Bi Bi Anna—Is Paquin's Sex Reveal a Big Deal or a Yawn?

The video's site got so much traffic Thursday, it crashed.


I say, "Go, Anna! And thank you for sharing." LGBT stigma-worse, hate crimes-are totally unacceptable, and the "Give A Damn" campaign important. But is Paquin's bisexuality news? Hardly.

Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox, Lady Gaga, Kim Kolciak...Girl crushes are almost standard fare in Hollywood these days-popular as the latest jumbo bag. Every star, it seems, should sport one. Like a designer label.


What's much more interesting in my book, is the un-labeling of female libido taking place quietly, off-camera. Rather than bisexual chic, on some levels a flirting attraction to women is quite commonplace.


For one thing, according to research, woman's sexuality is not nearly as black and white as men's. In a study at Northwestern University, straight men got hot watching only erotic movies featuring women (not men); gays when only watching guys. But women-lesbian or straight-became aroused by sexy films with both men and women.

Further, women's romantic leanings wander back and forth across the gender line more easily than one might think. "Sexual fluidity" is the term researchers like Lisa Diamond, PhD, use. A pioneer in the field of female desire at the University of Utah, Diamond published a groundbreaking study in 2008 showing just how unmoored or attraction can be. Following 79 lesbian, bisexual, and "unlabeled" young women for 10 years, she found that by the end, 67% had switched identities at least once, and 36% had done it twice. Among the lesbians, almost a third had relationships with men, and 17% of the others decided they were heterosexuals. Diamond was struck, she told me, by a recurring explanation: Many women said they were attracted to the person, not the gender.

Actress Lucy Liu couldn't have said it better when she reportedly told Jane Magazine in 2003: "I think people sometimes get the wrong impression when they're like, 'Oh, well, so-and-so was straight and then she was gay, and now she's straight again,' you know? But it's like, how many times do I have to kiss a woman before I'm gay? Everybody wants to label people. Sometimes you just fall in love with somebody and you're really not thinking about what gender...they happen to be."


The day when a quote like this isn't grist for a cover story because it's too normal to make news-and when an actress's "I'm bisexual" doesn't shut down a web site-that's the the day I'm waiting for.


What about you?

For more Hollywood woman-to-woman reading...

Kelly McGillis-sorry guys

Meredith Baxter comes out

The Lindsay Lohan situation

[Photo Credit: Getty Images/WireImage