Arch Sex Behav

DOI 10.1007/s10508-015-0490-8

ORIGINAL PAPER

Beyond Sexual Orientation: Integrating Gender/Sex and Diverse

Sexualities via Sexual Configurations Theory
Sari M. van Anders

Received: 14 May 2013 / Revised: 12 September 2014 / Accepted: 25 December 2014

 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Abstract Sexual orientation typically describes peoples

sexual attractions or desires based on their sex relative to that of
a target. Despite its utility, it has been critiqued in part because it
fails to account for non-biological gender-related factors, partnered sexualities unrelated to gender or sex, or potential divergences between love and lust. In this article, I propose Sexual
Configurations Theory (SCT) as a testable, empirically grounded framework for understanding diverse partnered sexualities,
separate from solitary sexualities. I focus on and provide models of two parameters of partnered sexualitygender/sex and
partner number. SCT also delineates individual gender/sex. I
discuss a sexual diversity lens as a way to study the particularities
and generalities of diverse sexualities without privileging
either. I also discuss how sexual identities, orientations, and
statuses that are typically seen as misaligned or aligned are
more meaningfully conceptualized as branched or co-incident. I map out some existing identities using SCT and detail
its applied implications for health and counseling work. I
highlight its importance for sexuality in terms of measurement and social neuroendocrinology, and the ways it may be
useful for self-knowledge and feminist and queer empowerment and alliance building. I also make a case that SCT
changes existing understandings and conceptualizations of

S. M. van Anders (&)

Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church
St., Ann Arbor, MI 48105, USA
e-mail: smva@umich.edu
S. M. van Anders
Department of Womens Studies, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, MI, USA

sexuality in constructive and generative ways informed by both

biology and culture, and that it is a potential starting point for
sexual diversity studies and research.
Keywords Sexuality
Intimacy
Gender/sex
Polyamory

Asexuality
Sexual orientation

Introduction
Sexual orientation is largely used as the primary way to describe
a persons sexuality (Katz-Wise & Hyde, 2014; Rosario &
Schrimshaw, 2014). Since understandings of sexual orientation
generally revolve around gender, this means that gender is the de
facto foundation for categorizing sexuality. More accurately,
two genders are a necessary foundation for categorizing sexuality: an individuals gender and the gender(s) of those whom the
individual finds sexually attractive. But is it gender or sex? Sex
(biological, evolved, physical features related to femaleness, maleness, and sex diversity) actually seems to be the unstated but
underlying feature that is evoked in lay and academic discussions of sexual orientation (e.g., Freund, 1974; Pillard &
Weinrich, 1987). But does that mean gender (socialized, cultural
features related to masculinity, femininity, and gender diversity)
is irrelevant to sexual orientation?
The scant empirical evidence about the universal centrality of
sex over gender in sexual orientation leaves the question Is it
gender or sex?open. For example, if one is sexually attracted to
men, is one attracted to penises? Social identities? Body frames?
Interactions? And, how is sexual orientation defined if one is attracted to masculinity regardless of the sex of the person presenting
or embodying it? What about attractions to feminine men? The
concept of sexual orientation bulldozes these distinctions in ways

123

Arch Sex Behav

Table 1 Sexual identities, orientations, and statuses: definitions, broad disciplinary purviews, and examples
Defining features

Identity

Labels, communities, politics,

positioning

Disciplines of
major focus

Sexual parameter examples

Gender/sex

Partner number

Other
components

Sociology,
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, Polyamorous, asexual,
Dom, sub, kinkpolitical
heterosexual, butch, femme,
demisexual, player, slut,
identified, etc.
sciences, social
pansexual, person-notvirgin, single-by-choice
psychology
gender

Orientation Interests, approaches, attractions, Psychology,

fantasies (also used by some as
psychiatry
an umbrella for itself plus
identity and status)

Male-oriented, femaleoriented, same-sex sexual,

homosexual, bisexual,
heterosexual, monosexual

Multisexual, nonsexual,
unisexual, multierotic,
unierotic,
multinurturant,
uninurturant

Status

MSM, WSW, heterosexually

active

Multipartnered,
In the lifestyle
unipartnered,
abstaining, not sexually
active

Behaviors, activities

Public health,
anthropology,
history

that are neither scientifically useful nor reflective of lived experiences1 (e.g., see Califia, 1999; Serano, 2013).
Sexual orientation as defined by gender (or is it sex?) is
largely positioned as the singular defining feature of peoples
sexual selves, but should it be? There are a number of other
axes along which sexuality could revolve, including age, partner
number, type of sexual activity, consent, solitary sexuality, and
intensity among others (e.g., Califia, 1999). And there is no a
priori reason why these should be secondary or less important
relative to gender for characterizing sexualities.2 For example,
one could argue that interest in sexual partners at all is a prerequisite for gendered sexual interests. Thus, preferred or actual
sexual partner number could be a key way that people come to
understand their sexual selves (Tweedy, 2011). But sexual orientation as currently utilized largely precludes these possibilities.
Sexual orientation is largely seen to be fixed and immutable, a
rockthat sexual identity is constructed upon (Bogaert, 2012b;
Gagnon, 1990). This parallels notions of sex and gender, with
sex the fixed foundation for a constructed gender (Delphy, 1993;
Muehlenhard & Peterson, 2011; Rubin, 1975). In other words,
sex ? culture = gender is an equation that seems to be the basis
for thinking sexual orientation ? culture = sexual identity. But
is sexual identity really just a sort of glorified culture-infused
orientation by another name? And, can behavior be more central
to theories of sexuality than merely being what people do?
1

Lived experience refers to stories and accounts of what it means to live

as a specific person within a specific set of social contexts. Lived
experience also conveys the notion that group members have valuable
knowledge about their group and social location, and that this insider
knowledge is an important resource for scholars and others (van Manen,
2004). Social location refers to the place a specific person occupies along
multiple axes of identity, reflecting intersectional thinking (Anderson,
2012; Crenshaw, 1991).
2
Scholars have argued the same for sex as characterizing individuals,
i.e., that it is not a priori the one overarching defining difference feature of
humans (Butler, 1990; Crenshaw, 1991; Markowitz, 2001; Spelman,
1988).

123

Kink-oriented

Attending to sexual orientation,3 sexual identity, and sexual

behavior (see Table 1 for definitions of these terms) as related but
distinct phenomena could be crucial to scientific theories of
sexualities and also to making meaning of sexual lives as many
have argued (Klein, Sepekoff, & Wolf, 1985; Laumann, Gagnon,
Michael, & Michaels, 1994; Rosario & Schrimshaw, 2014; Sanders,
Reinisch, & McWhirter, 1990).
Of course, sexual orientation is largely understood to be
sexual, meaning that it is oriented around desires for genital contact and/or erotic pleasure. But is sexual orientation always and
only sexual? As Diamond (2003b) noted, sexual orientation
seems to orient love in addition to lust, and others have argued for
similar subconstructs (Klein, 1990; Weinrich, 1988). A narrow
sexually-focused interpretation of sexual orientation fails to
capture all of the intimate phenomena people actually use it to
mean. For example, how could a unitary lust conceptualization
of sexual orientation accurately categorize the sexuality of a
person who is attracted to men and falls in love with women? But
a broad interpretation that is inclusive of lust and love reduces
the precision and utility of the term. What are we including in
sexual orientation anyway?
Inthisarticle,IintroduceSexual ConfigurationsTheory(SCT)
asa waytoaddress thecomplexitiesofactual peoples sexualities.
I argue that each of us has a sexual configuration that is composed
of locations in multiple sexual dimensions. These dimensions
relate to gender and sex. They relate to partner number. They
relate to dimensions that I do not focus on in this article but which
others may wish to focus on. Both love and lust are delineated.
And, behavior, identity, and orientation are treated as simultaneously related and distinct. SCT models and connects diverse
sexualities in ways that are culturally situated and scientifically

I explain my reasoning for employing the term sexual orientation,

despite its limitations, in the sectionSexual Orientationas a Term and
Concept: A Claim for Retention/Reclamation.

Arch Sex Behav

generative. It adopts a fundamentally dynamic perspective on

sexualities, treating change as potentially central rather than
peripheral, irrelevant, or aberrant. Sexual Configurations is not
another word for sexual orientation; it is a broader and more
comprehensive framework for modeling and conceptualizing
diverse sexualities. And it uses what I call a sexual diversity
lens that is grounded, perhaps surprisingly, in bioscience (see
below: A Sexual Diversity Lens).
I detail the structure of SCT, mapping out its general organization and parameters and outlining how sexual configurations
are assembled. The theory is interdisciplinary and rooted in literatures on polyamory, asexuality, intimacies, and social neuroendocrinology that are themselves interdisciplinary (e.g.,
Barker & Langdridge, 2010; Bogaert, 2004, 2006; Brotto,
Knudson, Inskip, Rhodes, & Erksine, 2010; Brotto & Yule,
2011; Carrigan, 2011; DeLuzio Chasin, 2011; Diamond, 2003b;
Klesse, 2006; Noel, 2006; Prause & Graham, 2007; Przybylo,
2012; Scherrer, 2008; Sheff, 2005; van Anders, Goldey, & Kuo,
2011).
As I discuss closer to the articles conclusion, SCT has broad
and major applications and implications for researchers in a variety of ways from measurement to empowerment to social neuroendocrinology, and also for the potential for a new academic
engagement with sexuality in sexual diversity studies and research. SCT provides a testable, empirically grounded framework for understanding diverse partnered sexualities in ways that
are meaningfully rooted in and accountable to lived experiences
and culture as many have called for (e.g., Gagnon, 2000). And,
though new issues will likely emerge, SCT resolves many of the
existing limitations of current theories of sexual orientation.

Limitations of Existing Theories About Sexual

Orientation
A major limitation of existing theories about sexual orientation
is that they do not always map onto peoples actual experiences,
limiting these theories validity. What are these theories? They
often are unarticulated assumptions, orpre-theory,that can be
read through their enactments like measurement (for reviews of
sexual orientation theories and limitations, see Longino, 2013;
McWhirter, Sanders, & Reinisch, 1990; Rosario & Schrimshaw, 2014).
Sexual orientation is theorized as continuous by following
Kinseys paradigm shifting work (Bullough, 1990; Kinsey,
Pomeroy, & Martin, 1948). Despite this, it is often measured via a
single question with three options (bisexuality, homosexuality,
heterosexuality), and researchers often exclude those who do not
fall into the discrete groups (Galupo, Mitchell, Grynkiewicz, &
Davis, 2014a; Jordan-Young, 2010; Korchmaros, Powell, &
Stevens, 2013). Sometimes, sexual orientation is measured via
Kinseyquestionsthathave78optionsononeormultiplescales
(Kinsey et al., 1948). Still, numbers on these scales are usually

used to categorize people. This categorization has been critiqued

(e.g., Diamond, 2014; Korchmaros et al., 2013; Vrangalova &
Savin-Williams, 2012), with the recognition that individuals with
the sameKinsey numbermay not actually have the same sexualities (Whalen, Geary, & Johnson, 1990). Some studies recruit
by sexual identity and then categorize people into specific sexual
orientation groups (Jordan-Young, 2010), undermining the point
of separating these identity and orientation constructs (Korchmaros et al., 2013). Though the Kinsey scales sometimes include
X,a space forno sexual orientation,this option is rarely used.
ThepresenceofXintheKinseyscalesmayallowtheoreticalspace
for asexualities, albeit theorized as absence of sexual orientation
counter to many understandings, but also is the basis for envisioning asexuality as the opposite of a gendered sexual orientation
(e.g., Storms, 1980) in ways that do not map onto many asexual
individuals experiences (Scherrer, 2008).
In addition to measurement problems, a problematic aspect
of current usages of sexual orientation is that it awkwardly
and imprecisely marks a category and a subcategory. Sexual
orientation refers to sexual attractions, fantasies, and arousals
organized around gender/sex (a term that refers to both sociocultural and innate/evolved aspects of women, men, and gender/sex-diverse people, discussed further in Sex- and GenderSpecific Limitations around Sexual Orientation: Getting to
Gender/Sex). But sexual orientation also is used to refer to
itself plus sexual identity and sexual status/behavior (see Table 1)
with the implicit assumption that all map onto each other; which
is fine when they do, but problematic when they dont. It also is,
obviously, linguistically confusing (which sexual orientation
is meant?) and not very scientifically useful: it can mislead
researchers into thinking that the same phenomena are being
invoked (Gagnon, 1990).
The typical use of sexual orientation in research can be problematic in other ways: it fails to account for peoples experiences
of sexual fluidity (shifts in sexual orientation and/or identity) or
nonexclusivity and implies a fixedness that does not appear to be
empirically-based (i.e., accountable to the patterns visible in
peoples actual lives) (e.g., Diamond, 2003a, 2012, 2014; Galupo
et al., 2014a; Herdt, 1990). One example is Moneys (1986)
lovemaptheory of sexual orientation. Lovemaps were intended to be a directed, orienting force that differentiated early in life
and organized concepts of idealized lovers. They were intrinsically deterministic, static once set, normative, and prescriptive
with heterosexuality as the ideal. Lovemaps were rooted in a
medicalized frame of sexualities and aberrations, pathology and
its absence, seemingly unlinked to lived experiences or science.
Positioning sexual orientation as the defining feature of
sexuality isalso problematic because sexual orientation isdyadic,
defined in part by ones attractions and engagements with others.
But what is the evidence that a persons entire sexuality is defined
by its dyadic aspects? On the one hand, partnered and solitary
sexuality are largely seen as overlapping; Freund (1974) talked
about masturbation as asurrogatefor dyadic sexuality. There is

123

Arch Sex Behav

some evidence for this, via overlap in solitary/partnered orgasm

experiences and sexual frequencies (Laumann et al., 1994; Mah
& Binik, 2002; van Anders & Dunn, 2009). But solitary sexuality
is also positioned as lesser and thus different than dyadic sexuality; masturbation is often discussed as a sort of second best or
last resort as if it were partnered sexuality minus the partner (and
minuses are never positive). Empirically, the two diverge as well.
For example, solitary and dyadic desire show opposite correlations with testosterone and cuddling (van Anders, 2012b; van
Anders, Edelstein, Wade, & Samples-Steele, 2013), and solitary
and dyadic sexual indices are only correlated at low to moderate
levels (Levant, Rankin, Hall, Smalley, & Williams, 2012; van
Anders, 2012b). Partnered and solitary sexuality are thus best
understood as related though separate constructs, according to
empirical research (Laumann et al., 1994). If solitary and dyadic
sexualities are not the same thing, how can the inherently dyadic
sexual orientation be the defining feature of a persons sexuality
inclusive of solitary sexuality?
Another important limitation of current theories of sexual orientation is that they are organized around sameness versus difference. But what counts as same and the other as plastic. For
example, does a butchfemme relationship entail sameness because it may be same-sex or difference because it may be othergender? Terms like homosexual or heterosexual are a decision
placed onto a sexual configuration rather than a property of it.
SCT does not use sameness and otherness because both problematically adhere to a gender/sex (usually sex) binary while
simultaneouslyfailingtonameit.Inotherwords,howdoeshomosexual (same-sexual) come to mean sexuality with someone
of the same gender/sex rather than, for example, sexuality
with someone of the same age or predilection?
Certainly, some individuals may be specifically attracted to
people because they are the same or other gender/sex, but it is an
empirical question how many peoples sexuality are characterized by this. It seems unlikely that people generally organize their
sexuality around notions of what they do or dont have, such asI
am attracted to these people who have vulvas because I have a
vulva and they are like me,orI am attracted to this person who
has a penis because I have a vulva and he is not like me.That is
not to say that sameness and otherness (or oppositeness) are not
important or primary to some people.
Interestingly, features of complementarity are certainly primary organizing features of the way many people implicitly understand sexual orientation to work regardless of how it actually
does. Scholars have documented the underlying assumptions of
complementarity (that vulvas/vaginas complement penises, that
women complement men)and oppositeness(that womenandmen
are opposites) as changing historical characterizations of sex.
These pervade waysofthinkingsostronglythat oppositional sexes
seem natural despite variations in time for what and who counts as
opposite (e.g., see Fausto-Sterling, 2000; Rodriguez Rust, 2000).
Still, a benefit to thinking about sameness and otherness in
sexual orientation has been to understand that homosexuality

123

and heterosexuality are related rather than disparate unconnected sexualities. For example, Freud (1905) argued that they
were two sides of the same coin and that everyone had bisexual
tendencies.Buthealsoarguedthat ideal development washeterosexual, as did Money (1986). Complementarity is a lens that is
often uncritically imported from cultural value judgments
into theories along the lines of categorizing sexualities as normal or abnormal.
Sex- and Gender-Specific Limitations around Sexual
Orientation: Getting to Gender/Sex
A major limitation of existing sexual orientation theories is that
sexual orientation implicitly invokes sex rather than gender
though supporting evidence for this is sparse at best. For example,
when discussing sexual orientation,4 Freund (1974) stated that
attraction was to sex: visually perceived male or female body
shape. Pillard and Weinrich (1987) focused on genital morphology. Studies of sexual attraction measure physical sex, like
static images of faces or body shapes (e.g., Mehrabian & Blum,
1997).Nostudies,however,provideproofforsexovergenderand
almost none empirically assess gender in any way. This subsumption of gender into sex is problematic because it lacks scientific precision and external validity (Coyote & Sharman, 2011;
Unger, 1979). Sexual orientation ends up being problematic as
operationalized because gender matters.
Gender is how some groups make distinctions. And sexual
orientation fails to make sense of these distinctions (e.g., between
women who are interested in women vs. women who are interested in butch or femme women). It fails to account for heterosexual men interested in feminine women regardless of sex
versus those aroused by breasts, vulvas, or vaginas regardless of
gender. It makes no room for women who are attracted to men
regardless of penis presence. Theories of sexual orientation
rooted solely in sex are scientifically problematic because they
fail to see diverse sexualities that empirically exist. Even
measures like the Klein Sexual Grid (Klein, 1993), which allows
for much more complexity, including over time, have a unitary
(sex) focus (Galupo et al., 2014a).
The focus on sex in sexual orientation leads additionally to
criticisms of its reliance on discrete binaries. Sex binaries
necessitate individuals who are women or men being attracted
to individuals who are men or women5 (e.g., see Diamond &
Butterworth, 2008). Binaries usually sideline gender as they
4
Freund (1974, p. 68) actually used the termerotic preference,which
he defined asrelative sexual arousal value of male and female body
shape.
5
Some scholars use androphilic/gynephilic or gynoerotic/androerotic,
which mean love of (or attraction to) men and women, respectively (e.g.,
Freund, 1974; Storms, 1980; Vasey & VanderLaan, 2012). These terms
are useful for describing peoples sexual interests regardless of their own
gender/sex, but still rely on targets having a discrete binaristic
gender/sex and thus do not fit the purposes of this article.

Arch Sex Behav

Table 2 Operational definitions and examples of gender, sex, and gender/sex
Label examples

Definitions

Gender

Feminine, masculine, genderqueer,

transgender, trans, tomboy, butch, femme,
etc.

Aspects of masculinity, femininity, and gender-diversity that are situated as socialized,

learned, and cultural (e.g., appearance, behavior, presentation, comportment). May
refer to ones internal sense of ones self, culture, roles, others beliefs about ones
self, structures and systems, etc.

Sex

Male, female sexqueer, trans, transsexual,

intersex

Aspects of femaleness, maleness, and sex-related bodily features that are situated as
biological, bodily, evolved, physical, and/or innate (e.g., vulvas, penises, breasts,
body shape). May also refer to ones internal sense of ones self

Gender/sex Woman, man, trans woman, trans man,

ciswoman, cisman, genderqueer, intersex

Whole people/identities and/or aspects of women, men, and people that relate to
identity and/or cannot really be sourced specifically to sex or gender

privilege sexbodies and especially primary and secondary

sex characteristics (e.g., Coleman, 1987). Focusing on sex can
serve to make the sexual orientations of some genderqueer
(genders that challenge or go beyond sex binaries) and trans
individuals and their partners nonsensical, but there have been
compelling arguments that it is the current conceptualization
of sexual orientation that is nonsensical and not the individuals or their sexualities who sit beyond it (e.g., Galupo
et al., 2014a). Clearly, theories about orientations rooted in
sex binaries are problematic in that they fail to address known
gaps(i.e., real peoples lived experiences) (Galupo, Davis,
Grynkiewiez, & Mitchell, 2014b; Joel, Tarrasch, Berman,
Mukamel, & Ziv, 2014).
The ways in which women and men are operationally defined
are muddy for the purposes of science and fail to acknowledge that
what even counts as sex is contingent (Joel, 2012). As Delphy
(1993) argued: biologists see sex as made up of several indicatorsfor sex to be used as a dichotomous classification, the
indicators have to be reduced to just onethis reduction is a social
act(p.5).Forexample,secondary sexual characteristicsinwomen
are often understood to mean breasts of a certain consistency and
waists of a certain dimension relative to hip circumference, both of
which are typically found in younger as opposed to older women.
This is true despite the fact that the secondary sexual characteristics
of women are still female regardless of their age. In the rare cases
that sex is explicitly identified as the organizing feature of sexual
orientation, it seems to be based on randomly selected features that
themselves go completely undefined. For example, if breasts are a
defining feature of femaleness, are prepubertal girls not female?
Are very small-breasted adult women not female? If researchers
operationalize breasts as those with the characteristic shape of reproductively-aged non-parous women, are older or parous women
not female? Even though sex is supposed to be more scientific than
gender because sex is biological, the actual use of sex in science
reflectsironicallya lack of science in terms of science as
method (e.g., operational definitions, empirical tests, replicability,
externalvalidity).And,thefocusonyoungwomenfalselyconflates
age with sex despite evidence that these are separable dimensions
(Blanchard et al., 2009, 2012; Seto, 2012).
I usegender/sexrather than onlygenderandsexin SCT
(see Table 2 for definitions). Gender/sex is an umbrella term for

both gender (socialization) and sex (biology, evolution) and reflects social locations or identities where gender and sex cannot
be easily or at all disentangled (e.g., Goldey & van Anders, 2011;
van Anders & Dunn, 2009; van Anders & Goldey, 2010; van
Anderset al.,2011;vanAnders,2012a,b).Gender/sexisusefulin
describing people and features, as both can involve phenomena
that are not easily sorted into gender or sex. For example, a person
might ask: Am I amanbecause Ihave apenisnow? Because Iwas
born with a penis? Because I find that masculinity resonates with
me? Because I identify as a man? Another person might ask:
When I am intimately interested in being with women, am I
interested in people who identify as women? People who have
vulvas and/or vaginas? People who act in ways that are culturally
understood to be feminine? People who are recognized as female? Few people6 have stopped to consider what it is about
themselves that makes them women, men, or gender/sex-diverse, or what it is about men, women, and/or gender/sex-diverse
people that they find particularly attractive.
Though some gender/sex features are not divisible into gender
or sex, some certainly are. Indeed, scholars, especially feminists,
have worked hard and long to disentangle gender from sexas
well as to trouble the notion that the two are so easily separable
(e.g., Dreger, 1998; Fausto-Sterling, 2000; Kessler, 1998;
Muehlenhard & Peterson, 2011; see Vanwesenbeeck, 2009 for
sex research specifically). For example, testosterone is understood to be biological and thus a feature and marker of sex, but
testosterone can be socially modulated (e.g., via sexual thoughts/
activities or nurturance, etc. (Goldey & van Anders, 2011; van
Anders, Hamilton, Schmidt, & Watson, 2007a; van Anders,
Tolman, & Volling, 2012). So, is testosteronesexbecause it is
biological or is itgenderbecause social forces affect it? What to
call those features that are both gender and sex, socialized and
biological? Gender/sex.
I use gender/sex sexuality in SCT as the umbrella term rather
than sexual orientation because this latter term semantically
implies nothing about gender/sex even while being understood
6

With the exception of some who are minoritized on the basis of

gender/sex and/or sexuality or those who are specifically interested in
engaging with these constructs (e.g., some feminists and gender/sex/sexuality scholars).

123

Arch Sex Behav

to invoke it. The lack of reference to gender/sex in terms that are

used to reference gender/sex ironically serves to position gender/sex as the key organizer of all sexuality because sexuality
itself must be understood as reflecting gender/sex even when
gender/sex is not named. In other words, why should sexualityalso meangender/sex,especially when it often doesnt?
And, why is sexuality seen to be organized primarily by gender/sex rather than other features? Moreover, where is this
claim visible and thus actionable in scholarly ways? If the claim
(theory) that gender/sex is key to sexuality is not explicit, how
can anyone actually see the claim and empirically test it?
Narratives and empirical work demonstrate that many peoples
sexualities are either not primarily organized around others
gender/sex or not at all organized in this way (Boswell, 1990;
Coyote & Sharman, 2011; Serano, 2013). Moreover, different
times and places includingthisone have positioned features
other than gender/sex as primary organizers of sexuality, including partner number, virginity status, ability, marital status,
fertility, race/ethnicity, age, reproduction, citizenship, legally
or religiously recognized marriage, or payment to name a few.
In this way, highlighting gender/sex by naming it explicitly
alongside naming other forms of sexuality (like partner number) actually works to decenter gender/sex while giving it the
important place it seems to hold in many peoples lives.
Sexual Orientation as a Term and Concept: A Claim
for Retention/Reclamation
Above, I describe limitations to the way sexual orientation tends
to be theorized but there are other problematics. Sexual orientation as a term is increasingly seen as regressive for the same
reasons it is often seen as progressive. Relative tosexual preference,which might be understood to reflect gender/sex sexuality that is a result of postnatal development (Bell, Weinberg, &
Hammersmith, 1981) or choice (Money, 1990),7 sexual orientation invokes a natural, biological, unlearned, and unchanging
sexuality (Freund, 1974). While this affords sexual orientation
some of the authority and protection granted to science, people
have asked why sexuality would have to be natural, predetermined, or unchosen to be accepted or permissible, and how
research that focuses on biological determination implicitly buys
into and reifies this line of reasoning (Halley, 1994). Most
poignantly, people have pointed to precedents where biological
determination was used to validate persecution, not to mention
genocide, rather than legal protection and rights (Lerner, 1992).
The focus on sex over gender might be one reason that
critics often suspect that sexual orientation research belongs
to a bioessentialist project, a worldview where people are
most critically defined by their biological features (e.g., sex
over gender or identity). To be clear, I am not saying that sex is
7

Money noted that sexual preference, implying voluntary choice, was a

politically dangerous term.

123

not an important or defining feature of many peoples sexuality; I am saying that sex is not the only organizing feature of
gender/sex sexuality (e.g., see Coleman, 1987; Galupo et al.,
2014a; Rodriguez Rust, 2000; Sedgwick, 1990).
There are other critiques of sexual orientation as commonly
used. Many people see sexuality as relational (Tiefer, 1996), but
sexual orientation is typically placed within a person despite its
dyadic nature. In contrast to sexual orientation, sexual identity is
seen as more relationally grounded. Sexual identity is rooted in
communities and thus more appropriate for alliance building and
social action. So, many use sexual identity instead of sexual
orientation.
One problem with using sexual identity in place of sexual orientation is that one is not just a progressive version of another.
The two have very distinct meanings, laid out in Table 1. Despite
this, the use of sexual identity often ends up relying on the notion
of a shared underlying sexual orientation in ways that largely go
uncritiqued (Hird, 2000). This ends up leaving sexual orientation
to be constructed by scientists and sexual identity to be constructed by others.
This is markedly similar to disciplinary divvying up of gender
and sex, which feminist scholars have identified as exceedingly
problematic (e.g., Haig, 2004; Unger, 1979). Gender and sex
were largely separated by feminist scholars with the goal of
focusing on gender and leaving sex behind. But feminist science
studies scholars have cogently highlighted how focusing on gender did not leave sex behind, and it left sex uncritiqued, a difference with major implications in a world where science and
critique are crucial (e.g., Fausto-Sterling, 2000, 2005). Leaving
sexual orientation behind in favor of sexual identity is similarly
problematic. It ends up implicitly positioning sexual orientation
as the core foundation (biology) upon which sexual identity
(culture) is built in ways that exactly mirror how sex is seen as the
impenetrable and unmovable base upon which gender is flimsily
constructed. Attending to sexual orientation and sexual identity
as different constructs that are both cultural sidesteps this. This is
one reason why I retain orientation in Sexual Configurations.
There are other reasons to retain orientation and they relate to
its utility. Though it is often understood to mean something that is
innate, static, fixed, and/or essential, there is nothing intrinsically
semantic about the term that necessitates this. In fact, orientation
is used quite widely to mean just a set of interests without connotations of determinism or permanence. SCT uses this meaning of
orientation, i.e., a dynamic one.
Conceptualizing orientations as dynamic does not mean that
sexual orientation is intentionally or consciously changeable in
SCT. Extensive evidence shows that gender/sex sexual orientations cannot be shifted or changed by individuals or others, even
asindividualsdoreportexperiencingshiftsintheirsexualorientations(Beckstead,2012; Diamond,2003b; Freund, 1974; Nichols,
1990; Rust, 2001). Accordingly, gender/sex sexual orientations
(and maybe other kinds too) cannot be understood as universally fixed or externally/internally changeable. A comparable

Arch Sex Behav

analogy might be age: individuals change with age but aging

cannot be caused by individuals or others. It is not clear why anyone would want to change their gender/sex sexual orientation for
reasons other than social stigma (Diamond, 2003b; Haldeman,
2002; Herek & Garnets, 2007) in which case social actionnot
individual changeseems required (assuming social action is
possible). Shifts in sexual orientations might and do occur but
cannot be imposed by selves or others.
There are multiple reasons to argue for the continued use of
orientation including scientific precision, utility, and strategic
reasons. It captures a set of features that seem to resonate as a
meaningful dimension for many people and does so alongside
and separate from identities and statuses (Rosario & Schrimshaw,
2014). I am thus arguing that orientation is worth retaining and
reclaiming and I have tried to use it in this sense in Sexual Configurations. For other reclamation projects around orientation, see
Ahmed (2006).

What About Lust and Love? Why Eroticism

and Nurturance?
As described above, sexual orientation is almost always used
to discuss gender/sex or, more specifically, sex. But when
Diamond (2003b) compellingly asked: What does sexual
orientation orient?, the question highlighted how our current
employment of sexual orientation explicitly orients lust but
implicitly orients love in addition. Both love and lust are
folded into the sexual in sexual orientation.
In SCT, I deliberately use the terms eroticism and nurturance
as sexual subconstructs instead of lust and love (van Anders et al.,
2013). Eroticism refers to aspects of sexuality tied to bodily
pleasure, orgasm, arousal, tantalization, and related concepts (see
also Storms, 1980). Nurturance refers to warm loving feelings
and closeness.
Why eroticism rather than lust? Lust implies sexual desire,
wanting, or motivation. Eroticism denotes phenomena that are
sexually tantalizing, evoke ones sexual interests or thoughts,
are sexually arousing in that they elicit psychological or physiological sexual responses (whether desired or not), or are related
to features tied to sexuality. Eroticism is useful because it does
not necessitate the same kind of need/desire for release that lust
does, even while it can invoke it.
Nurturance and love are also not synonymous. Love implies
an important and deep affective connection whereas nurturance
implies a warm, loving, supportive, and potentially committed
connection. Nurturance is useful because it does not denote the
primacy, intensity, or infatuation that love does. Neither love nor
nurturance are unique or specific to sexual/romantic relationships, as either can characterize friendships, family connections,
and even pet ownership. And, neither lust nor eroticism are
unique to partnered sexuality, as people can be solitarily erotic or
lust for objects. Accordingly, neither nurturance nor eroticism

are uniquely relevant to dyadic sexuality, though I discuss them

here in that context.
Eroticism and nurturance might be seen to map onto physical
and emotional sexuality, but these terms artificially conflate the
pairs. For example, individuals can be physically nurturant or
engageinphysicalexpressionsofemotion(e.g.,viahugs,cuddling,
or sympathetic touch). And individuals can be psychologically erotic, as sexual thoughts increase testosterone
(Goldey & van Anders, 2011), or emotionally erotic, as with
feelings of deep sexual connection with another person.
Though erotic contact is arousing, which might be interpreted
as a physical or emotional feeling, not all phenomena that are
erotic lead to arousal of either kind. The boundary between
emotion and physicality is permeable, as exemplified by the
warmth one can feel from loving support, which makes
physical/emotional less scientifically useful than eroticism/
nurturance.
Nurturance and eroticism can be clearly distinct: people can
feel one without the other (Diamond, 2003b; van Anders et al.,
2011). Yet, they can co-occur in partnered sexuality. Partnered
sexuality that involves both nurturance and eroticism can be understoodasasortofpairbond,oneexampleofasocialbond.Social
bonds are studied in a wide variety of disciplines, including neuroscience. Neuroscientific evidence points to a common evolved
neurobiological system for social bonds like pair bonds and parent-infant bonds (reviewed in Carter, 1998; Diamond, 2003b;
Fernandez-Duque, Valeggia, & Mendoza, 2009; Fisher, 1992;
van Anders et al., 2011; Young, Wang, & Insel, 1998). This
converges with psychological evidence that intimacy and attachment characterize both pair bonds and parent-infant bonds
(Bowlby, 1969). Pair bonds and parent-infant bonds thus share a
common neurobiological system: nurturance. Nurturance likely
evolved to support parent-infant bonds, which obviously contribute to survival, but also supports social bonds more generally,
including pair bonds.
But nurturance cannot be the whole story underlying all kinds
of social bonds. Forexample, though pairbonds and parent-infant
bonds overlap, they must differ: one common system cannot
support nurturance in both, but selectively relate to sexuality in
pair bonds but not parent-infant bonds. Accordingly, evidence
and theory support a second neurobiological system: eroticism
(for reviews, see Diamond, 2003b; Diamond & Dickenson, 2012;
van Anders et al., 2011). Eroticism likely evolved to support
reproduction, which is the engine of evolution. But, as nurturance
piggybacked on parent-infant bonds, eroticism piggybacked on
reproduction (van Anders et al., 2011). This is not to suggest that
reproduction is the major or primary framing for eroticism or pair
bonds,8 only that, for evolutionary theorizing, reproduction is a
relevant starting point (with pleasure one potential next step:
Pinkerton, Cecil, Bogart, & Abramson, 2003).
8

That is, evolution is not the only or primary arbiter of meaning even as
it is useful and relevant for this discussion.

123

Arch Sex Behav

The two neurobiological systemseroticism and nurturanceare distinguishable but not completely separate, however, and their conjunction contributes to partnered sexuality
and pair bonds (van Anders et al., 2011; Young & Wang, 2004).
There is compelling arguments and empirical examples that the
two are physically interconnected with loops for mutual influence (Diamond, 2003b; Diamond & Dickenson, 2012). For example, sexual activity like intercourse can facilitate nurturant pair
bond formation and feelings of closeness (Carter, 1998; Diamond, 2003b; Snowdon, 2001; van Anders et al., 2007a; Young
& Wang, 2004). SCT is based on the evidence that partnered
sexuality has subconstructs of eroticism and nurturance. They
are separable and interconnected, and highlighting this is useful
for theorizing lived sexual experiences.

The Foundations of Sexual Configurations Theory

What Makes Sexual Configurations a Theory?
Theory is critical to science, but often undefined (Tolman &
Diamond, 2014). This may be because theory seems to have
one clear definition across all contexts; in reality, its definition and usages differ by discipline and epistemological goal
(for in-depth thinking about theory in sex research, see Bancroft,
2000b; Katz-Wise & Hyde, 2014; McWhirter et al., 1990; Tolman & Diamond, 2014). How is Sexual Configurations a theory,
then? The type of theory I mean to invoke is grounded in other
scholars theorizing about theory (e.g., Davis, 2008; Longino,
2002; Rodgers, 2000). A theory is a data-based model that
makes senseof empirical findings in new ways and guides how
we engage with the world. It is a novel pattern recognition,
articulating and naming a set of interconnections in useful but
previously unseen ways. Theories are models that simplify
and match the world in some fundamental and important sense
(Rodgers, 2000). Theories solve problems, offer explanatory
power, are testable; a theory lays ones cards on the table.
Can there be only one theory to explain any set of phenomena? Most would argue no (e.g., Gagnon, 2000; Longino,
2002; Rodgers, 2000; Tolman & Diamond, 2014) and I offer
Sexual Configurations as anot thetheory of sexuality. Rodgers (2000) makes the case elegantly: The real
world is, presumably, complicated enough that there are any
number of ways to simplify it in meaningful ways (p. 258).
Theories may coexist while being differentially useful. They
can be tested against the world they are meant to reflect and,
depending on whether they share levels of analysis, each other.
Gagnon (2000) wrote that theories of sexualities can be preferable when theygo against the grain of accepted theorizing
and offer some resistance to the dominantstatus quo (p.
172). He argued that political concerns are crucial to building

123

theory. Rubin (1999) argued that theories of sexuality must be

situated in rich descriptions of lived experiences of sexuality.
For evaluative purposes, one could ask: Does a theory meaningfully and usefully model what it sets out to? And for whom?
As theoriesare generative, one could ask: Does a theory channel
research into more productive avenues? Does it inspire insights
that were otherwise obscured? Theory is not necessarily complete or static and the most successful theories tend to contain
flexibility (Davis, 2008). A theory does not end question-asking; byclickingotherwise scattered observations together, it
focuses questions and opens up new avenues.
My use oftheory inthis articleisunderscored bythefollowing
principles: (1) theory should explain the entirety of a delimited
known phenomenon and not just part of it (i.e., theory should not
just focus on the majority of a phenomenon or its most/least
obvious cases) (Bell et al., 1981). As Vrangalova and SavinWilliams (2012) noted regarding sexuality: any non-zero
categoryneeds to be considered for and incorporated into
scientific theories (p. 98). I focus on a set of restricted dyadic
sexual phenomena in Sexual Configurations but, within these
domains, attempt to incorporate known and potential diverse
sexualities that are more typically excluded from theory and
nudged into an awkward surplus of knowledge (Fujimura,
2006); (2) theory should be relevant to and account for (and be
accountable to) lived experiences (i.e., theory should reflect, and
make sense to, the people whose experiences theorists seek to
explain) (Tolman & Diamond, 2014); (3) theory should promote clearer understandings of phenomena in all their complexity (i.e., theory should make complexity clearer and more
comprehensible but should do so without eliminating those
aspects that are complex). Glossing over complexity for the
purposes of a simpler model obscures patterns and elides differences rather than revealing and making sense of them; and (4)
theory should make phenomena legible, including lived experience. For example, if people think that love and lust are the
same one thing, they will find it impossible to reconcile the
notionof alesbian-identified womanfallinginlovewitha man; if
people think that gender and sex are the same, they will find it
impossible to reconcile the notion of attractions to feminine men.
I would like to emphasize that these are ideals of which
theorylike all other scholarshipis likely to fall short.
Fortunately, it is in recognizing and clarifying gaps that
scholarship happens and moves forward. As a final and critical point for scientists, (5) theory should make for better
science. Otherwise, researchers could expend tremendous
effort seeking to understand irrelevant, spurious, or imagined
phenomena. For example, if people have experienced lust and
love in separate and interconnected ways, then theory should
drive research that reflects these separations and interconnections rather than falsely focusing on intimacy or sexuality
as one universal unified phenomenon or as completely unrelated subcomponents.

Arch Sex Behav

Why is Sexual Configurations Theory So-Named?

I use configuration deliberately in SCT because the term
denotes dynamism rather than fixedness. In addition, I mean to
convey several other key points. First, sexuality is not unitary, it is
multifaceted; a configuration has many components. Second,
sexuality is socially situated, which means that even a specific
aspect ofsexuality (e.g.,heterosexuality)isnot thesameone thing
across cultures or times; configuration connotes one arrangement out of many possible arrangements without denoting value
or permanence. Third, sexuality is dynamic even within individuals; a configuration can shift. SCT acknowledges the possibility of within-person shifts over age, context, and/or
lifephase even though sexual configurations cannot be shifted
(see Sexual Orientation as a Term and Concept: A Claim
for Retention/Reclamation for further discussion). The relative prominence of any component of a sexual configuration
can also shift (e.g., bisexuality might be more salient in one
time and place, but partner number might be more salient in
another), such that the components that constitute SCT have,
will, and may emerge, disappear, fade, and/or strengthen within
individuals,overtimes,andacrosscultures(Laumannetal.,1994).
For example, there are sexual components now that have no
historical analogue (like culturally-specific sexual identities
[e.g.,gay,Rubin, 1999] or internet-related sexuality). There
are future components that do not yet exist or are not formally
delineated. And, there are components that are culturally understood to be primary and universally important for sexuality
that nevertheless will shift or fade. Configuration is apt because
SCT is intended to convey a dynamic, multifaceted, and valueneutral approach to sexualities.
A Sexual Diversity Lens
Thinking from the Sexual Margins to Sexual Diversity
Thinking
Sexual minorityis typically understood to mean lesbian, bisexual, and gay (LBG) individuals. There are other individuals
who are increasingly included as sexualminorities because they
share with LGB individuals and communities the experiences
of stigma, discrimination, and/or social proscriptions against
their sexualities. One definition of sexual minority is grounded
in statistical infrequency but this is a limited definition: though
sexual minority status can overlap with statistical infrequency,
there are many statistically infrequent sexualities that are culturally sanctioned and not seen as sexual minority, such as men
who have sex with over 50 women or women who experience
orgasm with penis-vagina intercourse (Lloyd, 2005). A more
expansive and empirically-relevant definition of sexual minority that I use in this article is: a marginalized sexual social
location in a power hierarchy that can refer to individuals or
groups.

Sexual minorities share in stigma in part because they are

perceived as violating norms. But they often transgress very
different norms in ways that do not always go appreciated (see
Table 3) (and see Serano, 2013). The term queer is sometimes
useful (and sometimes not) as an umbrella term to describe
sexual minorities and minority sexualities (marginalized sexual practices) that are perceived or intended to challenge gender
and/or sexuality-related norms, even when the actual norms
being challenged differ.
The collapsing of diverse sexual minority groups into one
sexual minority category can be problematic given differences
in lived experiences. For example, the conflation of gender
minorities (e.g., trans-identified people) and sexual minorities
(e.g., LGB individuals) can obfuscate the disparate challenges
these groups face and the types of social change they might
seek. Other times, shared experiences of stigmatization might
be a push to collective action among sexual minorities.
Some approaches to knowledge, like thinking from the
margins, value the insights gained from minoritized individuals
who critically engage with their standpoints (e.g., Collins, 2000;
Dreger, 1999; Stryker & Whittle, 2006). So, though marginalized groups are often theorized by others, i.e., dominant groups,
thinking from the margins allows for theoretical insights that
may not be available to others except through marginalized
groups because of their experiential derivation (e.g., Harding,
1986). And, it may be important to the groups that knowledge
about them is rooted in their own lives.
Thinking from the sexual margins is useful for many reasons,
including for conceptualizing sexuality because theorizing
marginality is often a starting point (see Fig. 1a): marginalized
groups work to make sense of themselves as marginal and/or as
groups; researchers notice or seek out this marginality and study
it as, typically, difference from an undifferentiated, unarticulated
normative backdrop (Lorber, 1996).
But minority sexualities are not the only sexualities in the
sexual landscape. At some point, minority groups make clear to
others that their marginalization is relative and active. In other
words, sexual minority groups are minoritized by sexual majority
culture and are positioned as minorities relative to sexual majority
groups (see Fig. 1b). At this point, sexual majority groups (e.g.,
heterosexuals) come to be recognized and studied in addition to
sexual minority groups. This parallels critical race theory and
feminist studies, which respectively started with attention to racial/ethnic minorities and women/femininities and now also include critical whiteness studies and men/masculinities (Kimmel,
1987; Wiegman, 1999) (though there are tensions: for example,
with both whiteness and men/masculinities studies as sometimes
separate fields).
The recognition of minority sexualities is a precondition to
recognizingthatmajoritysexualitiesaresuch.Forexample,genetic
sex determination in mammals becomes visible as genetic only in
juxtaposition against sex determination that follows other routes,
like temperature-dependence in turtles. Attending to minority

123

Arch Sex Behav

Table 3 Various norms related to gender/sex and sexuality, the ways in which these norms might be violated, transgressed, or challenged, and the
individuals and groups who might be seen to challenge these norms
Norm

Violation/transgression/challenge

Heteronormative sexuality: that sexuality

should follow stereotyped heterosexual
scripts (e.g., other-sex sexuality; high male
sexuality/low female sexuality, etc.)

Having sexual desires for or sexual engagement Could apply to LGBT individuals, MSM, WSW,
with same-gender/sex individuals;
etc., or anyone who is, wants to be, or could be
sexualities that are seen as cross-gender
sexually active with individuals who are, or are
perceived to be, of the same gender, sex, or
gender/sex as themselves. Could also apply to
cisgendered heterosexuals who are seen to
transgress their gender-specific norms

Heteronormative nurturance: that nurturance/ Having nurturant desires and/or activity for
love should follow stereotyped heterosexual
same-gender/sex individuals
scripts (e.g., other-sex love; love should
overlap with sexuality)

Targets

Could apply to LGBT individuals, MSM, WSW,

etc., or anyone who is, wants to be, or could be
intimately connected (e.g., via relationships,
marriage, and potentially even friendships) with
individuals who are, or are perceived to be, of the
same gender, sex, or gender/sex as themselves;
also could be nurturant connections that are
deemed too nurturant/close for samegender/sex individuals (and therefore are
suspected of sexual aspects)

Shame normativity: that minority sexualities Having ones minority sexuality readable and/ Could apply to any out sexual/gender minority
should be embarrassing to others and selves
or acknowledged/(pro)claimed
individual/group (e.g. individuals who are
and kept hidden as much as possible
LGBTQ, polyamorous, asexual, kinkidentified, slut-identified, etc.)
Fixedness normativity: that sexualities should
be static rather than fluid

Shifts in ones sexual target

Sexual fluidity, bisexuality

Mononormativity: that people should want to

have, and only have, nurturant-sexual
connections with one person

Being interested in or having multiple intimate People engaged in consensual non-monogamy,

partners; publicly acknowledging
cheaters, single-by-choice people, multisexual
multipartnered status
individuals

Homonormativity: that people with same-sex

intimate interests should follow
homonormative intimacy scripts (e.g., only
have same-sex intimate interests, etc.)

Expressions or desires that might include other- Bisexuals, some trans individuals, gay or lesbian
gender/sex individuals, etc.
individuals with other-sex interests and/or
activity

Sexual normativity: that people should be and/ Not having sexual interest in other people; not Asexual individuals, demisexual individuals,
or want to be sexual with other people
being sexually active with other people
individuals in nonsexual lifephases, etc.
Gender/sex normativity: that gender and sex
should match, and follow heteronormative
gender/sex scripts

Having gender and sex sexual desires and/or

Butch, femme, bisexual, pansexual, person-notactivities that are divergent, are not uniform
gender, sexual fluidity, trans, queer,
(in that they can change), not having
partners/contacts of trans individuals
gender/sex as a primary or any orienting
feature of intimacy, or having interests in
both and/or any gender/sex, having interests
in trans or nonnormatively gendered/sexed
bodies, or having a nonnormative
gendered/sexed body
Alignment normativity: that sexual and
Having sexual and nurturant desires and/or
Branched sexualities; sexual fluidity
nurturant desires and behaviors should be coactivities that are divergent
incident
Female nonerotic normativity: that women
Having sexual desires as a woman at all and/or Could be polyamorous women, lesbians, cisgender
should have low or no sexual desires, and that
that are strong enough to result in erotic
women, trans women, trans men, slut-identified
nurturant desires should be the key
decision-making and identity-formation
women, kink-identified women, femme men,
organizing principle of intimacy (e.g., over
etc.
sexual desires)
Male nonnurturant normativity: that men
Men, masculine women, butch women
Having relational desires as a man that are
should have low or no nurturant desires, and
stronger than sexual desires or strong enough
that erotic desires should be the key
to be acted on
organizing principle of intimacy (e.g., over
nurturant desires)
Cisnormativity: that individuals must retain one Experiencing branchedness in ones gender/sex Trans individuals, genderqueer individuals
sex (gender; gender/sex) their entire lives
and/or shifting/changing/recognizing a
from birth onwards
gender/sex that is not the one identified at
birth

123

Arch Sex Behav

Table 3 continued
Norm

Violation/transgression/challenge

Targets

Feminine normativity: that women should be Presenting or wanting to present as a masculine Butch lesbians, tomboys, masculine gay men,
feminine or that gay men should be feminine
ciswoman, gay man, trans woman
feminine straight men, masculine trans women
because they transgress gender/sex norms by
or ciswomen
being intimately interested in men
Masculine normativity: that men should be
Presenting or wanting to present as a feminine Femme lesbians, masculine straight women,
masculine, that lesbians should be masculine
cis or trans man or lesbian
feminine gay men, feminine trans men
because they transgress gender/sex norms by
being intimately interested in women
Binary normativity: that individuals are
Seeing the world as having more diverse
Bisexuality; trans; genderqueer
hardwired to be women or men and/or be
gender/
intimately interested in men or women; that
sexes than exist within a woman-man binary
women and men are opposite
Conventional normativity: that people should Having sexual interests/behaviors that are kink- Kink-related sexualities, consensual nononly want to be sexual with each other in one
related, involve non-bodily items
monogamies, sexually open individuals, etc.
way
These norms, their definitions, and the groups that might be seen as transgressing them are not meant to be definitive or exhaustive

sexualities eventually ends up foregrounding majority sexualities.

But does this happen at the expense of paying focused attention to
sexual minorities? Can researchers foreground both minority and
majority sexualities simultaneously?
A sexual diversity perspective synthesizes minority and
majority sexualities, viewing them as simultaneously interconnected, unique, and, above all, positioned relative to each other
(see Fig. 1c). It attends to the particularities of each sexuality and
its relations to other sexualities, acknowledging that sexualities
can be grouped in various ways (and that there is no one natural
way to group). It uses a macro lens to take multiple sexualities
into simultaneous account alongside a micro lens to address the
particularities of a specific sexuality. I see a sexual diversity
perspective as a stage in a sequence that focuses initially on
sexual minorities as other relative to an unstated normative
backdrop, then recognizes that minorities are minoritized relative to majorities and focuses additionally on sexual majorities
and minority-majority difference, and then understands that
positionality is relative and dynamic, with sexualities existing
within social locations in such a way that there can be heterogeneity within sexualities and commonality between them
(Fig. 1) (and see Lorber, 1996, for discussion).
A sexual diversity perspective is not post-minority; it calls for
attending to the understudy of minorities and is not a new justificationforthesameoverattentiontomajorities.Asexualdiversity
perspective does not somehow transcendstigma or discrimination
nor should these critical aspects of sexual minority experiences be
left behind. It explicitly attends to power dynamics; for example,
one might consider heterosexuality and bisexuality alongside
each other, paying equal attention to their shared and divergent complexities while recognizing that heterosexuality is a
majority sexuality and bisexuality is a marginalized one
and what that means.
A sexual diversity perspectiveholdsthat everyonehasasexual
configuration. The ways in which some come to be minoritized is

a human social decision-making endeavor. Every sexual configuration has positionality and is located relative to others.
The Bioscience Roots of Sexual Diversity Perspectives
Though it may be surprising to some, a sexual diversity lens
emerged from bioscience, especially the comparative frameworks of behavioral and social neuroendocrinology (e.g., Adkins-Regan, 2005; Oliveira, 2009; van Anders & Watson, 2006;
van Anderset al.,2011; Wallen, 2001; Wingfield, Hegner,Dufty,
& Ball, 1990). This may be unexpected because biology is
typically conflated with biological reductionism, essentialism,
and determinism by its critics (often for good reason).9 So how
does one get from bioscience to a sexual diversity lens?
Biological epistemologies are diverse themselves and encompass a range of approaches. For example, species-specific behaviors might be studied as rooted in the context of local ecologies
and evolutionary trajectories. Hormones might be studied both as
influences on behavior and responses to it given relevant contexts.
Accordingly, context is not a background or side-point to many
biological questions but a prominent and active factor.
Many biological approaches study particular behaviors within
particular species within particular social and ecological contexts
9

Biological reductionism is the belief that social processes can be best

understood by studying underlying biological substrates or systems and
the more reducible the biology the more informative (e.g., genetics are
uniformly more informative than hormones, hormones are always more
informative than cognition, genital responses are universally more
informative than self-report). Biological essentialism is the belief that
groups are unitary and have an underlying biological essence (e.g.,
homosexual men are all homosexual in the same way, for the same
reason, and thus have the same biology). Biological determinism is the
belief that biology causes a specific behavior universally, sometimes
with allowances for cultural nudges (e.g., sexual outcomes are really
caused by biological factors that culture only masks, dampens, or
amplifies).

123

Arch Sex Behav

(a) Other

(b) Difference

(c) Diversity

Fig. 1 Stages to sexual diversity. These stages move from a other:

focusing on sexual minorities as other against an unarticulated
normative backdrop, to bdifference: recognizing that sexual minorities are minoritized relative to sexual majorities within a social context,
and studying how they differ, to c diversity: seeing sexual minorities and
majorities as positioned relative to each other and embedded within other

social location axes in an intersectional framework; includes the

recognition that there may be sexualities that come in and out of
scholarly view, and that both sexual minorities and majorities have
internal heterogeneity such that various groupings may occur along a
number of shared features; includes attention to particularities and
generalities along with power differentials

to (1) to glean specific information about a phenomenon (e.g.,

What does this species do at this time of year in this social context
and part of the world?) and (2) to consider what general principles
might underlie the phenomenon in relation to a larger category of
phenomena (e.g., How do these specificities relate to what is
known about other related phenomena?). A scientist might study
how testosterone in one species responds to social phenomena in
a specific season to learn about that species and also to develop
general understandings about evolution (e.g., Cain & Ketterson,
2012). There is no assumption that a specific or general principle
is only under investigation and, similarly, there is no value differential accorded to particular versus general insights.
Paying attention to generalities and particularities is fundamental to a sexual diversity lens. That a sexual diversity lens grew
out of bioscience matters because there are insights, even from
across the aisle epistemologies, to be gained from interdisciplinary thinking. More nuanced understandings of the diversity
of each epistemological position may help us build new generative theory, more so than can be done from within or across
boundarized disciplines.
A sexual diversity perspective focuses on understanding
specific sexualities as situated and localized and also considers
diverse sexualities in relation to each other. Using a constantly
interchanginglens,neithergeneralitynorspecificityisprioritized.
Even a focus on a specific sexuality involves the constant

recognition that it exists alongside others. And a focus across

sexualities nevertheless involves the recognition that each sexuality inheres specificities.

123

Intersectionality
Intersectionality is important to SCT. It is a theory from AfricanAmerican womens experiences and scholarship in which people
occupy a social location that is not the sum of its parts. Collins
(2000) and Crenshaw (1991) have described how Black women
(in a U.S. context) do not experience oppression based on womanhoodplusBlacknessbutadistinct experiencespecifictobeinga
Black woman. Intersectionality could be thought of recognizing
that social oppression is based on a social location at the meeting
points of several identity axes (Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991;
Moore, 2012) in a way similar to concepts of emergence. The list
of possible intersecting axes is potentially unlimited but ones that
currently seem to resonate most generally include gender/sex,
age, sexuality, race/ethnicity, immigration status, nationality, gender
identity, ability/disability, and class. Intersectionality matters
forSCTbecausesexualconfigurationsarenotassumedtobeisolated
from other identity categories (Katz-Wise & Hyde, 2014; Stokes,
Miller, & Mundhenk, 1998). Instead, sexual configurations
may be experienced very differently depending on factors
like race/ethnicity, age, etc. (see Sexual Identities in SCT).

Arch Sex Behav

Sexual Configuration
Identity/
identities
Partnered
Sexuality

Solitary
Sexuality

Intersectional
Factors

orientation
status

Partner Number
Sexuality

orientation
status

Gender/Sex
Sexuality

See Fig. 5

See Fig. 6

Sexual
Parametern

Fig. 2 Basic outlines of SCT. Each person has a sexual configuration

that involves solitary and partnered sexuality. Partnered sexuality is
subdivided into partner number sexuality, gender/sex sexuality, and
sexual parametern. Sexual identities are a function of the ways these

parameters assemble in connection with intersectional factors (i.e., other

social location factors) that can vary in size and import. Orientations and
statuses are demarcated, in this article, on the figures for partner number
sexuality and gender/sex sexuality

Sexual Configurations Theory

intersectional factors in dynamic and bidirectional ways (discussed further inSexual Identities in SCT). Identities are names
given to some sexual configurations so I do not use identity terms
within the parameters of SCT. The remaining parameter of partnered sexuality, eroticism/nurturance, is built into the others and
thus not visualized on Fig. 2 and discussed later on (see Parameter
3: Eroticism and Nurturance).
SCT has an additional domain outside of partnered sexuality
discussed in Individual Gender/Sex. Individual gender/sex and
gender/sex sexuality are separate phenomena (e.g., Storms,
1980), though they can also be interconnected (Vanwesenbeeck,
2009). For example, gender (not sex) has predictive power for
lifetime number of sexual partners such that femininity in women
and men predicts fewer lifetime partners (Tate, 2011). Below are
descriptions of the parameters of partnered sexuality in detail.

General Organization
SCT provides a generative framework for studying and understanding diverse sexualities. It is a dynamic way to delineate
diverse sexualities because it makes space for novel sexualities
that are not yet embedded within it. Figure 2 shows the basic
structure of a sexual configuration, which is composed of two
domains for the purposes of this article: partnered sexuality and
solitary sexuality. Earlier, I described the evidence both for
distinguishing between the two and considering their overlaps10
(see Limitations of Existing Theories About Sexual Orientation). For the remainder, I focus on partnered sexuality.
Partnered sexuality has four parameters in SCT, three of which
are visualized on Fig. 2: gender/sex sexuality, partner number
sexuality, and sexual parametern. Partnered sexuality is connected
to identity/ies through each parameter, their combination, and/or

Parameters
Parameter 1: Gender/Sex Sexuality

10

What is the line between solitary and dyadic sexuality? There is little
empirical research on this point but could be. For example, if one
masturbates in the presence of another person with no contact, is that
solitary or dyadic? If one is using someone else for sexual gratification
and not actually engaging with that persons subjectivities, is that
somewhat solitary? Is phone or internet sex solitary because one is alone
or dyadic because another person is involved? If a person masturbates
while watching sexual media, is there a dyadic element to that? If the
presence of partners impacts sexual arousal while watching visual sexual
material (van Lankveld et al., 2014), is that dyadic or solitary? Finally, if
someone is aroused by the thought of being arousing to others (e.g.,
Bogaert & Brotto, 2013) is that solitary or dyadic?

In this section, I discussgender/sex sexuality as aunitary construct: I

later address how it can be partitioned into eroticism and nurturance
(Parameter 3: Eroticism and Nurturance) as well as gender and sex
(SeparatingGenderandSex).Gender/sexsexualitymapsouttargets
of orientations (e.g., gender/sexes of those whom one is attracted to)
and partners for statuses (e.g., gender/sexes of those whom one is
partnered with). In this section, I useattractionsto avoid the unwieldy use of status/orientation each time I describe a feature of
gender/sex sexuality. So, what does gender/sex sexuality involve?

123

Arch Sex Behav

In Fig. 3, I use a step-by-step process to show how gender/sex

sexuality is built from various dimensions. The end product is a
model that allows for identifying ones gender/sex sexuality
along all these dimensions plus the other parameters (nurturance plus eroticism, gender plus sex). At that point, a person
will be able to demarcate their gender/sex sexual orientations
and statuses with, for example, o-dot and s-dot, multiple notations, and/or outlined areas to represent points or ranges.
In Fig. 3, one dimension is gender/sex type, which has two
levels: binary and nonbinary. Figure 3a shows one of these levels:
binarygender/sex, whichrefers toattractionsonlytowomen,men
or both men and women. This ring is continuous, such that people
can be polar (only attracted to women or men) or somewhere in
the intermediate space (attracted to both men and women; attracted mostly to women but a little to men; attracted more to men but
some to women; etc.); research has clearly demonstrated that
there is room for this more continuous understanding (Laumann
et al., 1994). In terms of statuses, a person could be partnered with
one or more women, one or more men, or both men and women.
Binary gender/sex (continuing on Fig. 3a) shows women
and men as somewhat near each other, but separated by a gap.
Why? One reason is that attractions to only men and only
women are conceptually more similar (e.g., are more specific)
than attractions to both. Another reason is that the gap is
actually closed by nonbinary gender/sex (Fig. 3b).
Figure 3b shows nonbinary gender/sex, the second level of
gender/sex type. Nonbinary gender/sex refers to attractions to
individuals who exist outside normative gender/sex binaries.
There are multiple locations in nonbinary gender/sex; one of
these is gender/sex challenge. Gender/sex challenge refers to
attractions to individuals who are not identified (by selves and/or
others) as normative men/women and who challenge, transcend,
or destabilize binaristic gender/sex. Some examples might include those who are attracted to people who identify as genderqueer or genderfuck, i.e., genders/sexes that challenge, mess
with, destabilize, and/or play with traditional genders and gender binaries in some way. Gender/sex challenge might include
attractions to individuals who have transitioned gender/sex,
intersex-identified individuals, individuals with differences/
disorders of sex development (DSDs),11 etc. Gender/sex challenge does not necessarily reference action or intentionality.
People might self-position and/or be positioned by others in
ways that may overlap or not (and can be separately demarcated). For this reason, gender/sex challenge is separated from
women and men by contingent norm boundaries.
Contingent norm boundaries are margins between women
and men in Fig. 3a and gender/sex challenge in Fig. 3b. Who
counts where? Who gets counted as a man or a woman is largely
11

There is a medical consensus statement supporting the use of

disorders of sex development (Hughes, Houk, Ahmed, & Lee, 2006), but
a number of people have argued for other terms, like difference of sex
development (Diamond, 2009).

123

contingent and subjective, rather than universal, and differs by

time andplace (Spelman, 1988). For example, an individual can
be attracted to people who are unquestionably categorized as
women in one time and place but not in others (e.g., women who
work out, wear make-up, smoke, enjoy erotic pleasure, have
penises, cannot gestate). Accordingly, these contingent norm
boundaries are malleable, permeable, and moveable.
The contingent norm boundaries in Fig. 3b continue from the
circles edge to the middle; focusing only on the circles perimeter, these repeated straight lines (lines of isospecificity) represent
a gradation from nonbinary gender/sex (at the very middle of
gender/sex challenge) to binary gender/sex (past the contingent
norm boundaries). What does this mean? A person at the very
middle of gender/sex challenge might be attracted to people who
completely challenge gender/sex norms (e.g., someone with
many competing signs of genders), whereas a person closer to
the man contingent norm boundary might be attracted to men
who challenge men-specific gender norms (e.g., expressive
men). But this positionality is culturally relative (e.g., in some
cultures, expressive men are the norm).
There is another location in Fig. 3b, nonbinary gender/sex: all
gender/sexes. All gender/sexes refers to attractions that involve
all possible gender/sex formulations (including people who have
any mix of gender/sex features as well as women and men). It is
rooted in a nondiscrete, pluralistic nonbinaristic understanding of
gender/sex.
At all gender/sexes (continuing on Fig. 3b), the straight lines
of isospecificity from gender/sex challenge join up. In addition,
at all gender/sexes, another set of lines of isospecificity converge: curved lines from the rings perimeter, showing a gradationfrom binarygender/sex(inFig. 3a)tononbinarygender/sex
(in Fig. 3b). What does this mean? A person at all gender/sexes
could be attracted to people of any gender/sex: women, men,
and people who challenge gender/sex in all ways. A person
intermediate between all gender/sexes and the left-most side
of the circle might be attracted considerably to women, somewhat to men, and somewhat to people who challenge gender/sex.
Both gender/sex challenge and all gender/sexes represent
nonbinary gender/sex; Fig. 3c in conjunction with Fig. 3b shows
how they differ: in specificity. Specificity is high for gender/sex
challenge, where there is a specific attraction to people who
challenge gender/sex in a specific nonbinary way. Specificity is
low for all gender/sexes, where there is attraction to people of
any gender/sex. Gender/sex challenge and all gender/sexes are
thus opposite ends of a specificity continuum. Figure 3c also
shows specificity for binary gender/sex (Fig. 3a). Being attracted to women or men is a specific (binary) attraction, whereas
being attracted to both gender/sexes is a nonspecific (binary)
attraction; these are thus opposite ends of a specificity continuum. Thus, being attracted to women, men or a specific kind of
gender/sex challenge (e.g., butch women) are similar in high
specificity. And, being attracted to both or all gender/sexes are
similar in low specificity. Specificityand notions of high/low

Arch Sex Behav

(a) Binary Gender/Sex

women

men

both gender/sexes

(d) Gender/Sex Sexuality

(b) Nonbinary Gender/Sex

contingent norm boundaries

Gender/Sex Type

100%

gender/sex
strength

gender/sex challenge

all gender/sexes

(c) Gender/Sex Specificity

0%

nongender/sexed

most specific

least specific
Fig. 3 Gender/sex sexuality. The parameter of gender/sex sexuality is
characterized by a dimension of gender/sex type, which has a binary
gender/sex, b, nonbinary gender/sex, and c gender/sex specificity.

Gender/sex sexuality is also characterized by a dimension of d gender/sex strength, which ranges from 0 % (nongender/sexed) to 100 %.
This figure also can be used to map individual gender/sex

specificitycould be reconceptualized in another way: e.g., as

specificity/openness or multiplicity (high/low).
Figure 3d shows how gender/sex sexuality involves several
overlapping dimensions in gender/sex type: a binary/nonbinary
dimension (such that the binary perimeter is just one end of a
binary/nonbinary continuum) and a specificity dimension. It
also shows a third dimension: gender/sex strength. Gender/sex
strength refers to how strongly gender/sex matters to ones partnered sexuality. It ranges from the very top (100 %) to nongender/sexed (0 %). At nongender/sexed, target gender/sex
ceases to be relevant to partnered sexuality (e.g., Boom, 2008).
That is, gender/sex is no longer a feature salient to sexual
attractions. What would sexual attractions be based on then? At
nongender/sexed,12 sexual attractions are based on other

factors, like power, intelligence, humor, kindness, etc. (e.g.,

Janssen, McBride, Yarber, Hill, & Butler, 2008). There are
various ways that attractions may be nongender/sexed: for
example, gender/sex may be irrelevant to a persons attractions
or to the person they are with. Similarly, there are various ways
that attractions may be gender/sexed: sexual attractions may be
strongly oriented to gender/sex or partners may be strongly
gender/sexed.
Gender/sex strength can range from 0 to 100 %, as visualized
on Fig. 4d via the iterating gender/sex type discs. That is, at any
non-zero degree of gender/sex strength, a person is located on the
gender/sex type disc. For example, gender/sex could have only

12

Is nongender/sexed another word for androgyny? Androgyny could

actually be the opposite; it could be seen as strongly but ambivalently

Footnote 12 continued
gendered/sexed rather than not at all gendered/sexed (Bem, 1974; Lorber, 1996). Androgyny might be better conceptualized as existing as a
specific form of gender/sex challenge (perhaps at its midpoint).

123

Arch Sex Behav

(a) Binary Sexual Partner Number

one sexual partner

multiple sexual partners

sexual partner number openness

(d) Partner Number Sexuality

(b) Nonbinary Sexual Partner Number

Partner Number
Sexuality Type

contingent norm boundaries

sexual partner
number challenge

allosexual
strength

100%

all sexual partner numbers

0%

nonallosexual

(c) Sexual Partner Number Specificity

most specific

least specific
Fig. 4 Partner number sexuality. The parameter of partner number
sexuality is characterized by a dimension of partner number sexuality
type, which has a binary sexual partner number, b nonbinary sexual

partner number, and c sexual partner number specificity. Partner number

sexuality is also characterized by a dimension of d allosexuality strength,
which ranges from 0 % (nonallosexual) to 100 %

minor importance to ones sexuality (relative to other factors),

though ones attractions are still only to men.
Figure 3 thus visualizes that any one location has meaning in
three dimensions: binary/nonbinary, specificity, and gender/sex
strength. Locations that differ on one dimension can be the same
in another (e.g., two people can have high specificity but differ on
binary/nonbinary). And, a person could have strong attractions to
one gender/sex and moderate attractions to another. Another
potential implication of Fig. 3d is that there may be a space where
all gender/sexes and nongender/sexed meet.13 In other words,
being attracted to people of any and all gender/sexes may be the
flipside of gender/sex ceasing to be relevant to ones sexual attractions (because, if one is attracted to any gender/sex, gender/sex
ceases to be a deciding factor).

Separating Gender and Sex Many peoples attractions are

guided by whole identities or gestalts (e.g., being attracted to
people who identify as women, men, or as gender/sex-diverse
people).ThesepeoplecouldbelocatedonFig. 5a,whichissimilar
toFig. 3d.However,somepeoplesattractionsareguidedbyother
features like gender (e.g., comportment) or sex (e.g., genitals).
These people could be located on Fig. 5b, c, respectively. SCT
models gender/sex sexuality as both a gestalt (Fig. 5a) and as
reflecting the separable subconstructs of gender (Fig. 5b) and sex
(Fig. 5c). But why should gender/sex be separable into subconstructs at all?
Though most theories of sexuality focuson sex (e.g., physical
bodies) as the guiding feature of sexual orientation, this is based
on the unstated assumption thateveryoneis sexually focused
on features like genitals or breasts. Competing assumptions may
hold that everyone is sexually attracted to peoples ways of

13

I see this warp as a sort of space tunnel where one is instantly positioned at
two locations that occupy the same space.

123

Arch Sex Behav

(a) Gender/Sex Sexuality

gender/sex challenge
women

men

gender/sex
type

gender/sex
strength

100%

all gender/sexes
both gender/sexes

nongender/sexed

0%

(b) Gender Sexuality

(c) Sex Sexuality

gender challenge

sex challenge
masculine

100%

gender
type

all genders

gender
strength
0%

female

both genders

nongendered

male

sex
type

100%

all sexes

sex
strength

feminine

0%

both sexes

nonsexed

Fig. 5 Branched gender/sex sexuality. Gender/sex sexuality (a) has a gender subconstruct (b) and a sex subconstruct (c)

moving through the world. But SCT makes these claims testable, and reflects known lived experiences. For example, some
individuals might be sexually interested in people who have
vulvas and vaginas, regardless of any other sex marker, gender,
or identity and could use Fig. 5 to reflect this: locating gender/sex sexuality in all gender/sexes (Fig. 5a), all genders
(Fig. 5b), and female (Fig. 5c) noting specifically genitals.
Others might be sexually interested in queer men and could also
use Fig. 5 to reflect this: locating gender/sex sexuality in gender/sex challenge near men (Fig. 5a), gender sexuality wherever
appropriate (Fig. 5b), and sex sexuality in all sexes (Fig. 5c).
What about people with partners who have transitioned
gender/sex? Some people may see themselves as having a
gender/sex challenge status, because their partners transition
challenges norms of sex (or gender, or gender/sex). Others
may not position themselves in this way because they may use
a set of factors to define their gender/sex sexuality in ways that
render transition no longer salient (e.g., they may use their
partners current gender/sex). Individuals may mark their
gender/sex sexuality on Fig. 5a when target gender, sex, and

gender/sex are coincident or all of Fig. 5 when they are not.

The key implication of gender/sex separability is that SCT
does not assume that all people experience all their sexualities
in ways that only implicate sex or collapse all aspects of
gender/sex.
Parameter 2: Partner Number Sexuality
Partner number sexuality refers to the number of partners people
have or are interested in having. For example, someone might
want to have no partners, one partner, two partners concurrently,
or more. The concept of partner number sexuality is sometimes
called relational identity or relationship orientation (e.g., The
Polyamory Society, 2014; van Anders & Goldey, 2010) or
folded into sexual orientation or sexual identity. However, these
terms fail to identify the particular variable of interest (i.e.,
number) and so are less useful for science than they might be.
Unlike partner number sexuality, people largely conceptualize gender/sex as an important feature of partnered sexuality,
such that gender/sex sexuality seemingly needs nojustification.

123

Arch Sex Behav

What about partner number? Is there a reason to give it place,

much less prominence? A major reason to include partner
number as a parameter of partnered sexuality is lived experiences. Increasingly frequent narratives underscore the importance of partner number in many peoples identities, behaviors,
and orientations. For example, polyamory, slut,14 and asexuality are identities that I argue are organized in part around
partner number. Empirical evidence also provides important
support for including partner number sexuality (Barker &
Langdridge, 2010; Bogaert, 2004; Brotto et al., 2010; Carrigan,
2011; Klesse, 2006; Scherrer, 2008; Sheff, 2005). And, logical
considerationsalmost necessitateits inclusionbecause a person
must be interested in at least one sexual partner before their
gender/sex sexuality could even be a consideration. Partner
number sexuality is thus a separate parameter from gender/sex
sexuality in SCT, though the two could and do interrelate (and
arguments could be made that partner number sexuality comes
first, in that it must be above zero for gender/sex sexuality to
exist). In the present section, I focus on partner number sexuality as a unitary construct; in subsequent sections, I discuss
how it can be partitioned into eroticism/nurturance (Parameter
3: Eroticism and Nurturance).
Partner number sexuality (see Fig. 4) is modeled in similar
ways to gender/sex sexuality (see Fig. 3), and visual inspection
of both shows clear parallels. Like gender/sex sexuality, partner
number sexuality maps out both orientations (e.g., how many
sexual partners one would like to have) and statuses (e.g., how
many sexual partners one does have). Orientations and statuses
can be demarcated with different notations: dots (o-dot and
s-dot), multiple notations to represent multiple statuses/orientations, and/or outlined areas to represent a range of orientations/statuses. But, in this section, I useorientationsto avoid
the unwieldy use of status/orientation each time I describe a
feature of partner number sexuality.
In Fig. 4, I use a step-by-step process to describe how partner
number sexuality is built from various dimensions. One dimension is sexual partner number type, which has two levels: binary
and nonbinary. Figure 4a shows one of these levels: binary
partner number sexuality, which refers to orientations towards
having one sexual partner, multiple sexual partners, or either
(sexual partner number openness).
Sexual partner number openness (on Fig. 4a) refers to sexualities that are oriented more towards the specific partner(s) than
the partner number: for example, a person at sexual partner number openness might be happy to have one partner or many,
depending on the partner(s). This ring is continuous, such that
people can be polar (only interested in being with one or multiple
sexual partners) or somewhere in-between (interested in being
14

An identity organized in part around wanting and/or having multiple

sex partners for reasons of sexual pleasure, usually used by women who
take this identity as part of a reclamation project (i.e., using it positively
in ways that challenge its oppressive uses) (Easton & Liszt, 1997).

123

with either; mostly interested in being with one sexual partner but
open to others; mostly interested in being with multiple partners
but open to being with one; etc.). In terms of statuses, a person
could be partnered with one person, multiple people, or be in a
more ambiguous location of sexual openness, where partner
number is not so clear cut. There are many cases where partner
numbers are ambiguous, including differing degrees of commitment or contact (e.g., a person may be open to being sexual
with another person such that their engagement depends on their
crossing pathsis this a current contact or not?), timescales
(e.g., if a person had causal dates with three different people this
week, do they have multiplepartnersor none?), and plans (e.g.,
if a person has one current ongoing sexual partner and will soon
have more, is that one or multiple sexual partners atpresent?).
Like sexual partner number openness, multiple sexual partners (on Fig. 4a) could refer to a number of things. It may refer to
having multiple sexual partners over a discrete time period (e.g.,
having or wanting three boyfriends). It may be an orientation
towards having multiple sexual partners during the same event
(e.g., having or preferring threesomes). It also could refer to
wanting multiple sexual partners in a series (e.g., having or
wanting nightly hook-ups with different people). How to tease
these apart? Individuals may annotate their positioning (e.g.,odoton multiple sexual partners, with the notationsex event) or
researchers could operationally define the terms as per their research questions (e.g.: by multiple sexual partners, we mean
X). Is there any ordinality to multiple sexual partners? For example, is having four sexual partners more multiple than
having two? I see this aspect of Sexual Configurations being
more about the presence of multiplicity than its count, and partner
number sexuality above one may be less a function of how many
partners one wants than how many partners with whom one can
cope or be meaningfully connected. Still, one could easily demarcate a numerical preference or status.
Binary sexual partner number (continuing on Fig. 4a) shows
one and multiple sexual partners as somewhat near each other,
but separated by a gap: why? One reason is that orientations
towards only one or multiple sexual partners are conceptually
more similar (e.g., are more specific than orientations that are
open). Another reason is that the gap is actually closed by nonbinary partner number sexuality (Fig. 4b).
Figure 4b shows nonbinary sexual partner number, the second level of sexual partner number type. Nonbinary sexual
partner number refers to orientations that exist outside normative
one versus multiple sexual partner number binaries (e.g., outside
of mononormativities and polynormativities). There are multiple locations in nonbinary sexual partner number; one of these is
sexual partner number challenge. Sexual partner number challenge refers to orientations that are not identified as normative for
one or multiple sexual partner numbers and who challenge,
transcend, or destabilize this dichotomy. Some examples might
include monoamorously partnered individuals who have internet sex with others, multiply partnered individuals who engage

Arch Sex Behav

in different sexual activities with each partner, people who engage in penetrative sexuality with one partner and non-penetrative sexuality with others, someone who enjoys partnered sexuality but does not want to, etc. Sexual partner number challenge does not necessarily reference action or intentionality. People might self-position and/or be positioned by others in ways
that may overlap or not (and these can be separately demarcated). For this reason, sexual partner number challenge is
separated from one and multiple sexual partner numbers by
contingent norm boundaries.
Contingent norms boundaries are margins between one and
multiple sexual partner numbers in Fig. 4a and sexual partner
number challenge in Fig. 4b. Who counts where? Who gets
counted as having one or multiple sexual partners is largely
contingent and subjective, rather than universal, differing by
time and place among other factors. For example, a man with a
mistress can be seen as monoamorously married in the same
cultures where a woman cannot. Or, some people see sexual
liaisons while traveling as not affecting their monoamorous
status. Accordingly, these contingent norm boundaries are
malleable, permeable, and moveable.
There are gradations of nonbinary partner number sexuality
shown in Fig. 4b with lines of isospecificity intersecting sexual
partner number and ending at the contingent norm boundaries.
Accordingly, a person at the very middle point of sexual partner
number challenge might have an orientation that completely
challenges both one and multiple sexual partner norms (e.g.,
multiple marriages), whereas a person closer to the multiple
sexual partners contingent norm boundary might have an orientation that fits more closely with norms around multiple
sexual partners (one marital partner and several casual sexual
contacts). But this positionality is culturally relative (e.g., in
some cultures, multiple marriages are the norm).
The straight lines of isospecificity from sexual partner number challenge join up at all sexual partner numbers, another location in nonbinary sexual partner number on Fig. 4b. All sexual
partner numbers also refers to orientations that challenge sexual
partner number norms and is rooted in a pluralistic view of
partnered sexualities. Here, too, there is a gradation from binary
(the ring in Fig. 4a) to nonbinary (the circles area in Fig. 4b)
shown via the curved lines of isospecificity radiating out from the
perimeter to all sexual partner numbers. A person at all sexual
partner numbers might be open to any form of sexual partner
number configuration. A person intermediate between all sexual
partner numbers and the left-most side of the circle might be
oriented considerably to one sexual partner, somewhat to multiple sexual partners, and somewhat to sexual partner numbers
that challenge partner number norms.
Both sexual partner number challenge and all sexual partner
numbers represent nonbinary gender/sex; Fig. 3c in part shows
how they differ: in specificity. High specificity marks sexual
partner number challenge, which is a specific (nonbinary) orientation to a specific sexual partner number. Low specificity marks

all sexual partner numbers, which is a nonspecific (nonbinary)

orientation to any and all formations. Sexual partner number
challenge and all sexual partner numbers thus are located at opposite ends of a specificity continuum. Similarly, high specificity
marks being oriented to one or multiple sexual partners, which is a
specific (binary) orientation. And low specificity marks sexual
partner number openness, which is a nonspecific (binary) orientation). Orientations to one or multiple sexual partners, or to a
specific kind of sexual partner number challenge are similar in
high specificity. Orientations to sexual partner openness or all
sexual partners are similar in low specificity.
Figure 4d shows how partner number sexuality involves
several overlapping dimensions in partner number sexuality
type: a binary/nonbinary dimension (such that the binary
perimeter is just one end of a binary/nonbinary continuum) and a
specificity dimension. It also shows a third dimension: sexual
partnernumberstrength. Sexual partnernumberstrengthrefersto
how strongly sexual partner number matters to ones partnered
sexuality, and ranges from highly allosexual (100 %) to nonallosexual15 (0 %). At nonallosexual, sexual partner number ceases
to be relevant to partnered sexuality.
Like allosexual, nonallosexual could refer to status or orientation. One could have no sexual partners or contacts (status)
or have no interest in sexual contacts or partners (orientation). A
person could have an allosexual orientation and a nonallosexual
status (i.e., wanting but not having partnered eroticism). A person could also have a nonallosexual orientation and an allosexual
status (i.e., not wanting but having partnered sexuality).
Allosexuality has gradations, and Fig. 4d shows this via the
repeated allosexuality type disc vertically iterated. Thus, at any
non-zero degree of allosexuality, a person has a partner number
sexuality type; for example, allosexuality could have minor importance to a person even as their orientation is only towards one
sexual partner.
Examining Fig. 4d, where all the dimensions are presented,
raises additional questions. For example, where would the status
location be for a man with one sexual partner who is herself
multipartnered? He might locate himself in one sexual partner
(that is, after all, what he has) or perhaps sexual partner number
challenge, since his status might challenge some norms around
havingonesexual partner(i.e., that hispartnershouldonly have
one partner: him). And, what about people who have attractions
to partners based on those partners partner number sexualities?
For example, someone might be turned off by others interests in
having only one or multiple partners. These could be located by
adding specifiers to any notations.

15

I am not necessarily satisfied with using a scale that marks the

absence/presence of allosexuality, as if 0 % was a lack of something, but I
have not figured out another approach. So, in short, absence is not meant
to imply lack.

123

Arch Sex Behav

(a) Partner Number Sexuality

one
sexual partner

sexual partner
number challenge

multiple
sexual partners

partner number
sexuality type

allosexual
strength

100%

all sexual partner numbers

sexual partner number openness

nonallosexual

0%

(b) Partner Number Eroticism

partner
number
eroticism
type

alloeroticism
strength

100%

0%

one
nurturant
partner

multiple
erotic partners

all erotic partners

erotic partner
number openness

nonalloerotic

nurturant partner
number challenge

multiple
nurturant
partners
partner
number
nurturance
type

100%

allonurturance
strength

one
erotic partner

(c) Partner Number Nurturance

erotic partner
number challenge

0%

all nurturant
partner numbers
nurturant partner
number openness

nonallonurturant

Fig. 6 Eroticism and nurturance in branched partner number sexuality. Partner number sexuality (a) has an eroticism subconstruct (b) and a nurturance
subconstruct (c). Eroticism and nurturance can also be separated within gender/sex sexuality

Parameter 3: Eroticism and Nurturance

In this section, I explain a third important parameter of SCT:
eroticism/nurturance (see also What About Lust and Love?
Why Eroticism and Nurturance?). Many peoples attractions
are sexual, such that eroticism and nurturance are inseparable
aspects of their partnered sexualities. These people could be
located on Figs. 5 and 6a. However, some peoples attractions
and/or statuses can be partitioned separately into nurturance
(e.g., feelings of close intimacy) and eroticism (e.g., genital
arousal). This could be true for partner number sexuality, as
shown in Fig. 6. This could also be true for gender/sex
sexuality and, though I have not shown the eroticism/nurturance partition here, it would simply parallel that in Fig. 6.
Most theories of sexuality focus on eroticism as the defining
feature of sexual orientation but, as has been theoretically and
empirically demonstrated (Diamond, 2003b), nurturance is also
implicated even in traditional understandings of sexual orientation. Additionally, there is broad empirical support for the

123

ability to partition sexuality into these subconstructs, among

potential others. SCT provides a way to map out partner number
sexualities that are branched (e.g., erotically inclined towards
multiple partners and nurturantly towards one). It also provides a
way to map out gender/sex sexualities that are branched (e.g.,
when a person feels closest to women but is more strongly
erotically attracted to gender-diverse people). The key is that
SCT does not assume that all people experience sexuality as
reflecting only eroticism or the confluence of it and nurturance.
Sociosexuality Sociosexuality is a measure of interest in
and history of uncommitted (unrestricted) partnered
sexuality; it focuses on behavior, attitude, and desire (Penke,
2013; Simpson & Gangestad, 1991). It seems related to partner number sexuality in general, and eroticism/nurturance
more specifically, but the constructs differ markedly. At the
behavioral level, sociosexuality focuses on counts of uncommitted sexual contacts, whereas partner number eroticism focuses on strength or type of alloeroticism, with room

Arch Sex Behav

for counts as well. Sociosexuality also focuses exclusively on

intercourse. Some attitude items (e.g., Sex without love is
ok) may characterize a general societal attitude rather than
an individual orientation. Sociosexuality measures fantasies
about and arousals to people outside a committed romantic
relationship, but assumes that those extra-relationship fantasies are outside all relationships rather than the one a person
is in at that moment (in other words, a person could fantasize
about having two committed relationships, but sociosexuality does not allow for this). The most marked difference, however, might be that sociosexuality imagines committed/nurturant and unrestricted sexuality as opposites,
whereas SCT allows for this possibility but also the reality
that some people exist at high levels of both (e.g., having
multiple committed sexual relationships or having some nurturant/sexual relationships and some erotic-only ones). Sociosexuality measures important concepts that clearly dovetail
with those in SCT, but with markedly different baseline assumptions
about dyadic sexuality.
Dyadic Sexual Desire Partner number sexuality has ties to
dyadic sexual desire (i.e., the desire to be sexual with another
person) in terms of the vertical axis of allosexual strength in
Fig. 6. Dyadic sexual desire seems divisible into erotic dyadic
sexual desire (e.g., desire to experience genital pleasure with
another person) and nurturant dyadic sexual desire (e.g., desire
to be close and intimate with another person in a sexual context) depending on what is being desired (Burke, Goldey, &
van Anders, under review; van Anders, 2012b). In other words,
dyadic sexual desire is multifaceted itself and two of its facets
seem to be alloeroticism and allonurturance, which can be represented in SCT. In addition, dyadic desire may be multifaceted
in terms of responsive or spontaneous origin (Meana, 2010), and
this can be demarcated via specific notation.

Parameter 4: Sexual Parametern Sexuality

Partnered sexuality obviously involves more components
than gender/sex or partner number, which I cover in this
article. To that end, I have includedsexual parameternas space
for parameters in existence that I do not cover or are still to be
named. How do the constructs that might make up sexual parametern relate to or precede/follow those I do discuss? Ongoing
debates exist around these and whether they count as sexual
orientations. There is much at stake in these debates for scholars
and communities because some of these sexualities are illegal,
stigmatized, and/or problematic; conceptualizing them as orientations within a non-pathological science frame could be seen as
granting legitimacy. Accordingly, I leave extensive discussion of
various sexual parameterns to scholars studying those topics and
communities of critically engaged stakeholders. Respecting the
importanceoftheseissuesmeans,forme,acknowledgingthatthey

are complex, lengthy, outside the scope of this article, and merit
sufficient sophistication of engagement. As such, I focus in this
section only on these other possible parameters to point out where
SCT might be useful.
What might some of these additional sexual components be?
Some have argued for sexual age orientation by varying names
with evidentiary support (e.g., Blanchard et al., 2012; Ebsworth
& Lalumiere, 2012; Freund & Kuban, 1993; Lykins et al., 2010;
Seto, 2012). SCT might be useful for thinking about age-related
sexualities because of its insights about age as multifaceted beyond physicality including: cognitive, social, intellectual, and
experiential components. Exploring these facets may prove
useful in some way to understanding age-related sexualities over
a sole physical focus. Understanding adult preferences for older
people too might be useful since adults are not a uniformly-aged
group (e.g., what does it mean for a younger adult to be attracted
to middle-aged adults?). Finally, there may be intersections between age-related sexualities and Sexual Configuration Theorys
eroticism/nurturance parameter. Some child sex offenders score
high on sexual gratification scales while others self-report high
empathy for children or claim nurturant connections (Wilson,
1999). These may be different pathways to the same behavioral
outcome,relatedtodifferingneurobiological systems,whichmay
be useful to prevention efforts and understanding sexual age
orientation more generally.
Two other subcomponents may be relevant to partnered
sexualities: consent and physical violence/force. Some people
rape and force nonconsensual sexuality upon others and there is
overlap between these people and those who are especially
aroused by or interested in the thought of this (Gavey & Senn,
2014; Harris, Lalumiere, Seto, Rice, & Chaplin, 2012). Though
it is problematic to conceptualize consensual and nonconsensual activity along a continuum (as if there were gradations of
nonconsent), feminist rape and sexual coercion researchers do
sometimes distinguish between the two (Fitzgerald, Swan, &
Magley, 1997; Gavey & Senn, 2014; Jozkowski & Peterson,
2013; Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987; Koss et al., 2007),
and conceptualizing interest in nonconsent as separable from
presence of nonconsent may be useful for sexuality research,
therapy, and treatment.
There are also people who engage in physically violent or
forceful sexuality. Though this is often conflated with nonconsent, there are clearly some individual who engage in mutually
consensual physically violent or forceful sexuality and/or who
are interested in it. For this reason, separating physical violence
from nonconsent makes sense (Seto, Lalumiere, Harris, & Chivers, 2012), as does acknowledging that these two can go together. Separating these two components (consent from physical
violence/force) could be useful for lay understandings of rape (as
feminist scholars have long argued, rape does not definitionally
involve physical force or violence; Gavey & Senn, 2014). and
also for those who engage in physically violent/forceful consensual sexual activity and/or fantasize about it.

123

Arch Sex Behav

Partner Number Sexuality

Sexual Configuration Landscape

100%

allosexual
strength

Fig. 7a

0%

nonallosexual

Gender/Sex Sexuality

Partner
Number
Sexuality

Gender/Sex
Sexuality

100%

gender/sex
strength

Fig. 7b

0%

nongender/sexed

Fig. 7 Sexual configuration landscapes. An example of the relative

strength of two parameters of partnered sexuality for where a partner
number sexuality is a bigger part of a persons partnered sexuality than
gender/sex sexuality is and b the reverse, where gender/sex sexuality is a

bigger part of a persons partnered sexuality than partner number

sexuality is. Gender/sex sexual strength is always contingent on nonzero allosexual strength. Landscapes are conceptual, not quantitative,
maps

Another parameter may relate to kink-identification (in general or to specific kinks). For example, people who engage in
varying types of BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism, masochism) can do so within a framework of behavior, identity (e.g.,
kink-identified, in the lifestyle), and orientation (being drawn to
this partnered sexuality over or alongside others) (Kleinplatz &
Diamond, 2014; Terry, Suschinsky, Lalumiere, & Vasey, 2012;
Terry & Vasey, 2011; Weiss, 2011). Becoming excited or drawn
to themes of exhibitionism, risky sex, voyeurism, or other kinkrelatedsexualitiescouldbeanotheriterationofsexualparametern.

gender/sex strength. In a sexual configuration landscape, gender/sex sexuality is always relative to partner number sexuality because partner number sexuality must be above zero for
gender/sex sexuality to exist, whereas the reverse is not true
(i.e., gender/sex sexuality can be zero without affecting the
existence of partner number sexuality). Gender/sex sexuality
and partner number sexuality are not compared on quantitative metrics; the sexual configuration landscape represents
conceptual space.
Sexual Configurations are Multifaceted

Assembling a Sexual Configuration

Sexual Configuration Landscape
In SCT, partner number sexuality and gender/sex sexuality
can have varying degrees of importance to an individuals
partnered sexuality. Figure 7a shows a persons sexual configuration landscape who is located at 75 % partner number
sexuality strength and 25 % gender/sex sexuality strength.
Figure 7b shows another persons sexual configuration landscape who is located at 75 % allosexual strength and 100 %

123

SCT is multifaceted in a number of ways already described: it

has solitary and partnered sexualities; partnered sexuality has
(a) gender/sex and partner number sexualities, (b) eroticism and
nurturance, and (c) orientations, statuses, and identities. Each of
these facets is often conceptualized as being unitary itself (e.g.,
behavior = penetrative sexuality; eroticism = genital arousal).
This lower level of unitarity is rarely justified and it is unclear, a
priori, which facets should be privileged or why (Korchmaros
et al., 2013). In this section, I will detail how these multiple
facets are themselves multifaceted.

Arch Sex Behav

One aspect of multifacetedness relates to the status/orientation/identity domain, with each of these involving multiple
constructs. For example, orientation is understood to refer to
attractions, arousals, fantasies, and/or desires, i.e., a set of facets
that may not be the same, which is why they are listed at all. For
example, a person can be sexually attracted to men and want to
flirt with masculine people regardless of gender/sex. Even one
aspect of orientation, like arousal, can be multifaceted: evidence
shows that genital and psychological sexual arousal can differ
(e.g., Cerny & Janssen, 2011; Chivers, Seto, Lalumiere, Laan, &
Grimbos, 2010). Status, too, is multifaceted including, for example, penetrative sexuality, flirting, sexual touching, and/or
kissing (Kleinplatz & Diamond, 2014; Korchmaros et al., 2013).
Another aspect of multifacetedness is via temporality across
and within domains of partnered sexuality (e.g., past/present/future) (Klein, 1990). And, each of these may internally be
multifaceted; for example, the recent past versus far past, etc.
Temporality can interact with other facets of partnered sexuality;
for example, a person may want to hook-up with masculine
people, have short connections with women, and have longerterm connections with men (Diamond, 2014). This temporality
can be extended to considering sociocultural contexts (e.g., historical moment), clearly an important aspect of multifacetedness,
which can draw out (or in) various aspects of partnered sexuality.
Sociocultural context does not include only time, however, as
place and social location also can draw out/in sexualities.
An additional aspect of multifacetedness is how partnered
sexuality is experienced in terms of receptivity/proceptivity.
People might differ in whom they want to approach versus who
they want to approach them. They might differ in whom they
want to arouse versus who they want to arouse them.
There are multiple facets specific to gender/sex sexuality beyond its gender and sex subconstructs. Each of these in turn can be
made up of subconstructs. For example, gender sexuality might
involveattractionsto presentationsthatdifferfrom behaviors.Sex
sexuality might involve attractions to body shapes that differ from
genitals. And, there are multiple interactions with other identity
categories. For example, attraction to chest hair cannot universally mark attraction to males of any social location because men
of many race/ethnicities and ages do not grow any (and women
sometimes do).
There are also multiple facets inherent to nurturance/
eroticism. For example, nurturance might involve interest in
hugging that differs from interest in social support. Eroticism
might involve interest in arousal that differs from pleasure.
There is neurobiological evidence highlighting the difference
between wanting and liking (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2008;
Dewitte, 2014; Krishnamurti & Loewenstein, 2012) with potential implications; for example, someone may not want
partnered sex but may enjoy it. Another person may want
partnered sexual activity yet find it unfulfilling.
What to do with all these multiple facets? I have built SCT to
allow recognition of this complexity when it exists (and I predict

much more of it exists than is typically thought). Someone might

use symbols or notations to denote the complexity of their sexual
configuration; for example, using different symbols for their
fantasies, arousals, and attractions as relevant. One could denote
attractions to feminine men and masculine women by locating an
min feminine gender and men gender/sex and anfin masculine gender and women gender/sex. In this way, Sexual Configurations makes no assumption about the ways that facets
assemble, and provides a way to map, rather than elide, existing
empirical complexities.

Beyond Alignment: Sexual Configurations Can be Branched

or Coincident
The very concept of multifaceted sexual configurations raises the
concept of alignment, discordance, or incongruence (Chivers,
Rieger, Latty, & Bailey, 2004; Korchmaros et al., 2013; Rosario
& Schrimshaw, 2014). These terms suggest there is one right or
correct combination or overlap of identities, orientations, and
statuses, or a correct mix of parameters. But, how should alignment ormisalignmentbe judged? In SCT, alignment is a subjective decision placed upon some sexual configurations rather
than a natural property of them.
How is alignment typically adjudicated? Alignment might be
ascribed to a heterosexual-identified woman who is sexually
interested in men and sexually active with men. It might be
applied to a lesbian-identified woman who is sexually interested
in women and sexually active with women. Unstated assumptions about alignment are one reason why bisexual individuals
are often seen by heterosexual, lesbian, and gay individuals as
nonsensical: a bisexual-identified woman who is sexually interested in women and menbutsexually active with only women
might be seen as misaligned when bisexual alignment is assumed
to entail sexual activity with both women and men. But one can
reasonably ask: Who gets to determine which patterns of identity,
orientation, and status are aligned?
Alignment is conferred as if it were a natural property of some
configurations even as it is a socially constructed position statement. Still, there are times when considerations related to social
justice might lead individuals to stake a claim for or against
alignment. For example, if individuals feel deep same-gender/sex
sexual interest but feel they cannot act on it because they fear
stigma, one might want to claim misalignment or unalignment for this sexual configuration because of cultural values
around the ability to freely express this stigmatized sexuality.
Misalignment may exist within an individual (who should not
have to have a culturally imposed status and identity) and/or a
culture (which should not be structured so as to suppress diverse
gender/sex sexualities). In the same way,men whofeellike they
must be more masculine simply because they think thats what
being a man necessitates might be seen as unaligned, meriting
individual and/or cultural interventions. Accordingly, the

123

Arch Sex Behav

concept of alignment might be limited to those cases where

social justiceand thus critical judgmentis explicitly part of
the frame. In these cases, alignment is explicitly understood to
be a subjective position statement.
Outside of social justice, alignment is typically grounded in
beliefs and vague assumptions of rightness that do not necessarily
reflect any evidentiary or truthful position. It is problematic, however, for outsiders or others to diagnose an individuals sexuality as
misaligned, especially when this pronouncement is rooted in a topdown notion of rightness. For example, why should a man who is
sexually attracted to women and men have to be sexual with men
and women for his sexuality to be judgedright?
In SCT,configurationrefers to parts coming together and
does not include judgment about the rightness of either the
components or the ways in which they assemble. This makes
SCT useful for thinking about sexual diversity and for moving
away from judging alignment. Still, some configurations seem
to have more complexity to them in ways that might be valuable
to articulate, even as there is no natural or right amount of
complexity. In this case, co-incident and branched are useful as
non-value laden terms. Orientations, identities, and statuses, as
well as parameters, that are seen as homogenous are labeled coincident, and those that are heterogeneousare labeled branched.
Branched and co-incident lack oppositional, value-based, or
natural connotations and both terms can be understood as situated and localized such that sexualities that are branched in
one time and place might be seen as co-incident in another.
It makes sense to think of branchedness as a property of sexual
configurations, given how branchedness is presumed to exist as
properties of other human phenomena. We rarely expect nonsexual interests to map onto nonsexual activities in one-to-one
ways. For example, we rarely expect that people who are interested in watching horror movies are murderous themselves. It
may be that some interests are more likely to be coincident with
some behaviors, and this is an empirical question.
One very tricky aspect of alignment is that individuals can
value how the feeling of alignment contributes to their sense of
sexual authenticity and rightness. I do not mean to undermine
or underestimate the importance of felt-alignment even as I
would argue that it sometimes merits questioning. Felt-alignment often is situated in normative notions of sexualities (and
both traditional or transgressive sexualities have normativities
about them, as in homonormativities) that involve making
sense, belonging, or fitting into existing groups (Cass, 1990).
These processes may occur in a way that is misperceived as
natural because individuals are socialized to want and value
felt-alignment for their sexualities. Yet our feelings, longings,
and senses of self are no more immune to social processes than
other sexual and social phenomena.
A lesbian-identified woman may feel unaligned when she
experiences sexual attractions to men, but there is notruereason
why a lesbian cannot be sexually attracted to men (Califia, 1999).
Indeed, sexual identities are not constituted entirely or even

123

necessarily at all by sexual orientations, and that is supposed to be

the point of sexual identity (i.e., that it is not merely a synonym for
sexual orientation). Many argue that sexual identity is about
community, politics, and self-identification, not some predetermined ratio cut-off for gendered/sexed attractions (Califia, 1999;
Diamond, 2014; Korchmaros et al., 2013). In the case of the maleattracted lesbian, it would be more useful for her sexual configuration to be positioned as branched than unaligned because
there is no objectively authoritative position from which it can be
decided that a lesbian cant be attracted to men.
Branched and co-incident can apply to how identities, orientations, and statuses configure (e.g., a bisexually-identified
person attracted to women and men who is sexually active with
women only) or how the sets of phenomena that make up any of
these categories configure (e.g., status: a person could want to
flirt with men and engage in penetrative sexuality with women). Branched and co-incident can also extend to other dimensions like age, lifephase, or context. For example, identity
politics (or alignment politics) call into question whether a
lesbian-identified woman can still be a lesbian when her
partner transitions from a woman to a man, whether a woman
can be heterosexual if she spent much of her sexual life with
women but is now partnered with a man, or whether a man can
be gay if he infrequently engages in sexual activity with a
woman. But one could just as easily refer to these sexualities as
branched rather than as causes for skepticism. In this way, the
terms branched and coincident may be useful for thinking
about sexual fluidity and non-exclusivity of sexual identities,
now well-documented in adolescents and adults of various
gender/sexes, sexualities, and cultures (Cass, 1990; Diamond,
2003a, 2003b, 2014; Gartrell, Bos, & Goldberg, 2012; Herdt,
1990; Savin-Williams, Joyner, & Rieger, 2012). These terms
may also be useful for thinking about the complexity of multiple facets and how they configure.
Engaging with the concept of alignment also raises the question of how one could or should define the totality of an individuals sexuality for group membership or scientific purposes.
By the majority of sexual contacts (e.g., absolute numbers? percentages?), the intensity of connections (e.g., depth of feelings?),
present behaviors (e.g., over past?), whatever is most stigmatized
or easily measurable? SCT is a way to both sidestep and highlight
these issues because one can make explicit the branchedness of
individuals sexualities, including the temporality of present,
past,and/orfuture/hopedforformations(theKleinSexualityGrid
also incorporates temporality; Klein, 1993).
I have mostly relied on examples of gender/sex to make the
case for branched/coincident, but they are useful terms for partner
numbersexualityaswell.Forexample,apersonwhoisorientedto
having one sexual partner might date multiple people before they
find a life partner, and having multiple sexual partners may be a
place through which they pass (which is not to suggest that having
multiple sexual partners is a stepping stone to having one sexual
partner in general). Or, a person could be branched by having

Arch Sex Behav

multiple sexual partners and being oriented to having one sexual

partner, as with some people doing sex work, doing sex for survival, doing romance/erotic/pornographic acting, because it is
culturally expected, etc.
Branched and coincident are also useful for the separation of
eroticism and nurturance. For example, an individual who is
interested in having and does have two sexual partners would
have a co-incident partnered sexual orientation. An individual
who has one nurturant partner and multiple sexual partners
would have a branched partnered sexual status. An individual
who preferred having multiple nurturant partners but has one
actual relationship partner would also have a branched partnered sexual configuration.
Branched and coincident sexual configurations may differ
themselves by groups. For example, there is evidence that strictly
heterosexual cisgender women differ from other women and
men in the degree to which their genital arousal branches from
their psychological arousal (Chivers et al., 2010) and, similarly,
in viewing times and attraction (Lippa, 2012). So branchedness
and coincidence seem like important constructs to study, and
related constructs are receiving empirical attention (e.g., Chivers
& Timmers, 2012; Kukkonen, Binik, Amsel, & Carrier, 2007;
Laan & Janssen, 2007; Suschinsky & Lalumiere, 2012;
Suschinsky, Lalumiere, & Chivers, 2009).
SCT is thus an argument for a more nuanced, critical, and
positionedengagementwiththenotionofalignment/misalignment
and for its replacement with coincident and branched. Rooted in a
sexual diversity lens, engagement with these concepts would include attention to the lived experiences of those with branchedness
in their sexual configurations, i.e., those who are often subjectively
(mis)positioned by selves or others in alignment terms.
Individual Gender/Sex
SCT mainly focuses on partnered sexuality, with gender/sex
sexuality one of its parameters. But it also models individual
gender/sex, which is perhaps unsurprising (it would be difficult
to model a phenomena that applies to others but not selves).
Thus, individual gender/sex can be plotted on Fig. 5. Essential
detail for understanding these figures is provided in Parameter
1: Gender/Sex Sexuality, but it bears repeating that individuals
can have varying degrees of: binary/nonbinary gender/sexes
(e.g., woman/genderqueer), gender/sex strength (ranging from
nongender/sexed to highly gender/sexed; e.g., feeling strongly
gender/sexed to gender/sex having no salience in ones identity), and specificity (ranging from a unitary or fixed gender/sex
to one that is more fluid or broad; e.g., identifying as a genderqueer person to sometimes identifying as a man and
sometimes as genderqueer). And, individual gender/sex can
involve gender/sex (Fig. 5a), gender (Fig. 5b), or sex (Fig. 5c)
and thus be branched or coincident.
Coincidentgender/sexiswidelyassumedtobethestatusquo,but
the frequency of gender/sex branchedness is far from settled:

research points to higher levels of branchedness than typically

thought (Joel, 2012). Apart from frequencies, how might branched
gender/sex play out? Some individuals might unequivocally identify as women (gender/sex), and feminine (gender), but position
themselves in sex-challenge (sex) because of any one of a variety of
features that might be seen as challenging norms (e.g., perhaps they
are very strong, have narrow hips, could not breastfeed, are somewhat androgynous in appearance, have a DSD). Others might feel
thatthattheyareunambiguouslyfemale(sex),women(gender/sex),
but masculine (gender). The key is that branched/coincident gender/sexes are contextualized decisions and not natural properties.
How might SCT relate to trans?16 There may be a difference
between branchedness (having ones gender, sex, and gender/sex
located in different places) and unalignment (feeling that these
different places must become coincident) that is partially explained by the degree of gender/sex strengths individuals feel.
This may be relevant to some trans experiences in diverse ways.
This may also be relevant to some cisgender/sex (see footnote 16)
experiences, as with gender/sex work, where some work to
make their gender/sex facets more coincident (e.g., by altering
their appearance or comportment to fit gender/sex norms). And,
the convergence/divergence between branchedness and unalignment may be one way of connecting those who feel branchedness
in their gender/sexes while also considering its differing implications and politics given where and in whom it occurs.
To be clear, nowhere in Sexual Configurations do I point to
the origins of gender/sex strengths. SCT is not an origin story
in this way; it is a socially situated phenomenology of certain
kinds of sexual diversity. As Bogaert (2006) cogently argued,
sexual orientation development need not be equated with
sexual orientation phenomenology.
Branched gender/sexes are likely to be seen as contexts for
discrimination, i.e., someone whose gender transgresses what is
expected for their sex will likely be seen as a threat to notions of
clear-cut sex binaries. Inpart,this isbecause gender/sexisnot just
a property of a person but is transactional and relational, i.e., it is
not just internal but is a negotiated and agreed upon identity in
cultural terms. Along these lines, one could plot ones own sense
of gender/sex alongside others senses of ones gender/sex. For
example, a person might have an internal sense of gender/sex that
is not presented in some contexts (e.g., through choices about
safety or openness), is not agreed upon by others (e.g., family
members, authorities, etc.), or is seen differentially depending on
context (e.g., a man with long hair in some times and places).
Individual gender/sex is separate from gender/sex sexuality
in SCT, though still interrelated. For example, there is research
showing that some women high in femininity are more attracted to men high in masculinity (Maybach & Gold, 1994) or
16

Iusethetermtranstoincludepeoplewhoaretrans-identified,transgender,
transsexual, and/or individuals who have experienced gender/sex transition,
as well as any other groups for whom this identity is meaningful. It can be
contrasted withcis,which is used to mean gender/sex assigned at birth that
coincides with felt gender/sex.

123

Arch Sex Behav

that individuals may become erotically aroused by fantasizing

about their own gender via autoeroticism (for differing perspectives on this, see Blanchard & Collins, 1993; Moser, 2009;
Serano, 2010). Some have suggested that individual gender/sex may interact with gender/sex sexuality and preferred
sexual behavior (Zheng, Hart, & Zheng, 2012, 2013).

Sexual Identities in SCT

Identities are an important part of SCT: they are names people
give to specific sexual configurations. Identities may be informed
by individual partnered sexual components like sexual partner
number (e.g., polyamorous, asexual, player, slut, monoamorous),
gender/sex sexuality (e.g. gay, bisexual, lesbian, heterosexual), and/or sexual parametern (e.g., kink-identified or any
number of other existing or future phenomena). Identity is
deliberately positioned in web of interconnections and can
result from numerous sexual components in conjunction with
intersectional factors that may vary in size and scope (see
Fig. 2). For example, twink (e.g., youthful, typically white, gay
men) represents an intersection between sexuality and age,
gender/sex, and race/ethnicity, as does bear (e.g., masculine gay
men with prominent and dark body and facial hair, often white)
(Moskowitz, Turrubiates, Lozano, & Hajek, 2013). Stud reflects
an intersection between sexuality, gender/sex, and race/ethnicity (e.g., a term used by/applied to African American lesbian
masculine-identified/appearing women) (Moore, 2011).
Connections between identities and sexual parameters are
bidirectional; identities can influence or inform partnered sexuality and/or reflect a quasi-summation of partnered sexuality
components that have names because they map onto existing
communities. Individuals might choose identities from a range of
possibilitiesorclaimidentitiesbecausetheyaretheonlyorbestfit.
Identities might be imposed on individuals or suggested to them.
In many cases where sexual configurations challenge sexuality
and gender/sex norms, the term queer has been employed.17 For
example, a woman who is attracted to women and is partnered
with a trans man (a man who was assigned female at birth, transitioned gender/sex, and claims/has a trans man identity) might
identify as queer because she is a lesbian who is no longer partnered with a woman. Of course, she might also identify or be
identified as straight (because men do not need to be born men),
17

I have not used the term queer in the actual models from Sexual
Configuration Theory even though it obviously echoes much of what I
mean to convey with challenge. One reason is that many see queer as
representing a specific set of politics that people may not relate to for a
variety of reasons (the politics might be seen as White, as Western, as
radical, as not radical enough, etc.). In addition, it is often used
synonymously with minority sexualities as an identity label and it seems
problematic for someone to have to self-locate as queer who does not
identify as queer. And, it seems problematic for someone to have to not
self-locate as queer who does identify as queer. But the term is still useful
as a frequently employed identity category/label (e.g., see Serano, 2013).

123

lesbian because of political and community affiliations, or queer

lesbian. Identity terms and labels are sourced from communities
themselves rather than a top-down scholar-applied fashion.
The goal of SCT is reflect diverse identities. Next, I provide
examples of how some identities might map onto SCT. This does
not imply that every sexual configuration has a unique identity or
should have. And I do not suggest that identities are fixed, universal, essentialized, or discrete. Individuals might locate the
same identity in different ways (e.g., one lesbian might locate her
orientations in all gendered ? female ? women, while another
might locate hers in masculine ? all sexes ? women). The same
individual might locate the same identity differently over time
(because identities are contextual). When this degree of subjectivity becomes a problem, researchers can operationalize terms
instead. SCT is intended to allow identities related to partner
number sexuality, gender/sex sexuality, and individual gender/sex to be mapped in ways that reflect sexual diversity.

Asexual, Demisexual, and Gray-A Identities,

and Nonsexual Lifephases
Asexual identities are often conceptualized as the obverse of
LGB and heterosexual identities (Bogaert, 2012b; Storms,
1980). And, they are discussed in terms of general sexuality
rather than specifically partnered sexuality. In SCT, asexuality
relates to a set of orientations and statuses that involve nonalloeroticism at their core and are related, not to gender/sex
sexuality,but to partner number sexuality. In this way, sexuality
as multifaceted is key to understanding asexuality: separating
nurturance from eroticism, and dyadic from solitary eroticism.
There is a body of empirical research supporting understandings of what could be described as an alloerotic/nonalloerotic dimension (e.g., Bogaert, 2004, 2006; Brotto et al., 2010;
Brotto & Yule, 2011; Carrigan, 2011; DeLuzio Chasin, 2011;
Prause & Graham, 2007; Przybylo, 2012; Scherrer, 2008). In
SCT, an asexually-identified person could identify as having
little to no alloerotic interest and being nonalloerotic. Thus,
asexual individuals could be located on Fig. 4b with a dot in
nonalloerotic and a dot in the meaningful location on Fig. 4c
(partner number nurturance). Partnered eroticism and partnered
nurturance are separate constructs in Sexual Configurations, so
a nonalloerotic asexual person can still be nurturantly oriented
to or partnered with other people in ways that intersect with
gender/sex and self-locate on Fig. 3 (e.g., heteroromantic
(Bogaert, 2012b). This matches lived experiences from
asexually-identified people who often have and/or desire nurturant partners, sometimes with gender/sex-specificities (e.g.,
Van Houdenhove, Gijs, TSjoen, & Enzlin, 2014).
More specifically, asexually-identified individuals are
not interested in being sexual with others for the purposes of
experiencing dyadic erotic pleasure though there is diversity within this as well. There is debate in the field and

Arch Sex Behav

among asexually-identified individuals about whether

asexuality references desire or attraction (e.g., Bogaert,
2012b; Hinderliter, 2009). It may be both or either depending on the person in question, and I think that SCT
sidesteps this debate anyway by positioning partner number
eroticism as multifaceted (it makes no assumptions about
the primacy of desire vs. attraction in orientation or identity, and they could be branched or coincident) and by
separating dyadic and solitary sexuality.
SCT makes no assumption about the solitary sexuality of
asexually identified individuals. This maps on to lived experiences of asexual individuals, some of whom are solitarily sexual
(Prause & Graham, 2007). Even in people who are erotic-sexuals-dyadic and solitary desire and activity are only mildly
correlated (van Anders, 2012b) and show divergent correlations
with other factors (van Anders, 2012b), highlighting how different solitary and dyadic eroticism are despite both beingsexual.
Finally, some asexually-identified individuals might engage in
sexual activity with partners even though they do not desire it, for
the same reasons that sexually-identified individuals sometimes
engage in unwanted sexual activity with their partners (e.g.,
power differentials, fear of stigma or losing partners, part of the
give-and-take of relationships, sexual coercion) (Van Houdenhove et al., 2014). In addition, Bogaert (2012a) argued that some
asexuals may have nontargeted sexual fantasies that do not involve identifiable people.
Though asexuality is an identity that maps onto nonalloerotic
orientations and statuses, there is no reason to assume that alloeroticism is a constant for people who do have a sexual identity
(whether articulated or not). That is, a sexually-identified person
could still have times and lifephases of nonalloeroticism. This
could be noted on Fig. 4, and has relevance for thinking about
clinical issues of dyadic desire: are there some adult lifephases
where nonalloeroticism might be seen as common rather than
medicalized?
Demisexuality is an identity where erotic connections are only
desired after establishment of nurturant connections (Demisexual,
2013). A demisexual individual might experience nurturant interest in others but no partnered erotic interest until a nurturant
contact is established, at which point the nurturant contact appears
tofacilitatealloeroticinterest.ThiscouldbenotatedonFig. 4using
numbers and arrows (e.g., 1 on nurturance and an arrow to 2 on
eroticism).
Gray-A or gray-asexuality denotes degrees of asexuality rather than its categorical presence/absence (Bogaert,
2012b; gray-a/grey-a., 2013). This can be modeled in SCT as
well, using the alloeroticism strength axis.

Bisexual, Pansexual, Person-not-Gender

Though pansexual, bisexual, and person-not-gender sexual
identities are often difficult to separate conceptually, they are

typically experienced quite differently. SCT is able to position

these sexualities in distinctive ways in accord with lived experiences (e.g., Rust, 2001). Though pansexuality has many
definitions, one might be that it involves attractions to people of
various gender/sexes that are not rooted in gender/sex binaries.
Accordingly, someone who self-identifies as pansexual might
be located on all genders/sexes in Fig. 5 along the vertical
gender/sex strength continuum. Someone who is bisexual might
be located at the both gender/sex positions.18 Finally, someone
with a person-not-gender orientation (where gender/sex is not
relevant to sexuality) might be located in nongender/sexed.
Bisexual identity and behavioral bisexuality reflect a multitude
of positionings, even when using something as specific as genital
arousal as a measure (e.g., Cerny & Janssen, 2011; Rosenthal,
Sylva, Safron, & Bailey, 2012; van Anders, 2012a). People might
identify as bisexual because they are attracted to women and men,
because they are person-not-gender and therefore could partner
with men or women (even though gender/sex is not an organizing
feature of their sexuality), and/or because they are interested in all
genders/sexes beyond female-male binaries and see bisexual as
the best term for this. SCT thus allows individuals to distinguish
between different identities that might inhere the same status.
Butch/Femme
Many butch/femme individuals articulate specific orientations
andidentities(e.g.,seeCoyote&Sharman,2011)andSCTisable
to capture these specificities. One reason is that butch and femme
are related to gender (i.e., masculinities, femininities, etc.), which
largely goes untheorized in most (academic) models of sexuality.
Both butch and femme are claimed by people of various
gender/sexes and sexualities, and not just lesbians where the
terms may be more well-known. Attractions to butch identities inhere attraction to masculinity and, accordingly, one
might place abon Fig. 3b (gender) to notate this attraction.
Butch masculinities are often situated as queer masculinities
18

Bisexuality is often positioned as somehow more problematically

reifying gender/sex binaries than other sexualities because it involves
attraction to both genders/sexes (Rust, 2001). I find this mystifying
given that heterosexual, gay, and lesbian identities are also understood to
inhere attractions to one and not the other gender/sex in a way that
could be interpreted as providing the same support for a gender binary.
Perhaps this is because some people see bisexuality as attempting to
transgress sexuality and gender norms but somehow not going far
enough. This is similar to hurtful critiques of some trans individuals who
identify as men or women rather than an identity outside gender/sex
binaries (i.e., that they should identify as genderqueer, Serano, 2013).
However, it is not clear why monosexual or cisgender individuals should
get to dictate that trans and bi identities should leave binaries behind
when cisgender, heterosexual, and lesbian/gay individuals dont, or why
doing so should be a precondition for progressive politics and/or
worldviews that allow for nonbinaristic identities. Accordingly, a more
generous (and accurate) positioning is that some peoples orientations
inhere some form of a binary in a way that is not indicative of their
worldview. See also Serano (2013) for useful extended discussion on
these points.

123

Arch Sex Behav

though, so the b could be located in gender challenge or on the

contingent masculine norm boundary. Similarly, partnering
with femme-identified individuals involves femininity, and
one could place anfon feminine, contingent feminine norm
boundary, or gender challenge in Fig. 3b.
Cisgender
How might a cisgender person (i.e., a term for people who retains
a birth-assigned gender/sex throughout life) use SCT? Cisgender
individuals can have branchedness in their individual gender/sex
(Fig. 5), with some men self-locating as feminine for example.
There may also be change over time: for example, a cisgender
woman might locate a feminine childhood gender with c, a
masculine adolescent gender with a, a feminine parenting gender
lifephase with p, etc.
Heterosexual and Mostly Heterosexual
Heterosexuals are a diverse group that typically includes people
who are currently in other-gender/sex relationships or wanting
them, but who have diverse past behaviors, current behaviors, and
orientations. These can be separated out via SCT, such that
heterosexuality is modeled in ways that reflect its complexity.
Moreover, heterosexuality may be more queer than typically
thought, because individuals might be more interested in maleness
than masculinity or femininity than femaleness (thus challenging
thenotionthatgenderandsexarenecessarilycongruentorthesame
thing). Someone could easily identify as heterosexual even while
having a trans-identified partner or a gender independent partner.
Researchers have recently paid increasing attention to
mostly heterosexuals as an understudied and underappreciated but quite common sexual orientation or identity
(Vrangalova & Savin-Williams, 2012). Mostly heterosexuals themselves are diverse, however, and SCT may be
one way for this diversity to be mapped out. This is in stark
contrast to many existing models of sexual orientation that
generally fail to capture mostly heterosexuals at all, much
less the diversity among them.
Polyamory, Open Relationships, Slut, Player, and Singleby-Choice
There are many types of multipartner sexualities that are conflated
orco-implicateddespitehavingaverydifferentsetofbehaviorsand
livedexperiences(e.g.,Barker,2005;Ritchie&Barker,2006;Rust,
2001, 2003; Sheff, 2005). This is paralleled by the many identities
used in polyamory and multiple partner discourse (Ritchie &
Barker, 2006). SCT can represent their distinctiveness (though
many have cogently complicated clear distinctions between these
and other types of multisexualities) (e.g., Klesse, 2006).

123

People who identify as polyamorous can represent diverse

formations of partnered sexuality, even while being multisexual
in status and/or orientation. On Fig. 6c, partner number nurturance, they might self-locate in multiple nurturant partners,
nurturant partners not number, or nurturant partner challenge. On
Fig. 6b, partner number eroticism, they might self-locate in
similar locations. A polyamorously-identified person could locate in multiple nurturant partners and one erotic partner (i.e.,
they want multiple nurturant relationships and one erotic one).
An open relationship typically involves one longer-term
relationship and other shorter-term erotic contacts that may or
may not be nurturant (though the definition is contested and
contestable). On Fig. 6, then, an open relationship may be
located in multiple erotic partners and one nurturant one.
Player is an identity for those who want to have multiple
erotic contacts but no nurturant ones (Anderson, 1989; Giordano, Longmore, Manning, & Northcutt, 2009; Milhausen &
Herold, 1999; Player, 2013). On Fig. 6, it would be located in
multiple erotic partners and nonallonurturance. A slut identity
or appellation might be someone who is located on multiple
erotic partners (Fig. 6b), with no specific location on Fig. 6c
(allonurturance). Single-by-choice individuals do not want
partners as defined by nurturance, but may be interested in
having erotic partners or contacts. On Fig. 6, single-by-choice
individuals could be located in nonallonurturant (Fig. 6c) but
anywhere in eroticism (Fig. 6b).
How do player, slut, and single-by-choice identities differ?
Player can differ markedly from single-by-choice; both involve
nonallonurturance but only player has a defined erotic partner
number location. Player also can differ from slut, because player
is explicitly defined by multiple erotic partners and no nurturant
ones, whereas slut is explicitly defined as multiple erotic partners
(but slut can still entail a nurturant partner). Or, slut may be the
woman version of player, with slut stigmatized because multiple
erotic partners is lauded for men but not women. Interestingly,
single-by-choice is an identity often claimed somewhat transgressively by women (as opposed to malebachelors) perhaps
because women are assumed, not based on empirical evidence, to
be high on allonurturance and men low.

Sex Worker
Though SCT has focused on a circumscribed array of partnered
sexualities, it may also be used to locate sex workers. On Fig. 4,
someone could have a high alloerotic status or multiple erotic
partners for financial reasons, but be oriented to one erotic
partner, or oriented towards multiple erotic partners in general.
Someone could have a multiple erotic partner number status
and orientation with branched or coincident multisexualities
(e.g., their multisexuality might or might not involve the people
they would prefer it to). But not all sex work is multierotic

Arch Sex Behav

anyway, as some individuals engage in a financially supported

position as a long-term exclusive sexual partner.

Applications and Implications

The goal of Sexual Configurations is to provide a theory of partnered sexualities that is rooted in and reflects sexual diversity
and that (1) modelsand visuallyorganizesspecific kindsofsexual
diversity, (2) allows diverse individuals (in theory, all individuals) to self-locate their gender/sex and partner number sexualities, and (3) provides a scientific theory and phenomenology
of sexualities that can be falsified and/or revised with empirical
data. There are at least six domains of applicability I see for it at
this point.

A sexual diversity lens recognizes that there is no natural

universal way to classify minority sexualities. As a corollary, it
provides the recognition there is also no natural universal
majority sexuality. Heterosexuality as a construct might be
understood to be a majority sexuality across many times and
places, but what gets counted in that construct varies by person,
culture, and time. For example, can a woman be heterosexual if
she has romantically kissed a woman? If she is attracted to
some women? If she has no interest in penetrative sexuality?
The lack of natural majorities or minorities has evolutionary implications. Even majority sexual expressions have
not been the same one thing throughout cultures and history,
which means that evolution has resulted in sexual flexibility
or plasticity. A sexual diversity lens denaturalizes the distinctions between sexual minorities and majorities and also
sidesteps the need to make those distinctions while acknowledging the utility of doing so.

Sexual Diversity Studies and Research

SCT is rooted in a sexual diversity lens, and this lens may be
useful outside the scope of the theory. Various fields engage
with sexuality including sex research, sexual health research,
sexology, sexual medicine, queer theory, transgender studies,
and sexuality studies. Though interdisciplinary, most of these
fields are disciplinarily-rooted in humanistic, social sciences,
biosciences, or biomedical approaches. Some focus on differences between sexual groups and critique those that lump
sexualities while others seek to destabilize difference and
critique those who would reify it. A sexual diversity lens may
be a way to sidestep this boundary policingand focus instead on
question-specific particularities or generalities while valuing
both (for some relevant discussion, see Hines, 2006).
What does a field of sexual diversity studies and research
contribute? By focusing on particularity, it attends to heterogeneity in ways that are scientifically useful, meaningful to lived
experiences, and avoid empirically inaccurate homogenizations (Parker, 2000). On the flipside, attending to generalities
prevents an overfocus on difference and facilitates more relative and positional understandings of sexualities. This double
lens of particularity and specificity, macro and micro, coupled
with openness to insights from disparate disciplines may prove
especially useful for understanding sexualities (Bancroft, 2000a).
Sexual diversity studies and research could be useful for conceptualizing minority and majority sexualities. The same gender/sex sexual orientation may be classified as a minority in a
certain time and place but not in another because what counts as a
minority gender/sex sexuality can depend on a host of factors
(Gagnon, 1990). Minority sexualities are always minoritized by
and within a culture. But cultures change. And, since cultures
change, the ways sexualities come to be defined as minority or
majorityvaryaswell(Rubin,1999).Astrengthofasexualdiversity
lens is thatminority sexualityis understood as a function ofhow a
person or culture engages with a type of sexuality or person.

Empirical Research
Obviously,amajorgoalofscienceistounderstandthephenomena
around us, including us. The figures could be used to locate individuals partnered sexualities or gender/sex in qualitative or even
quantitative ways, despite their complexity. Though their complexityisonedraw-back,scholarshavelongandrepeatedlyargued
for multidimensional models of sexualitythat arecomplex enough
to capture rather than elide existing diversity (e.g., Joel et al., 2014;
McWhirter et al., 1990; Sanders et al., 1990; Whalen et al., 1990).
Moreover, the models of SCT can vary in degree of complexity to
match individual experiences (e.g., by collapsing categories that
are coincident; by allowing for notation of important information).
SCT provides a way to describe a delimited range of partnered
sexualities, which is a critical step in science: any scientific
analysis must be preceded by an adequate description(Whalen
et al., 1990, p. 68, italics in original).
Many individuals exhibit sexualities and gender/sexes that are
not well-captured by existing theories of sexual orientation, and
thishasbeenknownforsometime(McWhirteretal.,1990).Thisis
true for people who see their sexualities and/or gender/sexes existing outside current norms, but also for surprisingly large numbers of others; for example, 46.7 % ofnormativewomen in one
study experienced some degree of a sense of both genders and
only a minority of men (29.6 %) never wished to be theother
gender (Joel et al., 2014). Being able to separate gender/sex from
gender from sex, partner number from gender/sex sexuality, and
eroticism from nurturance can help to make sexual diversity
empirically visible. Moreover, it can help to assess the degree of
interconnection and branched/coincident among the parameters.
Because SCT will allow for the empirical study of previously
excluded aspects of partnered sexuality, I hope that it will be
generative and lay groundwork for identifying patterns as yet not
understood. As Bullough (1990) suggested: A more complex

123

Arch Sex Behav

scale could have numerous research advantages by not only

allowing us to research over again what we have done before but
also allowing us to ask different questions and to forge different
kinds of answers(p. 11).

Self-knowledge
Understanding the phenomena around us-including us-is not a
drive limited to practicing scientists and academics. People
outside academia have provided some of the most comprehensive and precise contributions to understanding sexualities. Still,
most theories of sexuality end up marginalizing many people
who are seen to fall outside theoretical purview. Though belonging should not be uncritically desired, people should be able
to situate themselves and see that they have a place in scholarship
that ostensibly aims to place everyone within a delimited frame.
One of the applications of SCT, then, is a more comprehensive
understanding of our sexualities for us as people (not just the us
who are scientists and researchers) in ways that provide a place
for diverse sexualities and do not further marginalize the
marginalized. As Lorber (1996) argued,There are revolutionary
possibilities inherent in rethinking the categories of gender,
sexuality, and physiological sex(p. 155).
Self-knowledge can be useful in other ways. Individuals currently may feel guilty for sexualities they perceive to be mis/
unaligned rather than branched. SCT positions branchedness as a
real part of sexualities that is not inherently problematic (though it
recognizes that it can be experienced that way) and, moreover,
reflects historicity and positionality in experiences of sexuality
(Rubin, 1999). For example, why should a heterosexual man feel
uncomfortable by transient or persistent desires for men? Many
people desire men,so whynot heterosexual-identified men? After
all, desires do not constitute identities (Rosario & Schrimshaw,
2014). Or, why should someone feel that the people ze (a gender/sex-neutral pronoun) wants to flirt with should be the same
people ze wants to be kiss? It may be useful to realize that multiple
eroticpartnernumberfantasies mayhavenothingtodowitherotic
behaviorbecauseorientationsandstatusesaredifferentconstructs
that can be branched or co-incident. There are no natural laws that
say co-incident sexual configurations are better, more right,
necessary, or desirable; rightness is instead a human judgment.
SCT might be a way to support more liberatory self-knowledge.
Social Neuroendocrinology
Researchers have historically tried to link sexuality to testosterone
with varying success. Focusing on testosterone and gender/sex
sexuality may have fit cultural ideas about masculinity, but evidence repeatedly fails to support linkages between the two despite
some very disturbing historical attempts (for further discussion of
this, see Bogaert, 2012b; Jordan-Young, 2010; van Anders, 2013).
AsWhalenetal.(1990)noted,Kinseyrecognizedthattestosterone

123

may be linked with intensity of sexual drive, but not its focus.
Instead, researchers have found that testosterone is linked to relationalphenomenaandpartnernumbersexuality(forreviews,see
Gray & Campbell, 2009; van Anders, 2009) and various types of
sexual desire(Burkeetal.,underreview;van Anders,2012b).This
body of work suggests that testosterone is related to being oriented
towards multiple sexual partners in men, and having multiple sex
ual partners in women (Gray & Campbell, 2009; Gray, Yang, &
Pope, 2006; van Anders, 2009; van Anders & Goldey, 2010; van
Anders, Hamilton, & Watson, 2007b), with much still to be
understood.
Social neuroendocrinology, the bidirectional study of hormones and social behavior in context (van Anders & Watson,
2006; van Anders, 2013), is interconnected with SCT. Eroticism andnurturance are derived from various findings as well as
the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds (S/P Theory) (van
Anders et al., 2011). In the S/P Theory, peptides like oxytocin
are linked with both nurturance and eroticism. But testosterone,
in contrast, distinguishes between the two: nurturance is linked
to low testosterone, and eroticism is linked to high testosterone,
one of the empirical reasons the two can be separated. Eroticism
is a subcomponent of competitiveness, which is related to acquiring/defending resources, broadly defined to include erotic
contacts, status, power, etc. Thus, the S/P Theory and social
neuroendocrinology could be useful for devising empirical
tests of SCT. For example, high alloerotic strength in Fig. 6b
could map onto high testosterone-competitiveness in a variety
of ways including desire for partnered erotic pleasure or sexual
dominance.19,20 In Fig. 6c, some sexual desires might be represented in terms of closeness, as desire to be sexual with
someone else to experience intimacy rather than genital pleasure
per se, and research supports this link between lower testosterone and more nurturant forms of sexual desire (Burke et al.,
under review). SCT thus might provide important ways to assess
hormonal associations with partnered sexuality in context.
Feminist and Queer Empowerment, Action, and Alliance
Building
Women and sexual minorities often have their sexualities at best
theorized as problematic and at worst rendered invisible or illegible (or possibly vice versa). Conceptualizing sexualities only
along minority/majority lines is a limited and limiting way to
19

It seems worth noting that someone who has strong interests in

sexually coercing others or who does sexually coerce others might locate
as highly alloerotic because eroticism does not necessarily denote
positive, wanted, or consensual phenomena. The same activity may be
erotic for one person and traumatic for another.
20
Individuals strongly interested in consensual sexual dominance and/
or who do engage in it might also be represented here. Given that detailed
consent is a major feature of dominance/submission kink-related
sexualities, I do not at all mean to conflate these with sexual coercion
(hence separate footnotes).

Arch Sex Behav

thinkaboutsexuality(whichisnottounderminetheimportanceof
doing so sometimes), and only sometimes useful for science. So,
one goal of SCT has been to deminoritize marginalized sexualities (though not in a post-minority sense), which may be
useful. However, I also recognize that academic theories are
sometimes useful and sometimes not beyond academic spaces
and, though I have tried to incorporate and pay due to ideas from
community sources, I obviously have not developed or presented
SCT as a for-community by-community theory.
Liberatory worldviews are often ascribed to specific identities, orientations, or statuses, and this has often been the case
for women and sex partners for masculine-identified individuals (e.g.,If you were liberated, you would have sex with
me!). SCT, however, positions sexualities without ascribing a
more or less liberatory nature to them, which isafter all
culturally contingent and decided upon. A progressive sexuality is not necessarily more sexuality or different sexuality.
Instead, I position the theory of Sexual Configurations as
potentially liberatory; one could argue that a progressive
sexuality is one that recognizes sexual diversity, situates its
own sexuality/ies among this diversity, and recognizes its
and others situatedness (i.e., that recognizes how it is not
the only, the right, or the natural version).
Identity politics have often been used to police sexual minority communities (e.g., see Serano, 2013). For example, are
you polyamorous enough if you only have two partners? Are
you queer enough if you are attracted only to people with vulvas/vaginas? Can trans women be lesbians? Do bisexuals reify
the sex binary? Can heterosexuals be queer? SCT positions a
diverse array of sexualities such that one can begin (or continue)
to see how individuals might align based on discrimination or
worldviews rather than, for example, interest in penises.21 As
Haraway (2006) has argued, collective action based on affinities (e.g., anti-normativity) rather than identities may be one
compelling and effective way of uniting for social change.
Gendered sexual scripts have been identified as problematic
(Braun, Gavey, & McPhillips, 2003; Wiederman, 2005). Many
people, especially but not exclusively young heterosexual
women, engage in sexual behavior with men because of
heteronormative sexual scripts that position love (nurturance)
alongside sexuality (eroticism) (e.g., Holland, Ramazanoglu,
Sharpe, & Thomson, 1998). These scripts are sometimes used
by individuals (especially masculine individuals, most commonly men) to convey the notion that if she loved me, she
would have sex in or outside a relationship. One interesting
liberatory potential of SCT is the contestability of the assumed
tie between eroticism and nurturance. By separating the two in
common understandings of sexuality, it would make little sense
to have sex with someone to prove love.
Similar scripts state that sex will lead to love. And, many
women (though not exclusively) follow sexual scripts that
21

Not to minimize interest in penises.

suggest that sexual engagement with a man will lead to him

falling in love with them or be a way to retain/enhance love. This
may be possible, after all, love and sex are not without connections. But, SCT also makes this an unlikely proposition in that the
two are separable: eroticism cannot be expected to lead to love.
Clinical, Counseling, and Health Contexts
SCT might be useful in helping clients understand their own
sexualities as branched rather than unaligned or misaligned when
this makes sense. It may be helpful for individuals grappling
with their nontraditional sexualities to see them laid out; this
might aid in a deeper understanding, potentially especially in the
context of the complexity of ones own sexual configuration or
ones partners. For example, a polyamorous person might be
interested in multiple nurturant partners and one erotic one, and
understanding this might be useful to relational insights. Some
monoamorously-identified couples who have experienced infidelity and are specifically concerned about loss-of-love (rather
than sexual straying) might choose to position their partners as
oriented towards one nurturant partner and multiple erotic ones.
Sexually-identified people might more usefully situate lack of
sexualdesireasanonalloerotic lifephaseorasexualityratherthan
as a sexual desire disorder.
SCT might also be useful to public health contexts, where
clear mapping out of statuses can be critical to policies and/or
prevention efforts. Already, concepts in wide use like men who
have sex with men (MSM) and women who have sex with
women (WSW) could be mapped out on SCT. SCT also models
other important concepts like multiple erotic partners that could
be relevant. Moreover, it allows for the separability of erotic
partner number statuses (which could involve attention to contraception and/or safer sex practices) from nurturant ones (which
might not). Importantly, the intersectional nature of Sexual
Configurations allows for the separation of identity from behavior, which can be important when identities are understood to
describe majority cultural groups with which ethnic minorities
may not feel a sense of belonging or may reject. Finally, SCT
could provide a framework that addresses diverse sexualities in
ways that are not stigmatizing or additionally marginalizing.

Conclusions
InSCT,Ihaveaimedtoprovide conceptualizationsand modelsof
diverse sexualities that are rooted in empirical research and lived
experiences and are scientifically generative. There are many
sexualities that I did not cover, obviously, and I have made space
for them with sexual parametern. I have argued that solitary and
partnered sexualities are separable. I have highlighted the importance of gender/sex sexuality as one, but not the only or major
feature of sexuality, incorporating gender/sex without focusing
only on its relevance for difference (Bancroft, 2000b; Katz-Wise

123

Arch Sex Behav

& Hyde, 2014; Unger, 1979; Vanwesenbeeck, 2009). And, I have

disentangled gender and sex from each other and gender/sex itself
when these are more typically conflated (e.g., Freud, 1905).
In SCT, I make the case for partner number sexuality, a
parameter of partnered sexuality that is often only conceptualized by individuals on its margins (e.g., asexually- or
polyamorously-identified individuals). It usefully models the
interconnections and distinctions betweenotherwise seemingly
disparate identities like asexual and polyamorous, single-bychoice, and player. And, SCT models the distinctions between
nurturance and eroticism for partnered sexuality in ways that
map onto lived experiences.
To replace concepts of alignment and misalignment, I have
provided branched and co-incident as more scientific terminology. In doing so, I have argued that sexualities are deeply and
recursively multifaceted. Ihave also articulated a sexual diversity
lens as a way of engaging with sexuality, one that focuses on
particularities and generalities to provide local and broad insights
about diverse sexualities.
I have offered a set of potential applications for SCT, and these
are empirically testable. For example, I have suggested that it may
have utility forcounseling around sexual and relational health and
well-being. My brief attention to social neuroendocrinology also
opens up new avenues for hormonal research; for example how
partner number sexuality might map onto neurobiological substrates for social bonds and what the limitations are of converging
these different epistemologies. SCT is meant to be generative and
open up novel avenues for research. Some relate to temporal
issues; for example, is an orientation towards multiple sexual
partners organized around multiple partners at one time, over an
extended period of time, and/or different partners in close succession? Or is an orientation to multiple people in the same event
different from wanting multiple sexual relationship partners?
Other questions relate to intersectionality; for example, how
might cultureinform the waysgender/sexesareconceptualizedas
normative or gender/sex-challenge? Of course, one question I
would like to make explicit is whether SCT works. Does it reflect
diverse sexualities and make sense of them? How might it be
expanded or revised in light of sexualities that will come to matter
or should already?
One major goal has been to root SCT in this time and place and
be able to reflect diverse times and places. Another has been to
demonstrate how uniting knowledge from lived experiences and
biology, neuroscience and feminist scholarship, social neuroendocrinology and sociology provides for compelling and generative theory. I hope, therefore, that with SCT I have provided a
way to denature sexuality into culturally contextualized phenomena and rebiologize situated notions of sexuality. In other
words, I hope I have provided a model for studying phenomena
that are meaningfully and simultaneously cultural and biological
without the determinisms, essentialisms, and boundary policing
that often accompany each.

123

Critically, I have tried to make clear how all people have

located sexualities using a sexual diversity lens, regardless of
their socially-derived position of sexual minority or majority. I
argue that this can be one way to build diverse alliances around
social justice aims, i.e., to recognize that each of us is situated in a
larger social and sexual landscape. In sum, with SCT, I have
aimed to change existing understandings and conceptualizations of sexuality in meaningful and useful ways.
Acknowledgments The author is also affiliated with the Program in
Neuroscience,theReproductiveSciencesProgram,theScience,Technology,
and Society Program, and the Biosocial Methods Collaborative at the
University of Michigan. I count myself fortunate to be part of a vibrant
community of sexuality scholars and thinkers. This article grew in part out of
the 2012 International Academy of Sex Research conference in Estoril,
Portugal, with the juxtaposition of two panels that brought ideas from very
different scholarships into the same thought-space for me: the asexuality
panel (withLori Brotto,Paul Enzlin, Nicole Prause,andEla Przybylo) andthe
polyamory panel (with Daniel Cardoso, Alex Iantaffi, and myself). I am
thankful to Marc Breedlove for inviting me to speak in the 2012Whom You
Loveseries at Michigan State University where I discussed some very early
ideas that grew, in part, into this article. I am deeply grateful to Lisa Diamond,
who enthusiastically supported this work and provided valuable feedback on
many drafts. I am truly indebted to Janine Farrell and Meredith Chivers for
extended discussion, comments on drafts, and transformative insights. I am
very thankful to Daniel Cardoso, Terri Conley, Devon Grayson, and Eli
Sheff for their deep engagement with early drafts, as well as Zena Sharman
who also spent considerable time discussing several points with me. A
number of students in my lab, from 2012 to 2014, were generous with their
time and thoughts in discussion and commenting on early drafts, including
most prominently Katherine Goldey and Gayatri Jainagaraj. My partner,
Greg van Anders, was critical to this article in several ways: sharing more
heavily in co-parenting at times so I could finish yet another draft, reading
early drafts and discussing ideas throughout, teaching me a new graphics
program and being on-call for advice, listening to me map out ideas and
asking crucial questions, and encouraging me and this article at every
chance. I am also thankful to Meg John Barker, Aaron Devor, Sara McClelland, and Abigail Stewart for reading early drafts, and to Stephanie Preston
and Stacey Ritz for helpful discussion. Christopher Burke of http://www.
burkevisuals.com asked key questions that helped me think through visualizations for some figures in new ways and provided an early concept
diagram that was critical and foundational to the final versions I developed
of these figures. And, I am grateful to the Editor and anonymous reviewers
for their very detailed, generous, thoughtful, and transformative feedback.

References
Adkins-Regan, E. (2005). Hormones and animal social behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ahmed, S. (2006). Orientations: Toward a queer phenomenology. GLQ:
A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 12, 543574.
Anderson, E. (1989). Sex codes and family life among poor inner-city
youths. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, 501, 5978.
Anderson, E. (Fall 2012 Edition). Feminist epistemology and philosophy
of science. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of
philosophy. Retrieved March 14, 2014 from http://plato.stanford.
edu/archives/fall2012/entries/feminism-epistemology.
Bancroft, J. (2000a). Individual differences in sexual risk taking: A
biopsychosocial theoretical approach. In J. Bancroft (Ed.), The role

Arch Sex Behav

of theory in sex research (pp. 177212). Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Bancroft, J. (Ed.). (2000b). The role of theory in sex research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Barker, M. (2005). This is my partner, and this is mypartners partner:
Constructing a polyamorous identity in a monogamous world.
Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 18, 7588.
Barker, M., & Langdridge, D. (2010). Whatever happened to nonmonogamies? Critical reflections on recent research and theory.
Sexualities, 13, 748772.
Beckstead, A. L. (2012). Can we change sexual orientation? Archives of
Sexual Behavior, 41, 121134.
Bell, A. P., Weinberg, M. S., & Hammersmith, S. K. (1981). Sexual
preference: Its development in men and women. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Bem, S. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155162.
Berridge, K. C., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2008). Affective neuroscience of
pleasure: Reward in humans and animals. Psychopharmacology,
199, 457480.
Blanchard, R., & Collins, P. I. (1993). Men with sexual interest in
transvestites, transsexuals, and she-males. Journal of Nervous and
Mental Disease, 181, 570575.
Blanchard, R., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Cantor, J. M., Klassen, P. E., &
Dickey, R. (2009). Absolute versus relative ascertainment of pedophilia in men. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 21,
431441.
Blanchard, R., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Klassen, P. E., Dickey, R., &
Cantor, J. M. (2012). Sexual attraction to others: A comparison of
two models of alloerotic responding in men. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 41, 1329.
Bogaert, A. F. (2004). Asexuality: Prevalence and associated factors in a
national probability sample. Journal of Sex Research, 41, 279287.
Bogaert, A. F. (2006). Toward a conceptual understanding of asexuality.
Review of General Psychology, 10, 241250.
Bogaert, A. F. (2012a). Asexuality and autochorissexualism (identityless sexuality). Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 15131514.
Bogaert, A. F. (2012b). Understanding asexuality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littefield Publishers.
Bogaert, A. F., & Brotto, L. A. (2013). Object of desire self-consciousness
theory. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 40, 116.
Boom, J. (2008). The philosophy of pansexuality. Sexologies, 17, S73.
Boswell, J. (1990). Sexual and ethical categories in premodern Europe.
In D. P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch (Eds.),
Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation
(pp. 1531). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss (Vol. 1). New York: Basic Books.
Braun, V., Gavey, N., & McPhillips, K. (2003). The fair deal: Unpacking
accounts of reciprocity in heterosex. Sexualities, 6, 237261.
Brotto, L. A., Knudson, G., Inskip, J., Rhodes, K., & Erksine, Y. (2010).
Asexuality: A mixed methods approach. Archives of Sexual Behavior,
39, 599618.
Brotto, L. A., & Yule, M. A. (2011). Physiological and subjective sexual
arousalinself-identified asexual women. Archivesof SexualBehavior,
40, 699712.
Bullough, V. (1990). The Kinsey scale in historical perspective. In D. P.
McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/
heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation (pp. 314). New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Burke, S. M., Goldey, K. L., & van Anders, S. M. (under review). How
sexual is sexual desire? Testosterone and a multifaceted measure of
desire in women.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity.
New York: Routledge.

Cain, K. E., & Ketterson, E. D. (2012). Competitive females are successful

females; phenotype, mechanism, and selection in a common songbird.
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 66, 241252.
Califia, P. (1999). Gay men, lesbians, and sex: Doing it together. In L.
Gross & J. D. Woods (Eds.), The Columbia reader on lesbians &
gay men in media, society, & politics (pp. 9296). New York:
Columbia University Press.
Carrigan, M. (2011). Theres more to life than sex? Difference and
commonality within the asexual community. Sexualities, 14, 462
478.
Carter, C. S. (1998). Neuroendocrine perspectives on social attachment
and love. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 23, 779818.
Cass, V. C. (1990). The implications of homosexual identity formation
for the Kinsey model and scale of sexual preference. In D. P.
McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/
heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation (pp. 239266).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Cerny, J. A., & Janssen, E. (2011). Patterns of sexual arousal in
homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual men. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 40, 687697.
Chivers, M. L., Rieger, G., Latty, E., & Bailey, J. M. (2004). A sex difference in the specificity of sexual arousal. Psychological Science, 15,
736744.
Chivers, M. L., Seto, M. C., Lalumiere, M. L., Laan, E., & Grimbos, T.
(2010). Agreement of self-reported and genital measures of sexual
arousal in men and women: A meta-analysis. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 39, 556.
Chivers, M. L., & Timmers, A. D. (2012). Effects of gender and relationship context in audio narratives on genital and subjective sexual
response in heterosexual women and men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 185197.
Coleman, E. (1987). Assessment of sexual orientation. Journal of Homosexuality, 14, 924.
Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought. New York: Routledge.
Coyote, I. E., & Sharman, Z. (Eds.). (2011). Persistence: All ways butch
and femme. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity
politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law
Review, 43, 12411299.
Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science
perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist
Theory, 9, 6785.
Delphy, C. (1993). Rethinking sex and gender. Womens Studies International Forum, 16, 19.
DeLuzio Chasin, C. J. (2011). Theoretical issues in the study of asexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40, 713723.
Demisexual. (2013). Retrieved March 17, 2014 from http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Demisexual.
Dewitte, M. (2014). Gender differences in liking and wanting sex: Examining the role of motivational context and implicit versus explicit processing.Archivesof Sexual Behavior. doi:10.1007/s10508-014-0419-7.
Diamond, L. M. (2003a). Was it a phase? Young womens relinquishment of lesbian/bisexual identities over a 5-year period. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 352364.
Diamond, L. M. (2003b). What does sexual orientation orient? A
biobehavioral model distinguishing romantic love and sexual
desire. Psychological Review, 110, 173192.
Diamond, L. M. (2012). The desire disorder in research on sexual orientation in women: Contributions of dynamical systems theory. Archives
of Sexual Behavior, 41, 7383.
Diamond, L. M. (2014). Gender and same-sex sexuality. In D. L. Tolman
& L. M. Diamond (Eds.), APA handbook of sexuality and psychology:
Vol. 1. Person-based approaches (pp. 629652). Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.

123

Arch Sex Behav

Diamond, L. M., & Butterworth, M. (2008). Questioning gender and
sexual identity: Dynamic links over time. Sex Roles, 59, 365376.
Diamond, L. M., & Dickenson, J. A. (2012). The neuroimaging of love
and desire: Review and future directions. Clinical Neuropsychiatry, 9,
3946.
Diamond, M. (2009). Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones. Hormones and Behavior, 55, 621632.
Dreger, A. D. (1998). Hermaphrodites and the medical invention of sex.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dreger, A. D. (Ed.). (1999). Intersex in the age of ethics. Hagerstown,
MD: University Publishing Group.
Easton, D., & Liszt, C. A. (1997). The ethical slut: A guide to infinite
sexual possibilities. San Francisco: Greenery Press.
Ebsworth, M., & Lalumiere, M. L. (2012). Viewing time as a measure of
bisexual sexual interest. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 161172.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the body: Gender politics and the
construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (2005). The bare bones of sex: Part 1-sex and gender.
Signs, 30, 14911527.
Fernandez-Duque, E., Valeggia, C. R., & Mendoza, S. P. (2009). The
biology of paternal care in human and nonhuman primates. Annual
Review of Anthropology, 38, 115130.
Fisher, H. E. (1992). Anatomy of love: The natural history of monogamy,
adultery, and divorce. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Fitzgerald, L. F., Swan, S., & Magley, V. J. (1997). But was it really
sexual harassment? Legal, behavioral, and psychological definitions of the workplace victimization of women. In W. ODonohue
(Ed.), Sexual harassment: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 5
28). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Freud, S. (1905). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. London: Hogarth
Press.
Freund, K. (1974). Male homosexuality: An analysis of the pattern. In
J. A. Loraine (Ed.), Understanding homosexuality: Its biological
and psychological bases (pp. 2581). Lancaster: Springer Netherlands.
Freund, K., & Kuban, M. (1993). Toward a testable developmental
model of pedophilia: The development of erotic age preference.
Child Abuse and Neglect, 17, 315324.
Fujimura, J. H. (2006). Sex genes: A critical sociomaterial approach to
the politics and molecular genetics of sex determination. Signs, 32,
4982.
Gagnon, J. (1990). Gender preference in erotic relations: The Kinsey
Scale and sexual scripts. In D. P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J.
M. Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of
sexual orientation (pp. 177207). New York: Oxford University Press.
Gagnon, J. (2000). Theorizing risky sex. In J. Bancroft (Ed.), The role of
theory in sex research (pp. 149176). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Galupo, M. P., Davis, K. S., Grynkiewiez, A. L., & Mitchell, R. C.
(2014a). Conceptualization of sexual orientation identity among
sexual minorities: Patterns across sexual and gender identity.
Journal of Bisexuality, 14, 433456.
Galupo, M. P., Mitchell, R. C., Grynkiewicz, A. L., & Davis, K. S.
(2014b). Sexual minority reflections on the Kinsey Scale and the
Klein Sexual Orientation Grid: Conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Bisexuality, 14, 404432.
Gartrell, N. K., Bos, H. M. W., & Goldberg, N. G. (2012). New trends in
same-sex sexual contact for American adolescents [Letter to the
Editor]? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 57.
Gavey, N., & Senn, C. Y. (2014). Sexuality and sexual violence. In D. L.
Tolman & L. M. Diamond (Eds.), APA handbook of sexuality and
psychology: Vol. 1. Person-based approaches (pp. 339382).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Giordano, P. C., Longmore, M. A., Manning, W. D., & Northcutt, M. J.
(2009). Adolescent identities and sexual behavior: An examination
of Andersons player hypothesis. Social Forces, 87, 18131844.

123

Goldey, K. L., & van Anders, S. M. (2011). Sexy thoughts: Effects of

sexual cognitions on testosterone, cortisol, and arousal in women.
Hormones and Behavior, 59, 754764.
Gray, P. B., & Campbell, B. C. (2009). Human male testosterone, pairbonding, and fatherhood. In P. B. Gray & P. T. Ellison (Eds.),
Endocrinology of social relationships (pp. 270293). Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Gray, P. B., Yang, C. F. J., & Pope, H. G. (2006). Fathers have lower
salivary testosterone levels than unmarried men and married nonfathers in Beijing, China. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 273,
333339.
gray-a/grey-a. (2013). Retrieved March 17, 2014 from http://www.
asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gray-A_/_Grey-A.
Haig, D. (2004). The inexorable rise of gender and the decline of sex:
Social change in academic titles, 19452001. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 33, 8796.
Haldeman, D. C. (2002). Gay rights, patient rights: The implications of
sexual orientation conversion therapy. Professional Psychology:
Research and Practice, 33, 260264.
Halley, J. E. (1994). Sexual orientation and the politics of biology: A
critique of the argument from immutability. Stanford Law Review,
46, 503568.
Haraway, D. (2006). A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and
socialist-feminism in the late 20th century. In J. Weiss, J. Nolan, J.
Hunsinger, & P. Trifonas (Eds.), International handbook of virtual
learning environments (pp. 117158). Dordrecht: Springer.
Harding, S. (1986). The science question in feminism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Harris, G. T., Lalumiere, M. L., Seto, M. C., Rice, M. E., & Chaplin, T. C.
(2012). Explaining the erectile responses of rapists to rape stories:
The contributions of sexual activity, non-consent, and violence
with injury. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 221229.
Herdt, G. (1990). Developmental discontinuities and sexual orientation
across cultures. In D. P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch
(Eds.), Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation (pp. 208236). New York: Oxford University Press.
Herek, G. M., & Garnets, L. D. (2007). Sexual orientation and mental
health. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 3, 353375.
Hinderliter, A. C. (2009). Methodological issues for studying asexuality
[Letter to the Editor]. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38, 619621.
Hines, S. (2006). Whats the difference? Bringing particularity to queer
studies of transgender. Journal of Gender Studies, 15, 4966.
Hird, M. J. (2000). Genders nature: Intersexuality, transsexualism and
the sex/gender binary. Feminist Theory, 1, 347364.
Holland, J., Ramazanoglu, C., Sharpe, S., & Thomson, R. (1998). The
male in the head: Young people, heterosexuality, and power.
London: The Tufnell Press.
Hughes, I. A., Houk, C., Ahmed, S. F., & Lee, P. A. (2006). Consensus
statement on management of intersex disorders. Journal of
Pediatric Urology, 2, 148162.
Janssen, E., McBride, K. R., Yarber, W., Hill, B. J., & Butler, S. M.
(2008). Factors that influence sexual arousal in men: A focus group
study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37, 252265.
Joel, D. (2012). Genetic-gonadal-genitals sex (3G-sex) and the
misconception of brain and gender, or, why 3G-males and 3Gfemales have intersex brain and intersex gender. Biology of Sex
Differences, 3, 16. doi:10.1186/2042-6410-3-27.
Joel, D., Tarrasch, R., Berman, Z., Mukamel, M., & Ziv, E. (2014).
Queering gender: Studying gender identity in normative individuals. Psychology & Sexuality, 5, 291321.
Jordan-Young, R. M. (2010). Brain storm: The flaws in the science of sex
differences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Jozkowski, K. N., & Peterson, Z. D. (2013). College students and sexual
consent: Unique insights. Journal of Sex Research, 50, 517523.
Katz-Wise, S. L., & Hyde, J. S. (2014). Sexuality and gender: The
interplay. In D. L. Tolman & L. M. Diamond (Eds.), APA handbook

Arch Sex Behav

of sexuality and psychology: Vol. 1. Person-based approaches (pp.
2962). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Kessler, S. J. (1998). Lessons from the intersexed. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
Kimmel, M. S. (Ed.). (1987). Changing men: New directions in research
on men and masculinity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., & Martin, C. E. (1948). Sexual behavior
in the human male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co.
Klein, F. (1990). The need to view sexual orientation as a multivariable
dynamic process: A theoretical perspective. In D. P. McWhirter, S.
A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation (pp. 277282). New
York: Oxford University Press.
Klein, F. (1993). The bisexual option. New York: Harrington Park Press/
Haworth Press.
Klein, F., Sepekoff, B., & Wolf, T. J. (1985). Sexual orientation: A multivariable dynamic process. Journal of Homosexuality, 11, 3549.
Kleinplatz, P. J., & Diamond, L. M. (2014). Sexual diversity. In D. L.
Tolman & L. M. Diamond (Eds.), APA handbook of sexuality and
psychology: Vol. 1. Person-based approaches (pp. 245267).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Klesse, C. (2006). Polyamory and its others: Contesting the terms of
non-monogamy. Sexualities, 9, 565583.
Korchmaros, J. D., Powell, C., & Stevens, S. (2013). Chasing sexual
orientation: Acomparisonof commonlyusedsingle-indicatormeasures
of sexual orientation. Journal of Homosexuality, 60, 596614.
Koss, M. P., Abbey, A., Campbell, R., Cook, S., Norris, J., Testa, M.,
White, J. (2007). Revising the SES: A collaborative process to
improve assessment of sexual aggression and victimization. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 357370.
Koss, M. P., Gidycz, C. A., & Wisniewski, N. (1987). The scope of rape:
Incidence and prevalence of sexual aggression and victimization in
a national sample of higher education students. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, 162170.
Krishnamurti, T., & Loewenstein, G. (2012). The partner-specific sexual
liking and sexual wanting scale: Psychometric properties. Archives
of Sexual Behavior, 41, 467476.
Kukkonen, T. M., Binik, Y. M., Amsel, R., & Carrier, S. (2007). Thermography as a physiological measure of sexual arousal in both men
and women. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 4, 93105.
Laan, E., & Janssen, E. (2007). How do men and women feel? Determinants of subjective experience of sexual arousal. In E. Janssen
(Ed.), The psychophysiology of sex (pp. 278290). Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., & Michaels, S. (1994).
The social organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United
States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lerner, R. M. (1992). Final solutions: Biology, prejudice, and genocide.
University Park, PA: Penn State Press.
Levant, R. F., Rankin, T. J., Hall, R. J., Smalley, K. B., & Williams, C. M.
(2012). Measurement of nontraditional sexuality in women.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 283295.
Lippa, R. A. (2012). Effects of sex and sexual orientation on selfreported attraction and viewing times to images of men and women:
Testing for category specificity. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41,
149160.
Lloyd, E. A. (2005). The case of the female orgasm: Bias in the science of
evolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Longino, H. E. (2002). Subjects, power, and knowledge: Description
and prescription in feminist philosophies of science. In K. B. Wray
(Ed.), Knowledge and inquiry: Readings and epistemology (pp. 385
404). Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.
Longino, H. E. (2013). Studying human behavior: How scientists investigate aggression and sexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lorber, J. (1996). Beyond the binaries: Depolarizing the categories of
sex, sexuality, and gender. Sociological Inquiry, 66, 143159.

Lykins, A. D., Cantor, J. M., Kuban, M. E., Blak, T., Dickey, R., Klassen,
P. E., & Blanchard, R. (2010). Sexual arousal to female children in
gynephilic men. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment,
22, 279289.
Mah, K., & Binik, Y. M. (2002). Do all orgasms feel alike? Evaluating a
two-dimensional model of the orgasm experience across gender
and sexual context. Journal of Sex Research, 39, 104113.
Markowitz, S. (2001). Pelvic politics: Sexual dimorphism and racial
difference. Signs, 26, 389414.
Maybach, K. L., & Gold, S. R. (1994). Hyperfemininity and attraction to
macho and non-macho men. Journal of Sex Research, 31, 9198.
McWhirter, D. P., Sanders, S. A., & Reinisch, J. M. (Eds.). (1990).
Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Meana, M. (2010). Elucidating womens (hetero)sexual desire: Definitional challenges and content expansion. Journal of Sex Research,
47, 104122.
Mehrabian, A., & Blum, J. S. (1997). Physical appearance, attractiveness, and the mediating role of emotions. Current Psychology, 16,
2042.
Milhausen, R. R., & Herold, E. S. (1999). Does the sexual double standard still exist? Perceptions of university women. Journal of Sex
Research, 36, 361368.
Money, J. (1986). Lovemaps: Clinical concepts of sexual/erotic health
and pathology, paraphilia, and gender transposition of childhood,
adolescence, and maturity. New York: Irvington Publishers.
Money, J. (1990). Agenda and credenda of the Kinsey Scale. In D. P.
McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/
heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation (pp. 4160). New
York: Oxford University Press.
Moore, M. R. (2011). Two sides of the same coin: Revising analyses of
lesbian sexuality and family formation through the study of black
women. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 15, 5868.
Moore, M. R. (2012). Intersectionality and the study of black, sexual
minority women. Gender & Society, 26, 3339.
Moser, C. (2009). Autogynephilia in women. Journal of Homosexuality,
56, 539547.
Moskowitz, D. A., Turrubiates, J., Lozano, H., & Hajek, C. (2013).
Physical, behavioral, and psychological traits of gay men identifying as bears. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 42, 775784.
Muehlenhard, C. L., & Peterson, Z. D. (2011). Distinguishing
between sex and gender: History, current conceptualizations, and
implications. Sex Roles, 64, 791803.
Nichols, M. (1990). Lesbian relationships: Implications for the study of
sexuality and gender. In D. P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M.
Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual
orientation (pp. 350364). New York: Oxford University Press.
Noel, M. J. (2006). Progressive polyamory: Considering issues of
diversity. Sexualities, 9, 602620.
Oliveira, R. F. (2009). Social behavior in context: Hormonal modulation
of behavioral plasticity and social competence. Integrative and
Comparative Biology, 49, 423440.
Parker, R. G. (2000). Sexuality and culture. In J. Bancroft (Ed.), The role
of theory in sex research (pp. 307321). Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Penke, L. (2013). Revised sociosexual orientation inventory. In T. D.
Fisher, C. M. Davis, W. L. Yarber, & S. L. Davis (Eds.), Handbook
of sexuality-related measures (3rd ed., pp. 622625). New York:
Routledge.
Pillard, R. C., & Weinrich, J. D. (1987). The periodic table model of the
gender transpositions: Part I. A theory based on masculinization
and defeminization of the brain. Journal of Sex Research, 23, 425
454.
Pinkerton, S. D., Cecil, H., Bogart, L. M., & Abramson, P. R. (2003). The
pleasures of sex: An empirical investigation. Cognition and Emotion,
17, 341353.

123

Arch Sex Behav

Player. (2013). Retrieved March 17, 2014 from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=player.
Prause, N., & Graham, C. A. (2007). Asexuality: Classification and
characterization. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36, 341356.
Przybylo, E. (2012). Producing facts: Empirical asexuality and the
scientific study of sex. Feminism and Psychology, 23, 224242.
Ritchie, A., & Barker, M. (2006). There arent words for what we do or how
we feel so we have to make them up: Constructing polyamorous
languages in a culture of compulsory monogamy. Sexualities, 9, 584
601.
Rodgers, J. L. (2000). Social contagion and adolescent sexual behavior:
Theoretical and policy implications. In J. Bancroft (Ed.), The role of
theory in sex research (pp. 258278). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Rodriguez Rust, P. (2000). Bisexuality: A contemporary paradox for
women. Journal of Social Issues, 56, 205221.
Rosario, M., & Schrimshaw, E. W. (2014). Theories and etiologies of
sexual orientation. In D. L. Tolman & L. M. Diamond (Eds.), APA
handbook of sexuality and psychology: Vol. 1. Person-based approaches (pp. 555596). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Rosenthal, A. M., Sylva, D., Safron, A., & Bailey, J. M. (2012). The male
bisexuality debate revisited: Some bisexual men have bisexual arousal
patterns. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 135147.
Rubin, G. (1975). The traffic in women: Notes on the political economy
of sex. In R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an anthropology of women (pp.
157210). New York: Monthly Review Press.
Rubin, G. (1999). Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics
of sexuality. In P. Aggleton & R. Parker (Eds.), Culture, society and
sexuality: A reader (2nd ed., pp. 143178). London: UCL Press.
Rust, P. C. (2001). Too many and not enough: The meanings of bisexual
identities. Journal of Bisexuality, 1, 3368.
Rust, P. C. (2003). Monogamy and polyamory: Relationship issues for
bisexuals. In D. C. Kimmel (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on
lesbian, gay, and bisexual experiences (2nd ed., pp. 475496). New
York: Columbia University Press.
Sanders, S. A., Reinisch, J. M., & McWhirter, D. P. (1990). An overview. In
D. P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation (pp. xix
xxvii). New York: Oxford University Press.
Savin-Williams, R. C., Joyner, K., & Rieger, G. (2012). Prevalence and
stability of self-reported sexual orientation identity during young
adulthood. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 103110.
Scherrer, K. S. (2008). Coming to an asexual identity: Negotiating
identity, negotiating desire. Sexualities, 11, 621641.
Sedgwick, E. K. (1990). Epistemology of the closet. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Serano, J. M. (2010). The case against autogynephilia. International
Journal of Transgenderism, 12, 176187.
Serano, J. M. (2013). Excluded: Making feminist and queer movements
more inclusive. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
Seto, M. C. (2012). Is pedophilia a sexual orientation? Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 41, 231236.
Seto, M. C., Lalumiere, M. L., Harris, G. T., & Chivers, M. L. (2012). The
sexual responses of sexual sadists. Journal of Abnormal Psychology,
121, 115.
Sheff, E. (2005). Polyamorous women, sexual subjectivity and power.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 34, 251283.
Simpson, J. A., & Gangestad, S. W. (1991). Individual differences in
sociosexuality: Evidence for convergent and discriminant validity.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 870883.
Snowdon, C. T. (2001). Sexe, attachment, et monogamie chez les primates. Primatologie, 3, 387420.
Spelman, E. V. (1988). Inessential woman: Problems of exclusion in
feminist thought. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

123

Stokes, J. P., Miller, R. L., & Mundhenk, R. (1998). Toward an understanding of behaviourally bisexual men: The influence of context
and culture. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, 7, 101113.
Storms, M. D. (1980). Theories of sexual orientation. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 38, 783792.
Stryker, S., & Whittle, S. (Eds.). (2006). The transgender studies reader.
New York: Routledge.
Suschinsky, K. D., & Lalumiere, M. L. (2012). Is sexual concordance related
to awareness of physiological states? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41,
199208.
Suschinsky, K. D., Lalumiere, M. L., & Chivers, M. L. (2009). Sex
differences in patterns of genital sexual arousal: Measurement artifacts
or true phenomena? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38, 559573.
Tate, C. C. (2011). The problem of number revisited: The relative contributions of psychosocial, experiential, and evolutionary factors to the
desired number of sexual partners. Sex Roles, 64, 644657.
Terry, L. L., Suschinsky, K. D., Lalumiere, M. L., & Vasey, P. L. (2012).
Feederism: An exaggeration of a normative mate selection preference? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 249260.
Terry, L. L., & Vasey, P. L. (2011). Feederism in a woman. Archives of
Sexual Behavior, 40, 639645.
The Polyamory Society. (2014). Polyamory language page. Retrieved
March 14, 2014 from http://www.polyamorysociety.org/language.
html.
Tiefer, L. (1996). The medicalization of sexuality: Conceptual, normative, and professional issues. Annual Review of Sex Research, 7,
252282.
Tolman, D. L., & Diamond, L. M. (2014). Sexuality theory: A review, a
revision, and a recommendation. In D. L. Tolman & L. M. Diamond
(Eds.), APA handbook of sexuality and psychology: Vol. 1. Personbased approaches (pp. 327). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Tweedy, A. E. (2011). Polyamory as a sexual orientation. University of
Cincinnati Law Review, 79, 14611515.
Unger, R. K. (1979). Toward a redefinition of sex and gender. American
Psychologist, 34, 10851094.
van Anders, S. M. (2009). Androgens and diversity in adult human partnering. In P. B. Gray & P. T. Ellison (Eds.), Endocrinology of social
relationships (pp. 340363). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
van Anders, S. M. (2012a). From one bioscientist to another: Guidelines
for researching and writing about bisexuality for the lab and biosciences. Journal of Bisexuality, 12, 393403.
van Anders, S. M. (2012b). Testosterone and sexual desire in healthy women
and men. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 14711484.
van Anders, S. M. (2013). Beyond masculinity: Testosterone, gender/sex,
and human social behavior in a comparative context. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 34, 198210.
van Anders, S. M., & Dunn, E. J. (2009). Are gonadal steroids linked with
orgasm perceptions and sexual assertiveness in women and men?.
Hormones and Behavior, 56, 206213.
van Anders, S. M., Edelstein, R. S., Wade, R. W., & Samples-Steele, C.
R. (2013). Descriptive experiences and sexual vs. nurturant aspects
of cuddling between adult romantic partners. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 42, 553560.
van Anders, S. M., & Goldey, K. L. (2010). Testosterone and partnering
are linked via relationship status for women and relationship
orientation for men. Hormones and Behavior, 58, 820826.
van Anders, S. M., Goldey, K. L., & Kuo, P. X. (2011). The steroid/
peptide theory of social bonds: Integrating testosterone and peptide
responses for classifying social behavioral contexts. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 36, 12651275.
van Anders, S. M., Hamilton, L. D., Schmidt, N., & Watson, N. V.
(2007a). Associations between testosterone secretion and sexual
activity in women. Hormones and Behavior, 51, 477482.

Arch Sex Behav

van Anders, S. M., Hamilton, L. D., & Watson, N. V. (2007b). Multiple
partners are associated with higher testosterone in North American
men and women. Hormones and Behavior, 51, 454459.
van Anders, S. M., Tolman, R. M., & Volling, B. L. (2012). Baby cries
and nurturance affect testosterone in men. Hormones and Behavior, 61, 3136.
van Anders, S. M., & Watson, N. V. (2006). Social neuroendocrinology:
Effects of social contexts and behaviors on sex steroids in humans.
Human Nature, 17, 212237.
Van Houdenhove, E., Gijs, L., TSjoen, G., & Enzlin, P. (2014). Stories
about asexuality: A qualitative study on asexual women. Journal of
Sex and Marital Therapy. doi:10.1080/0092623X.2014.889053.
van Lankveld, J., Hubben, D., Dewitte, M., Dingemans, M. E., den
Butter, C., & Grauvogl, A. (2014). The partners presence in the sex
research lab differentially affects sexual arousal in women and men.
Journal of Sexual Medicine, 11, 697708.
van Manen, M. (2004). Lived experience. In M. S. Lewis-Beck, A. Bryman,
& T. F. Liao (Eds.), The encyclopedia of social science research
methods (pp. 580581). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Vanwesenbeeck, I. (2009). Doing gender in sex and sex research.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 38, 883898.
Vasey, P. L., & VanderLaan, D. P. (2012). Sexual orientation in men and
avuncularity in Japan: Implications for the kin selection hypothesis.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 209215.
Vrangalova, Z., & Savin-Williams, R. C. (2012). Mostly heterosexual and
mostly gay/lesbian: Evidence for new sexual orientation identities.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 85101.
Wallen, K. (2001). Sex and context: Hormones and primate sexual motivation. Hormones and Behavior, 40, 339357.
Weinrich, J. D. (1988). The periodic table model of the gender transpositions: Part II. Limerent and lusty sexual attractions and the nature
of bisexuality. Journal of Sex Research, 24, 113129.

Weiss, M. (2011). Techniques of pleasure: BDSM and the circuits of

sexuality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Whalen, R. E., Geary, D. C., & Johnson, F. (1990). Models of sexuality. In D.
P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, & J. M. Reinisch (Eds.), Homosexuality/
heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation (pp. 6170). NewYork:
Oxford University Press.
Wiederman, M. W. (2005). The gendered nature of sexual scripts. The
Family Journal: Counseling and Therapy for Couples and Families,
13, 496502.
Wiegman, R. (1999). Whiteness studies and the paradox of particularity.
Boundary, 2, 115150.
Wilson, R. J. (1999). Emotional congruence in sexual offenders against
children. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 11,
3347.
Wingfield, J. C., Hegner, R. E., Dufty, A. M., Jr, & Ball, G. F. (1990). The
challenge hypothesis: Theoretical implications for patterns of
testosterone secretion, mating systems, and breeding strategies.
American Naturalist, 136, 829846.
Young, L. J., & Wang, Z. (2004). The neurobiology of pair bonding.
Nature Neuroscience, 7, 10481054.
Young, L. J., Wang, Z., & Insel, T. R. (1998). Neuroendocrine bases of
monogamy. Trends in Neurosciences, 21, 7175.
Zheng, L., Hart, T. A., & Zheng, Y. (2012). The relationship between
intercourse preference positions and personality traits among gay
men in China. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 683689.
Zheng, L., Hart, T. A., & Zheng, Y. (2013). Attraction to male facial
masculinity in gay men in China: Relationship to intercourse
preference positions and sociosexual behavior. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 42, 12231232.

123