Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire with Lisa Diamond

Cults, Culture & Coercion with Dr. Steve Hassan

Dr. Steven Hassan

Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education

4.7 • 843 Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Quick question. You’re born with your sexuality, and it stays the same your whole life... right? Well, no. This may be much further from the truth than initially thought. When I first watched Dr. Lisa Diamond’s TEDx talk on sexual fluidity, which began with a question very similar to mine, I immediately knew I wanted to interview her. Diamond is a psychologist and professor at the University of Utah whose groundbreaking research challenges the “born this way” narrative that has dominated LGBTQ rights discourse for decades. It might surprise you, as it surprised me, to learn that the “born that way” argument is outdated and scientifically inaccurate. However, Diamond’s research on sexual fluidity offers us a more sophisticated understanding of human sexual development. As a graduate student, Diamond had unearthed something that surprised many people when her book, Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire, was published in 2008. This is an utterly fascintating discussion that invited us to step out of the black & white, all or nothing ideology to embrace the neuroscience of neuroplasticity. We also discuss Folks on the Autism Spectrum who many naturally identify as bi-sexual, non-binary, or asexual. Diamond is brilliant and knows her social psychology research as well. Lots of more nuanced and related topics in this interview! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Dr. Stephen Hassan with another episode of my podcast, Colts, Culture, and Coercion.
0:11.8	And I saw my next guest on an incredible TEDx talk that she did, and I thought to myself,
0:19.1	I want to see if she would come on this podcast because
0:22.8	I just find your work, Lisa Diamond, so fascinating. I just do a short intro. You are a
0:31.9	American psychologist, feminist, professor of developmental psychology, health psychology, and gender studies
0:39.7	at the University of Utah. You've been researching sexual orientation development, sexual identity,
0:47.8	bonding, wrote a great book in 2008, sexual fluidity, understanding women's love and desire. And you're an activist.
0:59.4	And I'm really grateful for you to come onto my pod and share your life work. And before
1:08.0	you answer, I'll just say we're recording this in November 14th, 2025,
1:15.4	in the midst of a coup d'etat by Russia and Trump to destroy all of the good, important things
1:25.8	about science and experts and all of the progressive work that has
1:31.8	been done for women's rights and gay rights and trans rights. And we were just talking before the
1:39.6	intro about a lot of the studies are now being canceled by the current administration.
1:45.3	So we're in a dark moment, but I'm a hopeful guy, and I believe that truth will out,
1:52.4	and that all the homophobes and the Christian nationalists that are trying to stamp out
1:58.5	gay rights and trans rights,
2:04.2	they're going to have their come up and... Well, we're living in a psychological existential crisis moment.
2:12.5	But I've said to so many folks that the only way to understand
2:17.3	what's going on with Republicans
2:19.3	and why we can't seem to stop this is to understand something about cult psychology.
2:23.7	So I've actually talked about your work.
2:25.8	So I'm like, if you don't understand coercive control, then you don't understand why continuing
	...

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