Haunting Heterosexuality: The Homo/Het Binary and Intimate Love

Abstract

Changes in the social construction of sexuality and the arrangements of intimate relationships have been seen as the harbinger of greater fluidity in personal sexual identities and a disintegration of the homosexual/heterosexual distinction around which they are configured. Whilst the social and political contexts of sexual and intimate life may have changed, has the binary which underpins and organizes modern sexuality really altered? Using empirical data, from a study of heterosexuality and romantic love, I suggest that sexual identities, and the intimate relationships that depart from them, are founded through, and reiterate, highly rigid and defined borders. The data show that sexuality, far from being experienced as fluid and malleable, is felt as static and unchanging.

Keywords

disgust heterosexuality identity subjectivity

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