Diamond [*]

This article summarizes findings from two ongoing studies charting the development of 167 adolescent and young adult sexual-minority women. Results document considerable variation in the quality, relative distribution, and context of women's same-sex and other-sex attractions. Furthermore, contrary to conventional wisdom, the timing of a woman's first same-sex attractions is not systematically related to subsequent features of sexual identity development. Rather, the quality and context of a woman's early attractions and behavior is more important. We argue that variability in sexual-minority and heterosexual women's development is best explained by interactions between personal characteristics and environmental contexts, and we urge future studies of the sexual-minority life course to include women with same-sex attractions that do not identify as lesbian or bisexual.

Models of sexual identity development typically posit a sequence of feelings, experiences, and events through which individuals progressively realize, understand, and accept a nonheterosexual (or sexual-minority) identity. Because most of these "coming-out" models are based on men, they portray as normative a sequence of feelings and experiences that may be entirely foreign to a sexual-minority woman: early "precursors" such as gender a typicality or feelings of differentness, late childhood and early adolescent same-sex attractions, lack of sexual interest in the other sex, subsequent same-sex experimentation, and finally adolescent self-labeling as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

In fact, the developmental trajectories of most sexual-minority women violate this "master narrative" in at least one way. Some sexual-minority women have no childhood or adolescent recollections of same-sex attractions (Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995), but assert that their same-sex attractions were triggered in adulthood by exposure to lesbian, gay, or bisexual ideas or individuals (Golden, 1996) or the formation of an unusually intense emotional attachment to one particular woman (Cassingham & O'Neil, 1999; Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995; Shuster, 1987). Others report abrupt changes in their sexual attractions over time (Weinberg, Williams, & Pryor, 1994).

Such cases run counter to the conventional view of sexual orientation as a stable, early-appearing trait. Yet these cases have typically been considered few in number and exceptional in nature-unwanted noise in the "data" of normative sexual identity development. The results of our intensive investigations of adolescent and young adult sexual-minority women directly challenge this view (Diamond, 1998, 2000a, 2000b; Diamond & Dube, 2000; Savin-Williams, in press; Savin-Williams & Diamond, in press). Our findings lead us to propose that variability in the emergence and expression of female same-sex desire during the life course is normative rather than exceptional. In other words, the cases noted above are not noise in the data; rather, they are the data with potentially the most to tell us about female sexual development.

In this article we review major findings from our ongoing program of research, integrate them with existing knowledge on female sexuality, and articulate a conceptual approach to the study of female same-sex sexuality that aims to explain, and not simply describe, the diverse developmental trajectories we have observed. Our goal is not to replace a single model of development with an ever-increasing number of ideosyncratic models but to highlight the conditions and processes that produce multiple developmental trajectories. Toward this end, our main points are as follows:

1. Because of the prevalence of nonexclusivity and fluidity in women's attractions, there is considerable variation in the quality and relative distribution of women's same-sex and other-sex attractions as well as the context in which these attractions are experienced.

2. The timing of a woman's first same-sex attractions does not systematically predict their quality or exclusivity, nor does it predict the stability of her sexual identity.

3. Variability in both sexual-minority and heterosexual women's sexual development is best explained by interactions between personal characteristics and environmental contexts.

Although we here emphasize women's development, the approach we advocate would also enhance research on men's sexual development (Savin-Williams, 1998). Yet we believe it holds particular promise for research on women given the prevalence of nonexclusivity and fluidity in women's attractions (Baumeister, 2000), as well as the documented tendency for social and environmental factors to exert stronger influences on female than male sexual behavior (Udry, Talbert, & Morris, 1986).

Sample and Methods

We here review findings from two independent, ongoing studies (for clarity, Study A and Study B). Study A is a longitudinal study of the sexual attractions, behaviors, and identities of 89 sexual-minority and 11 heterosexual women who were first interviewed in 1995 when they were between the ages of 16 and 23 (Diamond, 1998). These women were reinterviewed 2 years later in 1997 (Diamond, 2000a, 2000b) and are currently undergoing a third round of interviews. This is the first prospective study of female sexual-minority youth ever undertaken and therefore offers a unique opportunity to observe the long-term course of sexual identity development. Study B is an interview study of the childhood and adolescent experiences of 78 female and 86 male sexual minorities between the ages of 17 and 25 (Savin-Williams, 1998, in press; Savin-Willaims & Diamond, in press). Because this study uses a standardized, qualitative interview protocol, it permits systematic examination of the quality and context of sexual identity m ilestones and not just their timing.