Open relationships – which are often seen from the outside as fulfilling male fantasies of infidelity without guilt and the possibility of sex with more than woman – could actually be a more feminine way of managing love affairs.

This was one of the conclusions reached by members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Psychology Group in a symposium held yesterday at the British Psychological Society’s Psychology of Women’s Section (POWS) annual conference in Brighton.

Dr Meg Barker of Middlesex University and Dr Ani Ritchi of the Southampton Institute argued that open relationships may benefit women because they involve open communication, expression of emotions and support networks.

Other papers presented included work by Dr Peter Hegarty of the Univerity of Surrey that challenged recent claims that finger length is a biological indictaor of a person’s sexual orientation. Hegarty argued that the results from the original study are misleading because they do not suggest that finger length is linked to sexual orientation in men.

There were also papers on the problems of counselling transgender clients and the development process of transgender individuals, while Elizabeth Peel of Aston University discussed the implications that slang terms referring to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and heterosexuals have for individuals and our cultural understanding of sexuality.