What actually IS 'sexual fluidity?'

Blonde or dark, sporty or nerdy, broad or petite? However you’d describe your type, gender would be an expected part of that list. Your sexual attraction summarised into one convenient little word and neatly folded away like a pair of socks: men, women or, at its messiest, bi.

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Only, is anyone’s sock drawer ever neat? Maybe Marie Kondo’s. But aside from the world’s no.1 tidiness guru, our socks – like our sex – are a complicated tangle, sometimes with holes in unexpected places and joined in pairs that don’t look like any others. Proof? When YouGov asked 18-24 year olds to place themselves on the Kinsey Scale – a sexuality measure where 0 is exclusively heterosexual and 6 exclusively homosexual – almost half (43%) said they fell somewhere between 1 and 5.

Then there are Tinder users swinging – well, swiping – both ways. Straight women attending all-female play parties or ‘skirt clubs’, where they can kiss/ touch/ pleasure other curious women. And the men signed up to BRO, a meet-up app for guys – including straight men interested in male sex. Just three examples of modern sexual behaviours that make traditional labels feel like something only your gran would use. As Lily-Rose Depp recently told NYLON, “So many kids these days are not labelling their sexuality and I think that’s so cool. Just like food, you could think peanut butter is your favourite food for 5,000 years and then be like, “I actually like burgers better”.”

Thanks to other label-resistant celebrities, such as Miley, Cara and Kristen, ‘sexual fluidity’ – attraction that disregards gender, sexual orientation or your previous sexual choices – has done for millennial sexual freedom what the 'rabbit' sex toy did for late-90s’ orgasms. “I think more and more people are adopting it out of frustration,” shares Anna, 31. “We’re told that sexuality is an entirely static trait that won’t change as we age – even though all our other characteristics, from music taste to confidence, do. My desires at 16 or 20 or 25 were so different to my desires at 31, but you feel lost when your sexuality isn’t constant like the answer to a maths question.” For reassurance, 63% of Glamour.com readers believe that sexual orientation definitely can change.

But the meaning of being fluid is, well, just that. For some, it’s an attempt to define the indefinable. “I don't even really understand my sexuality,” admits Louise, 26. “I get pressure from lesbian and straight friends to decide, but a million things come to mind before the gender of the people I’m attracted to.” For others, it’s about the variety of sex involved: “My idea of sexual fluidity is being able to switch back and forth between less vanilla activities (role play, restraints, threesomes) and the ‘norm’ of missionary,” describes Beth, 29. While for Victoria, 24, fluidity is simply enjoying sex for sex’s sake. “Some people just like to have sex,” she laughs. “It’s not about sexual orientation, it’s about enjoying hook-up culture – whoever that might be with.”

And this is the crux of fluidity: it’s about exposing sex’s complexity. It’s about doing sex your way. Once, women were pressured into fluidity in order to service men’s desires: kissing another girl in a club, being the ‘cool girl’ who goes to strip clubs. Today, you can be as fluid – or as rigid – as you like.

Any sexual label, should you choose to wear one, is entirely your own.

Have a sex question or topic you'd like to know more about? Gemma would love to hear from you. Email her at glamoursexeditor@condenast.co.uk.

@GemmaAskham