Researchers at the Boise State University have found that most women are bisexual by nature. Also, they discovered that these bisexual feelings increase with age. During this study, 484 heterosexual women were surveyed. 60 percent of them responded that they were sexually attracted to other women, 45 percent had already kissed with a woman and about half of the participants had fantasized about it.

Professor in Psychology Elizabeth Morgan says that heterosexual women often feel more than ‘just’ friendship for their girlfriends. Previous research did show that 20 percent of women are attracted to other women. This could explain why women tend to have a more physical relationship with each other than men have. Several experts mention that women’s friendships are hardly different from romantic friendships. Morgan: “Women are encouraged to bond emotionally. This could lead to the development of romantic feelings.”

On the other hand, women who, at a younger age, believe to be exclusively attracted to women, tend to change their minds too. For a period of 15 years, psychologist Lisa Diamond followed a group of women who first said to be attracted to the same sex. Her data shows how their sexuality develops over time. At the end of the study she asked them to identify their sexual orientation again, giving them the options ‘lesbian’, ‘bisexual’, ‘heterosexual’ or ‘indeterminate.’

Surprisingly, Diamond discovered that every woman had repeatedly changed her sexual orientation. “The older women get, the more often they define their sexuality as ‘indeterminate’. They feel that their sexuality can’t be confined. We generally think of getting older as becoming more sure of who we are and what we want. In this case, the opposite seems to be true.”

Morgan EM, & Thompson EM (2011). Processes of sexual orientation questioning among heterosexual women. Journal of sex research, 48 (1), 16-28 PMID: 19941193

Recommended Reading:

Bisexuality in the Ancient World by Eva Canterella

Loneliness among older lesbian, gay and bisexual adults: the role of minority stress

Kuyper, L.; Fokkema, C.M.