Social involvement disclosure of sexual orientation, and the quality of lesbian relationships

Gay and lesbian political activists encourage lesbians to "come out" and ge t involved. Is this good advice for lesbian couples. In these secondary ana lyses of data collected from 784 lesbian couples in 1979 for the American C ouples Study (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983), we examined whether social invol vement and disclosure of sexual orientation were systematically associated with the quality of women's relationships. We predicted and found that part ners matched on level of social involvement were happier than mismatched co uples. The extent of women's social involvement had a curvilinear associati on with relationship quality: moderately involved couples were the most sat isfied. Contrary to predictions, lesbians who had disclosed to a greater nu mber of important others did not have more satisfying romantic relationship s, nor did partner matching on self-disclosure enhance relationship quality .