Friday, January 22, 2010

Sexual fluidity in males

An extremely rare case of sexual fluidity in males: The Day I decided to Stop Being Gay.

This anecdote is similar to the qualitative study by Lisa Diamond, published in the book Sexual Fluidity, who documented 100 lesbian/bisexual/other women who spontaneously changed sexual orientation over the course of the 10 years after they graduated college.

The theory of sexual orientation that I'm familiar with are that female sexuality is more fluid, and male sexuality is more fixed --- though neither sexuality can be made to change, but rather may change spontaneously --- but this anecdote is an example counter to the view of male sexuality as being relatively more fixed.

He says he has another friend with a similar story. Will people start speaking of "gay until straight-marriage" as they do "lesbian until graduation"? GUS (GUM?) is a better acronym than LUG anyhow.

I wonder how it will turn out for him in 10 or 20 years. I do think that any woman would justifiably hesitate to marry him.

1 comment:

OJ said...

I think the mind is fluid enough that it could convince itself of a certain attraction, whether sexual, vocational, or otherwise, and that such a person may for a time even thrive under this mindset.

That is, if people are not boxed into categorical identities, but rather, as tendential behaviors, it makes sense that someone could 'try out' different behaviors that s/he finds variably successful at achieving happiness.

That is, I think it's possible for a normally straight man to have a romantic relationship with another man, only that that doesn't often happen due to personal boundaries of allowable behaviors. At some point, there is bound to be a person who has chosen a behavioral identity and then tried on another, and found it a better fit.

I think how this man defined himself has been changing, though I doubt he no longer has sexual attraction to other men.