Is there more going on in the hookup scene than meets (men’s) eyes? The college hookup scene is typically understood as a male-dominated environment—where men are mainly in charge of sexual initiation, parties are often centered around fraternity houses, treating women as sex objects is common, and women engage in sexual displays, including kissing each other, in order to arouse male interest.

Yet, in the forthcoming April 2014 issue of Gender & Society, a team of researchers observes that for some women the super-straight environment of college hookups is also a setting “to explore and to later verify bisexual, lesbian, or queer sexual identities.” Turns out public kissing and threesomes play an important role—and that not all of that sex play is about performing for men’s pleasure.