... the other Black experience
Why women are leaving men for other women
Why women are leaving men for other women
(OPRAH.COM) -- Lately, a new kind of sisterly love seems to be in the air. In the past few years, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon left a boyfriend after a decade and a half and started dating a woman (and talked openly about it).
Actress Lindsay Lohan and DJ Samantha Ronson flaunted their relationship from New York to Dubai. Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl" topped the charts. "The L Word," "Work Out," and "Top Chef" are featuring gay women on TV, and there's even talk of a lesbian reality show in the works.
Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable -- or at least, acceptable.
Statistics on how many women have traded boyfriends and husbands for girlfriends are hard to come by. Although the U.S. Census Bureau keeps track of married, divorced, single, and even same-sex partners living together, it doesn't look for the stories behind those numbers.
But experts like Binnie Klein, a Connecticut-based psychotherapist and lecturer in Yale's department of psychiatry, agree that alternative relationships are on the rise.
"It's clear that a change in sexual orientation is imaginable to more people than ever before, and there's more opportunity -- and acceptance -- to cross over the line," says Klein, noting that a half-dozen of her married female patients in the past few years have fallen in love with women. "Most are afraid that if they don't go for it, they'll end up with regrets."
Feminist philosopher Susan Bordo, Ph.D, a professor of English and gender and women's studies at the University of Kentucky and author of "Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body," also agrees that in the current environment, more women may be stepping out of the conventional gender box.
"When a taboo is lifted or diminished, it's going to leave people freer to pursue things," she says.
"So it makes sense that we would see women, for all sorts of reasons, walking through that door now that the culture has cracked it open. Of course, we shouldn't imagine that we're living in a world where all sexual choices are possible. Just look at the cast of 'The L Word' and it's clear that only a certain kind of lesbian -- slim and elegant or butch in just the right androgynous way -- is acceptable to mainstream culture."
That said, of the recent high-profile cases, it's Cynthia Nixon's down-to-earth attitude that may have blazed a trail for many women. In 1998, when "Sex and the City" debuted on HBO, she was settled in a long-term relationship with Danny Mozes, an English professor, with whom she had two children.
They hadn't gotten married: "I was wary of it and felt like it was potentially a trap, so I steered clear of it," Nixon said in an interview with London's Daily Mirror.
In 2004, after ending her 15-year relationship with Mozes, Nixon began seeing Christine Marinoni, at the time a public school advocate whom she'd met while working on a campaign to reduce class sizes in New York City. Marinoni was a great support when the actress was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Far from hiding the relationship, Nixon has spoken freely in TV and newspaper interviews about it not being a big deal.
"I have been with men all my life and had never met a woman I had fallen in love with before," she told the Daily Mirror. "But when I did, it didn't seem so strange. It didn't change who I am. I'm just a woman who fell in love with a woman." Oprah.com: Cynthia Nixon's new life
Over the past several decades, scientists have struggled in fits and starts to get a handle on sexual orientation. Born or bred? Can it change during one's lifetime?
A handful of studies in the 1990s, most of them focused on men, suggested that homosexuality is hardwired. In one study, researchers linked DNA markers in the Xq28 region of the X chromosome to gay males. But a subsequent larger study failed to replicate the results, leaving the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association to speculate that sexual orientation probably has multiple causes, including environmental, cognitive, and biological factors.
Today, however, a new line of research is beginning to approach sexual orientation as much less fixed than previously thought, especially when it comes to women. The idea that human sexuality forms a continuum has been around since 1948, when Alfred Kinsey introduced his famous seven-point scale, with zero representing complete heterosexuality, 6 signifying complete homosexuality, and bisexuality in the middle, where many of the men and women he interviewed fell.
The new buzz phrase coming out of contemporary studies is "sexual fluidity."
"People always ask me if this research means everyone is bisexual. No, it doesn't," says Lisa Diamond, Ph.D, associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah and author of the 2008 book "Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire."
"Fluidity represents a capacity to respond erotically in unexpected ways due to particular situations or relationships. It doesn't appear to be something a woman can control."
Furthermore, studies indicate that it's more prevalent in women than in men, according to Bonnie Zylbergold, assistant editor of American Sexuality, an online magazine.
In a 2004 landmark study at Northwestern University, the results were eye-opening. During the experiment, the female subjects became sexually aroused when they viewed heterosexual as well as lesbian erotic films. This was true for both gay and straight women.
Among the male subjects, however, the straight men were turned on only by erotic films with women, the gay ones by those with men.
"We found that women's sexual desire is less rigidly directed toward a particular sex, as compared with men's, and it's more changeable over time," says the study's senior researcher, J. Michael Bailey, Ph.D. "These findings likely represent a fundamental difference between men's and women's brains."
This idea, that the libido can wander back and forth between genders, Diamond admits, may be threatening and confusing to those with conventional beliefs about sexual orientation.
But when the women she's interviewed explain their feelings, it doesn't sound so wild. Many of them say, for example, they are attracted to the person, and not the gender -- moved by traits like kindness, intelligence, and humor, which could apply to a man or a woman.
Most of all, they long for an emotional connection. And if that comes by way of a female instead of a male, the thrill may override whatever heterosexual orientation they had. Oprah.com: Meet women who are making the switch
By Mary A. Fischer from O, The Oprah Magazine, April 2009
(OPRAH.COM) -- Lately, a new kind of sisterly love seems to be in the air. In the past few years, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon left a boyfriend after a decade and a half and started dating a woman (and talked openly about it).
Actress Lindsay Lohan and DJ Samantha Ronson flaunted their relationship from New York to Dubai. Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl" topped the charts. "The L Word," "Work Out," and "Top Chef" are featuring gay women on TV, and there's even talk of a lesbian reality show in the works.
Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable -- or at least, acceptable.
Statistics on how many women have traded boyfriends and husbands for girlfriends are hard to come by. Although the U.S. Census Bureau keeps track of married, divorced, single, and even same-sex partners living together, it doesn't look for the stories behind those numbers.
But experts like Binnie Klein, a Connecticut-based psychotherapist and lecturer in Yale's department of psychiatry, agree that alternative relationships are on the rise.
"It's clear that a change in sexual orientation is imaginable to more people than ever before, and there's more opportunity -- and acceptance -- to cross over the line," says Klein, noting that a half-dozen of her married female patients in the past few years have fallen in love with women. "Most are afraid that if they don't go for it, they'll end up with regrets."
Feminist philosopher Susan Bordo, Ph.D, a professor of English and gender and women's studies at the University of Kentucky and author of "Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body," also agrees that in the current environment, more women may be stepping out of the conventional gender box.
"When a taboo is lifted or diminished, it's going to leave people freer to pursue things," she says.
"So it makes sense that we would see women, for all sorts of reasons, walking through that door now that the culture has cracked it open. Of course, we shouldn't imagine that we're living in a world where all sexual choices are possible. Just look at the cast of 'The L Word' and it's clear that only a certain kind of lesbian -- slim and elegant or butch in just the right androgynous way -- is acceptable to mainstream culture."
That said, of the recent high-profile cases, it's Cynthia Nixon's down-to-earth attitude that may have blazed a trail for many women. In 1998, when "Sex and the City" debuted on HBO, she was settled in a long-term relationship with Danny Mozes, an English professor, with whom she had two children.
They hadn't gotten married: "I was wary of it and felt like it was potentially a trap, so I steered clear of it," Nixon said in an interview with London's Daily Mirror.
In 2004, after ending her 15-year relationship with Mozes, Nixon began seeing Christine Marinoni, at the time a public school advocate whom she'd met while working on a campaign to reduce class sizes in New York City. Marinoni was a great support when the actress was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Far from hiding the relationship, Nixon has spoken freely in TV and newspaper interviews about it not being a big deal.
"I have been with men all my life and had never met a woman I had fallen in love with before," she told the Daily Mirror. "But when I did, it didn't seem so strange. It didn't change who I am. I'm just a woman who fell in love with a woman." Oprah.com: Cynthia Nixon's new life
Over the past several decades, scientists have struggled in fits and starts to get a handle on sexual orientation. Born or bred? Can it change during one's lifetime?
A handful of studies in the 1990s, most of them focused on men, suggested that homosexuality is hardwired. In one study, researchers linked DNA markers in the Xq28 region of the X chromosome to gay males. But a subsequent larger study failed to replicate the results, leaving the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association to speculate that sexual orientation probably has multiple causes, including environmental, cognitive, and biological factors.
Today, however, a new line of research is beginning to approach sexual orientation as much less fixed than previously thought, especially when it comes to women. The idea that human sexuality forms a continuum has been around since 1948, when Alfred Kinsey introduced his famous seven-point scale, with zero representing complete heterosexuality, 6 signifying complete homosexuality, and bisexuality in the middle, where many of the men and women he interviewed fell.
The new buzz phrase coming out of contemporary studies is "sexual fluidity."
"People always ask me if this research means everyone is bisexual. No, it doesn't," says Lisa Diamond, Ph.D, associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah and author of the 2008 book "Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire."
"Fluidity represents a capacity to respond erotically in unexpected ways due to particular situations or relationships. It doesn't appear to be something a woman can control."
Furthermore, studies indicate that it's more prevalent in women than in men, according to Bonnie Zylbergold, assistant editor of American Sexuality, an online magazine.
In a 2004 landmark study at Northwestern University, the results were eye-opening. During the experiment, the female subjects became sexually aroused when they viewed heterosexual as well as lesbian erotic films. This was true for both gay and straight women.
Among the male subjects, however, the straight men were turned on only by erotic films with women, the gay ones by those with men.
"We found that women's sexual desire is less rigidly directed toward a particular sex, as compared with men's, and it's more changeable over time," says the study's senior researcher, J. Michael Bailey, Ph.D. "These findings likely represent a fundamental difference between men's and women's brains."
This idea, that the libido can wander back and forth between genders, Diamond admits, may be threatening and confusing to those with conventional beliefs about sexual orientation.
But when the women she's interviewed explain their feelings, it doesn't sound so wild. Many of them say, for example, they are attracted to the person, and not the gender -- moved by traits like kindness, intelligence, and humor, which could apply to a man or a woman.
Most of all, they long for an emotional connection. And if that comes by way of a female instead of a male, the thrill may override whatever heterosexual orientation they had. Oprah.com: Meet women who are making the switch
By Mary A. Fischer from O, The Oprah Magazine, April 2009
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Madamoiselle De Sade on -
Similar to how some people around here believe that only another black person can understand a black person I believe that sometimes, a woman will "understand" a woman better. There are some things about womanhood that men will never get, no matter how hard they try they can't even conceive it. They may know of it but not as intimately. But whatever, my personal opinion of the male/female relate has nothing to do with this well meaning but misguided article.
It's a cultural fad thing. (I blame the L Word for portraying lesbians in a glamorous light and not in a demeaning porn-fetish way :P)/ This article is from oprah.com, I rest my case.
There are a lot of pretenders floating around that make things genuinely hard for women like me who are really into forming a relationship with other women.
And of course some men can fill "put out" by it.
On that same token a lot of women are really "anti-woman", to the point of having all-male friends and ruling out women as friends entirely. I never really understood the "anti-woman" women /stalwart dick lovers. To me, it's as bizarre as a black person hating their own race and probably has the same root (negative relationships with other women); women that are "anti-women" have only known other women to be jealous/catty or feel insecure around other women. But that's WAY off topic.....ramble ramble..
It's not as widespread as this article makes it seem, trust me. All that article is doing is preying on male paranoia.
But there is a silent movie that portrayed female friendship in a positive light- in the story sisterly love overcame the destructive lust a male character had for the main character and the two women live happily ever after. It was ruthlessly censored; the story was changed so that the meddling "lesbian" was crushed by a tree that fell between her legs (didn't that happen in "The Fox"?). I forget the name of the director but she was a famous lesbian that wore pants when a woman could get put in jail for doing so.
On the other hand bond of brothers movies were very popular and promoted. Since childhood I've noticed a slant towards male bonding and against female bonding.
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Permalink Reply by 3amConspiracy on -
Doesn't an article like this hurt the lesbian/gay acceptance thing. This feeds into the theory that people choose to be lesbian/gay instead of being born that way. Now you'll have a bunch of crazies using this article as proof that it's a choice.
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Permalink Reply by Madamoiselle De Sade on
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3amConspiracy said:Doesn't an article like this hurt the lesbian/gay acceptance thing. This feeds into the theory that people choose to be lesbian/gay instead of being born that way. Now you'll have a bunch of crazies using this article as proof that it's a choice.
Not really. It talks about "fluid sexuality" and that kind of thing; in the sense that sex/genitals have no bearing on attraction.
Preference is partially a choice but orientation is not.
There's a very fine difference between the two that most people won't take the time to recognize or understand the fluidity and dynamic of sexual attraction.
Either way, this isn't written with queer rights in mind so it shouldn't have anything to do with the equality struggle.
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Permalink Reply by Mäkkonen on -
It's not really anyone else's issue--beside the ladies who are with the ladies now isn't it?
--i mean is there a shortage of women? Are we worried about a complete world lesbian epidemic? this is a non-issue and, its laughable that anyone would bother themselves over this.
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Permalink Reply by LesYpersound on -
3amConspiracy said:Doesn't an article like this hurt the lesbian/gay acceptance thing. This feeds into the theory that people choose to be lesbian/gay instead of being born that way. Now you'll have a bunch of crazies using this article as proof that it's a choice.
Doesn't matter... the idea that orientation is either-or and mutually exclusive is bunk. So ppl continuing to argue on that level won't be able to understand and it brings up the question, again, of what does it matter what anti-lgbtqi people think or don't think? People's subjective opinions and beliefs shouldn't be enforced by the state. So the crazies can go on a keep hating... as long as they aren't violent and politicians aren't fascists who cares?
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Permalink Reply by superherolnchbox on -
It is not being fed up with men. Some women like women. Some women try to deny this fact by dating men. Some women like both men and women and will date both at different times in their life. Its a ladies choice.
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Permalink Reply by Madamoiselle De Sade on
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superherolnchbox said:It is not being fed up with men. Some women like women. Some women try to deny this fact by dating men. Some women like both men and women and will date both at different times in their life. Its a ladies choice.
I think that's what bothers people who get all paranoid about this, the fact that there's a choice.
Cause sexuality is supposed to be straight foward, people can't handle it when it's not and make up theories and stuff.
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Permalink Reply by LesYpersound on
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Mlle d. Sade said:I think that's what bothers people who get all paranoid about this, the fact that there's a choice.
Cause sexuality is supposed to be straight foward, people can't handle it when it's not and make up theories and stuff.
i definitely think you're onto something...
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Permalink Reply by Jay on -
i guess it's called... experimenting. it's nothing new, honestly. you'll always have kids, men and women, "trying out" homosexuality.
p.s. please don't let celebrities speak for anyone else but themselves. they live in an entirely different world.
p.p.s. i'm sure katy perry doesn't write her own music.
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Permalink Reply by LesYpersound on
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"experimenting" implies 'it' as just being a phase and that idea is be debunked.
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Permalink Reply by Spiralkitten on -
People's sexual orientation should be the least of our problems..
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Permalink Reply by Madamoiselle De Sade on
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Jay said:i guess it's called... experimenting. it's nothing new, honestly. you'll always have kids, men and women, "trying out" homosexuality.
p.s. please don't let celebrities speak for anyone else but themselves. they live in an entirely different world.
p.p.s. i'm sure katy perry doesn't write her own music.
Girls who "experiment" are a waste of time or just a quickie. That's why they end up only experimenting.
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