ABSTRACT
As suggested in the Introduction, the concept of sexual orientation is not as straightforward as everyday conversations, media accounts, and political slogans would imply. Rather, the topic is fraught with vagaries, the terminology is ambiguous and ill-defined, and the apparently exclusive and stable categories commonly employed actually disguise complex dimensionality and fluidity. The aim of this chapter is to explore in some depth the uncertain meaning of sexual orientation, and in the process to destabilize the simplistic understandings we tend to carry regarding this topic.
