The commencement of bisexual activity in swinging married women over age thirty

The commencement of bisexual behavior and the ontogenesis of a bisexual orientation was studied in order to aid in the better understanding of how sexual behavior patterns begin and change. The investigation was conducted through in-depth interviews held in California, Oregon, and Washington with the first 50 female volunteers gathered from a variety of sources who met the study requirements. Those requirements were that each subject, at the time of her first sexual contact with another female, (a) was married; (b) was at least 30 years of age; (c) was engaged in swinging; (d) was enjoying sex with males; and (e) had no history, prior to age 30, of a sexual attraction to females. "Multi-female" and "multi-male" sexual activity are terms introduced to remove the ambiguity and mislabeling which results from defining sexual activity between all persons of the same sex as necessarily homosexual. Subjects typically revealed a high incidence of early and continuing autosexual and heterosexual activity and current high frequencies of sexual activity with each sex. Influences facilitating a typical subject's initial and subsequent sexual activity with females were found to be her husband, other swingers, and the general swinging environment-the husband's influence usually being of paramount importance. It was concluded that those influences, perhaps together with a predisposition toward gaining perceived fulfillment of felt needs through sexual activity, will result in some heterosexual females engaging in multi-female sexual activity and eventually adopting a self-identified bisexual orientation.