Lesbian, for now: for some young women, loving someone of the same sex is merely a passing phase. But what happens to the women who love them?

When RaeAnn Roca started dating her first girlfriend last year, she didn't think of the relationship as a phase. But after dating Sara for two months, when RaeAnn told her she was going to come out to her own parents, Sara said she probably wouldn't ever toll her mom and dad because they just wouldn't understand. "Besides," she told RaeAnn, "I'll grow out of it."

"I was totally floored," explains RaeAnn, 22, a student at Ohio Northern University who is now openly bisexual to just about everyone in her life, including her parents.

Though RaeAnn is still in college, some older women who have experienced similar stories call this the "lesbian until graduation" phenomenon--young women claiming lesbian experiences as experiments to undertake before they finish college and eventually marry men.

The college atmosphere can be more accepting of sexual experimentation, says RaeAnn. "When two chicks make out at the bar, it's so hot, and they become overnight popularity stories," she says.

Girls even younger than RaeAnn aren't left out. Julie Keller was 16 when she came out as a lesbian to her best friend, Kate (not her real name), who responded, "Oh, my God, I'm bi." After they dated for seven months, Kate announced that her attraction to girls was just a phase.

"I don't like when girls say that they are something that they're not," Julie says. "To this day, [Kate] still kisses girls, but nothing more," explains the now-18-year-old Julie, who remains friends with Kate.

Lisa Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah who has studied female sexuality extensively, says that the whole "LUG" phenomenon highlights women's sexual fluidity. "A lot of women feel they are attracted to a person, not a gender," Diamond explains. For many so-called LUGs, growing older and settling down with a man is "not just a matter of going back into the closet," she says.

That's true for Joanne, who asked The Advocate not to use her real name. "I've always had crushes on girls," explains the 28-year-old married mother of two. "My relationship with my husband is the only one I could consider with a man, and if it were to end, I really don't see myself choosing another man in the future."

Joanne had her first girlfriend at age 13 and before marrying had dated women almost exclusively. In regard to loving and marrying a man, "I am astounded at the change," she says. Many of her lesbian friends were too: "Some women I know openly call me a traitor."

Joanne chooses not to label herself as anything--lesbian, straight, or bisexual. Diamond found that many women in Joanne's position feel the same way. "As the years have gone by, many of them are no longer comfortable with the labels lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual," she says. "Some of them see themselves as lesbians who happen to be with a man, but they can't find a label for that.

"The LUG phenomenon will probably fade away," Diamond says. "I think we'll see more of a revolution with the younger kids. They have a sense of not wanting to label, to limit oneself."

RaeAnn hopes Diamond is right. Finding a girlfriend in college who will take their relationship seriously isn't easy. "I want to find someone to go on the Rosie O'Donnell cruise with, not someone to go on Girls Gone Wild with."