Sex and gender researcher Lisa Diamond thinks the secret is all about not being defined.

Question: What do women want?

Lisa Diamond: I think women want self-determination. One thing that I've really found in following these women over time is what they want, what makes women happy, is the freedom and the safety and security to define themselves in whatever way that they see fit, not according to the standard from mainstream heterosexual society; but also not necessarily according to the standard of their local, say, lesbian or gay community. And I do think we're sort of reaching a level of societal maturity that we're closer to that sort autonomy and that goal. A lot of the women that I've talked to have managed to really create the sort of lives that they've wanted for themselves, even in relatively conservative environments. Some of the women in my sample are living in the Deep South; some of them are living in the middle of Midwest corn-fed America. And yet almost all of them have managed to create a life for themselves that they're pretty happy with.

Recorded on November 4, 2009