Summary: Sexual orientation can be fluid over a person’s lifetime. Many people report changes in their same-sex attractions over time.
Over the course of a person’s life, sexual feelings and attractions can change. When children go through puberty, they experience many changes in their feelings and attractions. In their teenage years, they may find that those feelings are different. A person in their twenties may experience different feelings and attractions. For some people, changes may continue to happen throughout their lives. Such changes in feelings, desires, and attractions are referred to as sexual fluidity.
- Sexual orientation, sexual identity, and sexual behavior can change throughout an individual’s life.
- About 3% of the current heterosexual population once believed themselves to be homosexual or bisexual.
- Many people who were once obsessed with their same-sex attractions later find that the attractions are manageable, along with their behaviors.
- Some people who once felt homosexual develop heterosexual attractions and marry an opposite-sex spouse.
Changes such as the above occur more often when people are actively engaged in addressing underlying issues related to sexuality.
The book Then & Now: How My Sexual Attractions Have Changed includes personal accounts from more than 50 men from nine countries who evaluate their level of change and provide insight into how they made the changes.
The page What Can You Do About Same-Sex Attraction? guides you through the process of making decisions about how to respond to your same-sex attractions.
Also, see the final section on the page Therapy for People Who Experience Same-Sex Attraction.