“It’s usually brought on by, I don’t know, like shots or drinking or people kind of saying something to like cheer it on or whatever,” said one female student the professors interviewed. “And it’s usually done in order to turn guys on or to seek male attention in some way.”…

Some bi-curious girls also call themselves LTGs, for lesbian till graduation, and that captures what same-sex kissing represents for a lot of them: a form of intimacy and diversion, but not something that ultimately feels like a true orientation. For other girls — those on their way to coming out as lesbians, or just discovering their orientation themselves — girl-girl kissing, particularly in a party setting, provides a safe and comfortable glide path in what can often be a rocky transition. Tell yourself you’re kissing girls just to impress the boys, then begin to realize you like it, then finally embrace that there’s a deep and real reason for that. Rupp and Taylor point out that the same kind of gradual transitioning may explain why so many lesbian girls’ first same-sex experience is in a threesome that involves a male. This, they write, “is an extension of the safe heterosexual space for exploring same-sex desire.”