In preparation for my fall semester class, I’m reading Lisa Diamond’s excellent Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire. It’s a book about her longitudinal research on women’s sexual identities and behaviors; I first heard a talk of hers in 2003 and have been fascinated ever since.
I intend to include the book in the readings for my class because there’s an ongoing flurry among students on my campus about sexual orientation and the dreaded LUG – Lesbian Until Graduation.
The problem as I understand it is this: a woman who dates women while she’s in college but who will date men once she graduates is a Fake Lesbian and therefore is fundamentally untrustworthy, will break your heart, and more or less deserves the social backstabbing she gets. (Dear students, please tell me if I’ve got this wrong.)
It took me a long time to understand what the problem is because, in the context of sexual fluidity, it just doesn’t make any sense. I pestered my poor intern with questions:
Does anyone self-identify as a LUG? No.
How do people tell someone is a LUG? Basically if they’ve ever dated men.
So any bisexual or lesbian who dates a transman? Yup, basically.
(Note: Like many students, my intern totally doesn’t buy the LUG thing; she was just trying to help me understand what other people think.)
Let’s start with a definition, here, yeah? Fluidity is
“a sensitivity to situations and relationships that might facilitate erotic feelings… [like] an intense emotional relationship (with either a man or a woman) or exposure to environments that provide positive experience with same-sex relationships.” (p.84)
Women have a sexual orientation, yes, but it’s fluid. Fluidity around sexual orientation may be transient or long-term, depending on those “facilitating factors,” and some women are more fluid than others.
But in Diamond’s 10-year longitudinal study, 30% of participants who identified as lesbian (as opposed to bisexual, queer, or unlabeled) at the start of the study fell in love with a man at some point during the study. Not just “had sex with,” or “were attracted to,” but had a full-blown romantic relationship.
Were they “real lesbians” in 1995? They sure felt like it. And, btdubs, there were no developmental or other characteristics that distinguished them from any of the other lesbians in 1995 – in other words, there was no way to predict who would date exclusively women and who would have relationships with men over the next 10 years. None. Not even frequency of attraction to men!
(SUBSEQUENT measures of frequency of attraction to men were correlated with relationships with men; it turns out there’s a mutually reinforcing kind of feedback loop between experience and attraction. Which is totally neat!)
The book has sparked so many things in my head I’ll probably end up writing a number of posts about it, but my first interest was in this question of LUGs.
Lesbian – a problematic label, QED. Until. Graduation – graduation marking a major shift in the “facilitating factors” of a woman’s environment. At my school, it’s a shift away from a community of women – “the bubble,” they call it – and into the world.
The majority of students, of course, identify as heterosexual throughout their time in college and they never have a same-sex sexual encounter. And, of course, there are some women who enter college already identifying as lesbian and who have relationships exclusively with women both while they’re in college and after they leave. And there are some who have same-sex sexual encounters while they’re in college and then find the environment outside of school more facilitating of different-sexed relationships. There are even students who never have a same-sex sexual experience on campus, but then go on to lead lives of rampant, unremitting lesbianism, bless them.
Is any of them a better or worse lesbian than the others? Better in what way? According to whom? What makes the sexuality of a person who is attracted to both men and women any better or worse than someone whose orientation is (as Diamond calls it) “exclusive”?
What’s the fear about, and why the prejudice? It’s all couched in untrustworthiness and – horror of horrors – heartbreak. “She doesn’t really love her, she’s just dating her because she’s curious.”
Well. Since Diamond’s work shows us that even people who self-identify as the purest of lesbian are capable of both fucking and loving men, we know it’s NOT that those perceived as LUGs are any “less real” than the dykiest of dykes.
So I say it’s either (a) plain old ignorance about the nature of women’s sexual orientation – which it could very well be, even among this population of curious, educated, queer-positive people; or (b) basic insecurity about being abandoned because of something fundamental about themselves: their gender.
I’ll address (a) in my class, but I don’t think that’ll make a dent in (b), and I’m inclined to think that the fears around LUGs are ultimately about insecurity. Golly folks, ANYBODY could break your heart. She could leave you for another woman, too, and does someone’s bona fides as a lesbian make it any more certain that they really love you for who you are?
I’m inclined to believe that if you doubt that your love object/partner’s sexual orientation is legitimate, that may indeed reflect your own deeper insecurity about your fundamental lovableness. Or if you fear for a friend who is interested in someone whom you don’t trust, maybe you’re pinning “LUG” on as a label when actually there’s some other, less socially acceptable reason why you don’t trust this person.
I think students fear “LUGs” because they’re trying to keep themselves and their friends emotionally safe and they think this is a way to do it – when actually all it does is ostracize students who don’t meet some externally imposed standard. In other words, it’s discrimination.
Ultimately what they seek is a kind of shibboleth – a guarantee that someone’s sexual orientation is true and pure. But there is no “proof” of orientation, no real “proof” of love. You know it with your heart, alone in silence, when it speaks to you.
And maybe in the end what students need to learn is not the biology and sociology of sexual orientation, but how to listen to – and trust – their own hearts. Can I teach that, do you think?
Mz. Nagoski,
Can I just say that I am bowled over with delight that there are people like you teaching people about these topics in the mature, thoughtful, and sex-positive way you do it?
Thank you.
and what… heh, it’s gonna sound a bit taboo, but “what about the men”? How fluid they are, exactly? The ugly stereotipe says, that they are 100% non-fluid, and the silly, pliable women are 100% fluid, so my first reaction would be, that no, they MUST be equally fluid… and the second reaction, that ok, maybe consulting statistics would be the most reasonable way to find an answer to this. But I’m still curious.
and I’d like to see a few words about those women, who do have a stable, nonfluid hetero orientation, even if they aren’t statistically so many, because I’ve met in many places the assumption, that they doesn’t exist. Which I don’t share.
Yes. I don’t understand why it’s often considered so much worse to be rejected because of your gender than because of some other characteristic. “Hey, I really like you, but I’d rather date a man,” as opposed to, “Hey, I really like you, but I’d rather date someone who’s not so obsessive about Dr Who.” Maybe it’s because it makes it so hopeless? Being a very comfortable cis-female, I know I’m never going to be a man, so if somebody is really only interested in dating men, that just cuts off all possibility of a future relationship. Intellectually, I’d think that would make it more bearable, since I’d know it wasn’t personal, wasn’t changeable, and I could just move on. If I was actually in that situation, though, I guess I could see how much more painful it might be, especially in the short term.
Please do post more about the book… I just got it myself!
Anon, I’d like to hear more about the men myself. I’ve noticed a massive movement in women practicing sexual fluidity–suddenly, everyone’s coming out as bi, or experimenting, and even hollywood and the club scenes have caught on. Which makes me so happy–women just got a double batch of pleasure–until I notice how men, by and large, remain firmly planted in homo- or heterosexuality.
The fear in my gut is that this has nothing to do with sexual fluidity (or rather, lack thereof) but with the idea that men find lesbians, and especially bisexual women, sexy, and that stamp of approval has given at least straight women a form of permission to experiment without their value as a heterosexual partner being compromised. And on the other side of the coin, I’ve never noticed women clamoring for bisexual male partners, and although none of the men I know have a problem with male homosexuality, they find it very problematic for their straight selves to be considered gay or appear gay (every three minutes, it’s “No homo, man…” ??) And I suspect that men have a similarly wide spectrum on the Kinsey scale as do women, but a boatload of cultural norms prevent them from considering or acting on “flexible” desires. So until we get two straight male artists macking at a Music Video Award, I don’t know how reliable statistics would even be :/
And I was coming in here to post pretty much exactly what you did, Sarah. Men and women (or people who present as such) receive different cultural messages and pressures regarding sexuality, and I suspect that has a lot to do with perceived orientation fluidity.
Meanwhile, I also agree with Emily – what is the bfd. Anyone can break your heart, and there really isn’t a lesbian membership card, no matter how many jokes are made about it.
I think some of it just also comes from the human desire to put things neatly in to boxes with labels on them. Sadly, we ourselves frequently don’t fit in the boxes we design.
I have a (heterosexual) male friend who remarked once that he could probably be gay, but he couldn’t really be bisexual, because the mindset he’d need to be in to be gay, and the mindset he was in as a straight guy, were just too different to mix. At the time I hypothesised that the reason I was able to so easily consider being slightly bisexual after having thought of myself as pure hetero for years might be, in part, because the social constructs of “adventurous heterosexual woman” and “bisexual woman” aren’t so very different in terms of how they are perceived. It’s not such a big change.
so excited you’re taking this on. LOVE that book. <3 and I can't think of anyone more worthy to take it on.
Ok, first, thank you Emily for blogging about this from such an informed and purposefully examined perspective. I’ve listened to a fair number of conversations and read a couple written pieces (articles, the like) that really just involve people ranting about their personal feelings towards “LUGS” and “BUGS” in a potentially hurtful sort of tone. I’m not sure if it makes anyone feel better about anything.
But I think you may have missed something. And excuse me if I fail to articulate this correctly-
Identification with a non-heterosexual orientation involves a relinquishing of privilege, and for many people that process of coming out is difficult. It has serious implications for a person’s relationship with family, friends, etc., and even professional lives. I guess a succinct and maybe overgeneralized (and you can yell at me if you feel this way) way of saying it is that under most circumstances, you don’t just identify as LGBTQQI [add rest of the alphabet soup here] for laughs.
“The bubble,” as it was referred to in an early comment, creates an environment that exists outside of “most circumstances.” So this is totally from my experience, and I want to emphasize that different people may have different views of this, but the bubble creates a place where women can explore their sexuality without negative social implications, and though coming out is still difficult for a lot of people, again speaking from experience, there’s definitely some respite involved with living in the bubble.
Anyway, I think some of the negative stereotypes of LUGS and BUGS comes from a feeling of unfairness–LUGS and BUGS (as they exist in on-campus mythology) are defined as those who enter identifying as heterosexual, are involved in non-heterosexual relationships/encounters while they are on-campus or attached to the campus, and then when they graduate from the bubble, continue on with the heterosexual lives they put on hold 4 years ago. Never once giving up significant amounts of privilege, never being put in a place where they have to look mainstream society in the face and say, “I know that you don’t approve, and you may even hate me, but this is who I am.” Because blah blah progressiveness, but there’s still a lot of intolerance and hate in this world.
I completely believe in the fluidity of women’s sexuality, both from a personal and scientific perspective. No questions. Done. But I don’t think LUGS and BUGS are about fluidity. I think the MYTH is that it’s about convenience and a “why not? I’ll never have this opportunity again” attitude, which may or may not be founded (and really it might not be founded. I’m just saying).
But that myth is really hurtful to students on campus who do identify as LGBTQQI [again add as many letters as you feel is appropriate] and graduate facing a struggle ahead of them because of it.
Ah, so it sounds like a piece that I missed in my understanding of the LUG controversy is that these are women who are exploring their sexuality where it is SAFE (surely a “facilitating factor” is the physical and emotional security of a space in terms of being out), and then going back to the cultural position of privilege and security when they move into a less safe space.
So it sounds like there’s a kind of resentment, that folks who get identified as LUGs are getting the benefit of sexual exploration without the risk taken by those who dare to be out outside the bubble. Yes?
Wow, THAT’S complicated.
Ha! I think I’m guilty on that count. But does it help that I’m aware of it? I know I’m taking the easy path by having experimented with bisexuality a little in a college situation. I know I’m privileged, and I basically consider myself a (mostly-) straight ally to the LGBT movement, rather than part of it.
I’m also honestly not just dating a man because it’s easy. I’m dating a man because, well, I’m mostly straight, and men are hot.
Yes! 100%. I long ago realized that my own issues with LUGs are fundamentally based on a form of resentment. These are people who can enjoy the benefits of a queer identity where and when it is convenient, and will slip back cheerfully into mainstream society when that queer identity is no longer easy to maintain. To those students who are facing a LIFETIME of struggle around their sexual orientation, it looks like a pretty good deal – too good to be true? And IMO that’s where the “LUGs are fake lesbians” comes from.
Yes, I think that’s it, way more then judging people based on their fluid sexuality. I think the resentment is about “LUGs” taking something that is a very serious part of a queer-identified student’s identity, and playing around with it. The presence of “LUGs” adds to the myth that lesbianism is a phase, or a fad, something you’re doing to be cool, that you’ll grow out of. I guess it’s seen as belittling to people who are actually going to live the life of less privilege.
I think there’s also massive amounts of resistance to the idea of sexuality as fluid, because it can so easily be twisted by homophobes and used against the queer community. I think their reasoning goes something along the lines of: “If your sexuality is fluid, then you’re choosing to be a homo, which means you could choose to be straight, and you just need to be cured.” Or something. Not that we should ignore facts just because they can be used against us, just that it adds another level to the issue.
Sarah,
I don’t know about women clamouring for bisexual male partners in real life — a lot of things I like to read about or find a turn on in my imagination aren’t things I’d *ever* want to happen in the real world — but both in fanfic and the racier ebook end of the romance market, M/M and M/F/M storylines are very strongly represented, and both are heavily (even stereotypically) female dominated fields.
I don’t know whether ‘two guys together’ for women is anything as a common a fantasy as ‘two women together’ is for hetero men, but as a random some guy on the outside looking in, who is somewhat familar with a bit of this stuff because he reads a lot of steamy romance novels — some of them indeed, involving a girl, a guy and another guy all getting it on together in varying combination — it does *seem* like it must be one of the up there toward the the top nd of the charts.
Of course it’s an utterly biased and very indirect set of evidence I’m relying on here
Emily,
I do not agree with a lot of what you said in your actual blog BUT, what you said in the comments afterword:
“So it sounds like there’s a kind of resentment, that folks who get identified as LUGs are getting the benefit of sexual exploration without the risk taken by those who dare to be out outside the bubble. Yes?”
YES! I think you nailed it here. It’s also just really easy to be with another women at Smith, many people are willing to just take what they can get and live with that while they are there. I don’t think it is so much an issue about people who identify as bisexual or are transgendered, at least that is my experience, but there is definitely a large group of people at Smith who sleep with other women just because it’s easy there but who will not actually identify as a lesbian outside of the Smith community.
Hey Emily,
I’m curious about the perpetuation of this concept on campus. From what I recall, LUG is generally used a a way of justifying resentment, following the break-up between a “seasoned” lesbian (so-to-speak) and a recently out woman who is attracted to women (and still, possibly men). I’m sure there was a time when it was taken more seriously, but I honestly think it has become more of a derogatory term used begrudgingly by women who feel as though they were played.
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I went to a women’s college and was really active in the LGBT organization there (co-chair for a number of semesters, etc.). As someone who went into college as an out lesbian, I always felt like a LUG was only negative in a political sense. Sleep with who you want, but it’s hypocritical of you to sleep with the same sex and then, upon graduation, deny that it ever happened on a social and political level. Which I think is the assumption that many members of the queer community make about “LUGS” or bisexuals for that matter. The negative attitude comes from the assumption that because of this fluidity, they won’t be there for the community when it counts.
(Disclaimer: This is coming from someone who now identifies as simply queer and is dating a cis-man. I’m a big fan of acknowledging the fluidity of sexuality and gender.)
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