Exploring Sociocultural Embodiment: LGBTQ+ Body Care Practices and Norm Negotiation in Poland

Abstract

This article examines how societal norms, cultural values, and societal strains shape body care practices within Poland’s cisgender nonheterosexual community. Using Esther Rothblum’s biculturality theory as a foundation, the study explores the influence of class, societal homophobia, and Catholic-influenced gender norms on daily routines, hygiene, adornment, and identity expression. It investigates how these practices reflect societal trends, navigate heteronormative expectations, and intersect with socio-economic and gendered pressures, particularly for working-class LGBTQ+ women. The article draws on an ethnographic study of 21 cisgender nonheterosexual couples in Poland, incorporating participant observations and over 120 thematic interviews. It introduces sociocultural embodiment as a new concept, building on Rothblum’s biculturality framework to explore how localized cultural and systemic forces uniquely influence intimate daily practices and identity negotiations in non-Western contexts. By situating body care practices within Polish sociocultural realities, the study emphasizes the need for geographically informed approaches to LGBTQ+ research. Sociocultural embodiment contributes to embodiment studies by demonstrating how systemic pressures, cultural norms, and subcultural strategies influence self-presentation and identity formation. This work advances global understanding of LGBTQ+ body experiences through a focus on localized dynamics.

Keywords

LGBTQ+ body care gender norms queer embodiment self-care practices sexuality and body politics sociocultural norms

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bartky

(1990) Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge.

Bieńko

(2019) Społeczne konteksty seksualności. In: Wąż

(ed.) Obyczajowość Seksualna Polaków. Perspektywa Interdyscyplinarna. Kraków: Impuls, pp. 47–69.

Bojarczuk

Lewicki

Morshed

, et al. (2017) Comparison of differences in knowledge about skin care bettwen young women and man. Journal of Education, Health and Sport 7: 1026–1039.

Bourdieu

(1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (trans. Nice

). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Butler

(2006) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 1st ed. New York: Routledge.

Calzo

Blashill

Brown

, et al. (2017) Eating disorders and disordered weight and shape control behaviors in sexual minority populations. Current Psychiatry Reports 19(8): 49.

Celińska-Miszczuk

Wiśniewska

(eds) (2017) Macierzyństwo: Szanse i ograniczenia. Perspektywa psychologii osoby [Motherhood: Opportunities and Limitations. A Person’s Psychology Perspective]. Warsaw: Difin.

Charmaz

(2006) Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Charmaz

(2014) Constructing Grounded Theory. 2nd ed. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

10.

Chowaniec

U (Urszula)

Mazierska

Mole

(2021) Queer(in)g Poland in the 21st century: How was it at the beginning of the Millennium? Introduction to this special issue on queer culture and the LGBTQ+ movement in Poland. Central Europe 19: 1–13.

11.

Clarke

Turner

(2007) V. Clothes maketh the queer? Dress, appearance and the construction of lesbian, gay and bisexual identities. Feminism & Psychology 17(2): 267–276.

12.

Cole

(2000) Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

13.

Connell

(2005) Masculinities. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.

14.

Creed

(1995) Lesbian bodies. Tribades, tomboys and tarts. In: Grosz

Probyn

(eds) Sexy Bodies. The Strange Carnalities of Feminism. London: Routledge, pp. 86–103.

15.

Czepczor-Bernat

Kościcka

Gebauer

, et al. (2017) Ideal body stereotype internalization and sociocultural attitudes towards appearance: A preliminary cross-national comparison between Czech, Polish and American women. Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy 19(4): 57–65.

16.

de Beauvoir

(1949) Le deuxième sexe [The second sex]. Paris: Gallimard. Trans. H.M. Parshley.

17.

Duggan

McCreary

(2004) Body image, eating disorders, and the drive for muscularity in gay and heterosexual men. Journal of Homosexuality 47(3–4): 45–58.

18.

Eurobarometer (2022) Sport and physical activity. Available at: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2668?etrans=fr

19.

Faderman

(2012) Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America. Reprint ed. New York: Columbia University Press.

20.

Finucane

Stevens

Cowan

, et al. (2011) National, regional, and global trends in body-mass index since 1980: Systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 960 country-years and 9·1 million participants. The Lancet 377(9765): 557–567.

21.

Foucault

(1990) The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction (trans. Hurley

). Reissue ed. New York: Vintage.

22.

Gabb

(2008) Researching Intimacy in Families. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

23.

Gleeson

Frith

(2003) Getting noticed: Using clothing to negotiate visibility. Psychology of Women Section Review 5(2): 7–11.

24.

Griffin

Bailey

Lopez

(2022) #BodyPositive? A critical exploration of the body positive movement within physical cultures taking an intersectionality approach. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living 4: 908580.

25.

Halberstam

(1998) Female Masculinity. 1st ed. Durham: Duke University Press Books.

26.

Holiday

(2001) Fashioning the queer self. In: Entwistle

Wilson

(eds) Body Dressing. Oxford; New York: Berg 3PL, pp. 215–231.

27.

Hutson

(2010) Standing OUT/fitting IN: Identity, appearance, and authenticity in gay and lesbian communities. Symbolic Interaction 33(2): 213–233.

28.

ILGA-Europe (2024) Annual review of the human rights situation of LGBTI people in Europe. ILGA-Europe 2024. Available at: https://www.ilga-europe.org/rainbow-europe/

29.

Izydorczyk

Lipowska

Lizińczyk

, et al. (2022) Media pressure and the process of Westernization in the context of body self-assessment among young heterosexual and gay Polish men. PLoS ONE 17: e0272907.

30.

Jakubowska

(2012) Ciało jako przedmiot badań socjologicznych – dylematy, pominięcia, możliwości. Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej 2(8): 12–31.

31.

Janes

(2021) Freak to Chic: ‘Gay’ Men in and out of Fashion after Oscar Wilde. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

32.

Korolczuk

(2020) The fight against ‘gender’ and ‘LGBT ideology’: New developments in Poland. European Journal of Politics and Gender 3(1): 165–167.

33.

Krakauer

Rose

(2002) The impact of group membership on lesbians’ physical appearance. Journal of Lesbian Studies 6(1): 31–43.

34.

Lipowska

Truong Thi Khanh

Lipowski

, et al. (2019) The body as an object of stigmatization in cultures of guilt and shame: A Polish–Vietnamese comparison. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16(16): 2814.

35.

Mijas

Koziara

Galbarczyk

, et al. (2020) Chubby, hairy and fearless. Subcultural identities and predictors of self-esteem in a sample of Polish members of bear community. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17(12): 4439.

36.

Mizielińska

(2022) Queer Kinship at the Edge? Families of Choice in Poland. Routledge.

37.

Mizielińska

Kulpa

(2011) ‘Contemporary Peripheries’: Queer Studies, circulation of knowledge and East/West divide. In: Kulpa

Mizielińska

(eds) De-Centring Western Sexualities. Central and Eastern European Perspective. Farnham, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 11–26.

38.

Mizielińska

Stasińska

(2020) Frame story approach in mixed and multimethod study on non-heterosexual families in Poland. Sociological Research Online 26(4): 792–809.

39.

Mizielińska

Stasińska

(2024) Non-heteronormative reproductive tactics in Poland. Sociological Research Online. SAGE Publications Ltd: 13607804241237339.

40.

Mizielińska

Abramowicz

Stasińska

(2015) Families of Choice in Poland. Family Life of Non-Heterosexual People. Warsaw: IP PAN. Available at: http://www.familiesofchoice.pl.

41.

Morgan

(2011) Locating ‘family practices’. Sociological Research Online 16(4): 174–182.

42.

Morrison

Sager

C-L

(2004) Does body satisfaction differ between gay men and lesbian women and heterosexual men and women? A meta-analytic review. Body Image 1(2): 127–138.

43.

Multisport Indeks Nowy Wymiar Aktywności (2023) Available at: https://biuroprasowe.benefitsystems.pl/244977-raport-multisport-index-2023

44.

Nagata

Ganson

Austin

(2020) Emerging trends in eating disorders among sexual and gender minorities. Current Opinion in Psychiatry 33(6): 562–567.

45.

Piekut

Vieten

Valentine

(2014) Seeking ‘the new normal’? Troubled spaces of encountering visible differences in Warsaw. Polish Sociological Review 4(188): 541–558.

46.

Polimeni

A-M

Austin

Kavanagh

(2009) Sexual orientation and weight, body image, and weight control practices among young Australian women. Journal of Women’s Health 2002 18(3): 355–362.

47.

Rothblum

(1994) Lesbians and physical appearance: Which model applies? In: Greene

Herek

(eds) Lesbian and Gay Psychology: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, pp. 84–97.

48.

Rothblum

(2002) Gay and lesbian body images. In: Cash

Pruzinsky

(eds) Body Image: A Handbook of Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice. 1st ed. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 257–265.

49.

Schofield

Schmidt

RÄ

(2005) Fashion and clothing: The construction and communication of gay identities null. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management 33(4): 310–323.

50.

Shilling

(2012) The Body and Social Theory. 3rd ed. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

51.

Stasińska

(2018) Socjologia Pary. Praktyki Intymne w Związkach Nieheteroseksualnych. Kraków: Nomos.

52.

Stasińska

(2022) Tender gestures in heteronormative spaces: Displaying affection in public by families of choice in Poland Gender Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 29(2): 177–200.

53.

Stasińska

Mizielińska

(forthcoming) Boundary-crossing and ethical dilemmas in ethnographic research: Reflexive insights from the research on LGBTQ+ families in Poland. Research Ethics.

54.

Steele

(1997) Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

55.

Straczuk

(2022) Different meanings of proper nutrition: The sociopolitical dynamics of the relationship between body and state in the 1970s and 2010s Poland. East European Politics and Societies: And Cultures 36(2): 582–603.

56.

Struzik

(2020) Framing queer activism in Poland: From liberal values to solidarity. In: Buyantueva

Shevtsova

(eds) LGBTQ+ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe – Resistance, Representation and Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 265–288. Available at: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030204006 (accessed 9 April 2020).

57.

Szwed

Zielińska

(2017) A war on gender? The Roman Catholic Church’s discourse on gender in Poland. In: Ramet

Borowik

(eds) Religion, Politics, and Values in Poland: Continuity and Change since 1989. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 113–136. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43751-8_6 (accessed 12 November 2024).

58.

Tseëlon

(2003) Ontological, epistemological and methodological clarifications in fashion research: From critique to empirical suggestions. In: Guy

Green

Banim

(eds) Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationships with Their Clothes. Oxford; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 237–254.

59.

Wieczorkowska

(2015) Medykalizacja wyglądu – nowy wymiar zdrowego ciała. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Sociologica 55: 93–109.

60.

Woźniak

(2021) Media społecznościowe a akceptacja własnego ciała – ruch body positive na Instagramie. Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis| Studia de Cultura 13(3): 72–87.

61.

Yean

Benau

Dakanalis

, et al. (2013) The relationship of sex and sexual orientation to self-esteem, body shape satisfaction, and eating disorder symptomatology. Frontiers in Psychology 4: 887.