Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The intention of this article is to challenge orthodoxies regarding heterosexuality, which have tended to constitute it as a static monolith and queer as the only potential site for a less oppressive sexuality. By contrast, we consider heterodox possibilities for pleasure and change within the realm of the dominant. We examine three examples – divergence, transgression and subversion – and then consider some terminologies that might flesh out experiential aspects of these examples of social change in heterosexuality. This conjunction offers a means to acknowledge heterosexuality’s coercive aspects while attending to its more egalitarian, less orthodox forms.

Keywords

Gender heterosexuality queer sexuality social change

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahmed

(2006a) Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Ahmed

(2006b) Orientations. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 12(4): 543–574.

Anapol

(1997) Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits, San Rafael: IntiNet Resource Center.

Baldassar

Baldock

Wilding

(2007) Families Caring across Borders: Migration, Ageing and Transnational Caregiving, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bauman

(2003) Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, Cambridge: Polity.

Beasley

(1999) What is Feminism? An Introduction to Feminist Theory, London and Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Beasley

(2005) Gender & Sexuality: Critical Theories, Critical Thinkers, London: Sage.

Beasley

(2011) Libidinous politics: Heterosex, ‘transgression’ and social change. Australian Feminist Studies 26(67): 25–40.

Beasley

Brook

Holmes

(2012) Heterosexuality in Theory and Practice, New York and London: Routledge.

10.

Beck

Beck-Gernsheim

(2002) Individualisation, London: Routledge.

11.

Bell

(2006) Bodies, technologies, spaces: On ‘dogging’. Sexualities 9(4): 387–407.

12.

Berlant

Warner

(1998) Sex in public. Critical Inquiry 24(Winter): 547–566.

13.

Bhattacharyya

(2002) Sexuality and Society: An Introduction, New York: Routledge.

14.

Brook

(1996) Queer football: Feminism, sexuality, corporeality. Critical InQueeries 1(2): 25–45.

15.

Brook

(2007) Conjugal Rites: Marriage and Marriage-like Relationships before the Law, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

16.

Budgeon

Roseneil

(2004) Editors’ introduction: Beyond the conventional family. Current Sociology 52(2): 127–134.

17.

Butler

(1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.

18.

Butler

(2004) Undoing Gender, London: Routledge.

19.

Butler

(2013 [1997]) Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. In: McCann

Kim

(eds) Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives, 3rd edn. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 462–473.

20.

Carroll

(2012) Introduction: Feminism, queer theory and heterosexuality. In: Carroll R (ed.) Rereading Heterosexuality: Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1–21.

21.

Cvetkovich

(1995) Recasting receptivity: Femme sexualities. In: Jay

(ed.) Lesbian Erotics, New York: New York University Press, pp. 125–146.

22.

Davidson

(2005) ‘Contagious relations’: Simulation, paranoia, and the postmodern condition in William Friedkin’s Cruising and Felice Picano’s. The Lure. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 11(1): 23–64.

23.

Dreyfuss

(1999) The holy war on gays. Rolling Stone Magazine 18(March): 38–41.

24.

Duggan

Hunter

(2006) Sex Wars: Sexual Dissent and Political Culture, New York: Routledge.

25.

Duncan

Philips

(2010) People who live apart together (LATs): How different are they? Sociological Review 58(1): 112–134.

26.

Dworkin

(2007 [1987]) Intercourse, New York: Basic books.

27.

Easton

Liszt

(1997) The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities, San Francisco, CA: Greenery Press.

28.

Elliott

Urry

(2010) Mobile Lives, London: Routledge.

29.

Emens

(2009) Compulsory monogamy and polyamorous existence. In: Fineman

Jackson

Romero

(eds) Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 259–285.

30.

Eskridge

(1996) The Case for Same-Sex Marriage: From Sexual Liberty to Civilized Commitment, New York: Free Press.

31.

Ferguson

(2007) Gay marriage: An American and feminist dilemma. Hypatia (special issue: Writing against Heterosexism) 22(1): 39–57.

32.

Ford

(2000) ‘They were wed, and merrily rang the bells’: Gender crossing and same-sex marriage in Australia, 1900–1940. In: Phillips

Willett

(eds) Australia’s Homosexual Histories, Sydney: Australian Centre for Lesbian and Gay Research.

33.

Gagnon

Simon

(2005 [1973]) Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality, New Brunswick, NJ and London: Aldine Transaction.

34.

Gerstel

Gross

(1984) Commuter Marriage: A Study of Work and Family, London: Guildford Press.

35.

Giddens

(1992) The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

36.

Green

(2007) Queer theory and sociology: Locating the subject and the self in sexuality studies. Sociological Theory 25(March): 26–45.

37.

Gust

Lovaas

Elia

(2003) A critical appraisal of assimilationist and radical ideologies underlying same-sex marriage in LGBT communities in the United Sates. Journal of Homosexuality 45(1): 45–64.

38.

Harrison

(2013) Sexual Deceit: The Ethics of Passing, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

39.

Heise

(1997) Violence, sexuality and women’s lives. In: Lancaster

Di Leonardo

(eds) The Gender/Sexuality Reader, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 411–433.

40.

Hockey

Meah

Robinson

(2007) Mundane Heterosexualities: From Theory to Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

41.

Holmes

(2004) The precariousness of choice in the new sentimental order: A comment on Bawin Legros. Current Sociology 52(2): 251–257.

42.

Holmes M (2006) Love lives at a distance: Distance relationships over the lifecourse. Sociological Research Online 11(3). Available at: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/11/3/holmes.html (accessed June 2013).

43.

Holmes

(2010) Intimacy, distance relationships, and emotional care. Recherches Sociologiques et Anthropologiques 41(1): 105–123.

44.

Holmes

Beasley

Brook

(2011) Guest editorial. Australian Feminist Studies 26(67): 3–7.

45.

Jackson

(1996) Heterosexuality as a problem for feminist theory. In: Adkins

Merchant

(eds) Sexualizing the Social: Power and the Organisation of Sexuality, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 15–34.

46.

Jackson

(2005) Sexuality, heterosexuality and gender hierarchy: Getting our priorities straight. In: Ingraham

(ed.) Thinking Straight: The Power, the Promise, and the Paradox of Heterosexuality, New York: Routledge, pp. 15–37.

47.

Jackson

(2006) Gender, sexuality and heterosexuality: The complexity (and limits) of heteronormativity. Feminist Theory 7(1): 105–121.

48.

Jackson

Scott

(2001) Embodying orgasm: Gendered power relations and sexual pleasure. Women & Therapy 24(1/2): 99–110.

49.

Jackson

Scott

(2007) Faking like a woman? Towards an interpretive theorization of sexual pleasure. Body and Society 13(2): 95–116.

50.

Jamieson

(1998) Intimacy: Personal Relationships in Modern Societies, Cambridge: Polity.

51.

Johnson

(2013) Cisgender privilege, intersectionality, and the criminalization of CeCe McDonald: Why intercultural communication needs transgender studies. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 6(2): 135–144.

52.

Knight

(1997) How domestic partnerships and ‘gay marriage’ threaten the family. In: Baird

Rosenbaum

(eds) Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate, Amherst, NY: Prometheus, pp. 108–121.

53.

Lasch

(1995) Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged, New York and London: WW Norton and Co.

54.

Mazur

(2000 [1973]) The New Intimacy: Open-Ended Marriage and Alternative Lifestyles, Lincoln, NE: Excel Press.

55.

Meah

Hockey

Robinson

(2011) ‘I’m a sex kitten, aren’t I…’: Relocating agency and pleasure in older women’s narratives about sex. Australian Feminist Studies 26(67): 57–71.

56.

Noble

(2007) Queer as box: Boi spectators and boy culture on Showtime’s Queer as Folk. In: Johnson

(ed.) Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts It in a Box, London: IB Tauris, pp. 147–165.

57.

Oxford English Dictionary (2013) Definition of cisgender. OED online, Oxford University Press. Available at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/cisgender (accessed 6 June 2013).

58.

Reis

Grossmark

(2009) Heterosexual Masculinities: Perspectives from Contemporary Psychoanalytic Gender Theory, New York and Hove: Routledge.

59.

Rich

(1980) Compulsory heterosexuality and the lesbian continuum. Signs 5(4): 631–660.

60.

Richardson

(2004) Rethinking Sexuality, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi: SAGE.

61.

Rimmerman

Wilcox

C (eds)

(2007) The Politics of Same-Sex Marriage, Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.

62.

Robson

(2009) Compulsory matrimony. In: Fineman

Jackson

Romero

(eds) Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 313–328.

63.

Roseneil

(2005) Living and loving beyond the boundaries of the heteronorm: Personal relationships in the 21st century. In: McKie

Cunningham-Burley

McKendrick

(eds) Families in Society: Boundaries and Relationships, Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 241–258.

64.

Rossi

L-M

(2011) ‘Happy’ and ‘unhappy’ performatives: Images and norms of heterosexuality. Australian Feminist Studies 26(67): 9–23.

65.

Schlichter

(2004) Queer at last? Straight intellectuals and the desire for transgression. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 10(4): 543–564.

66.

Segal

(1994) Straight Sex: The Politics of Pleasure, Columbia University, NY: Virago Press.

67.

Seidman

(2005) From polluted homosexual to the normal gay: Changing patterns of sexual regulation in America. In: Ingraham

(ed.) Thinking Straight: New Work in Critical Heterosexuality Studies, New York: Routledge, pp. 39–61.

68.

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2002) Volume 2 , 5th edn. New York: Oxford University Press.

69.

Showden

(2012) Theorising maybe: A feminist/queer theory convergence. Feminist Theory 13(1): 3–25.

70.

Simmel

(1971 [1908]) The stranger. In: Chicago

(ed.) Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms, Levine DN: Chicago University Press.

71.

Smart

(2007) Personal Life, Cambridge: Polity Press.

72.

Stychin

Herman

(2000) Law and Sexuality: The Global Arena, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

73.

Sullivan

(2003) A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, New York: New York University Press.

74.

Thompson T (forthcoming) Queer Lives in Fiji. University of Auckland: unpublished thesis submitted for PhD in Sociology.

75.

Thomson

(2011) A tale of two bodies: The male body in feminist legal theory. In: Fineman

(ed.) Transcending the Boundaries of Law: Generations of Feminism and Legal Theory, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 143–156.

76.

Urban Dictionary (2013) Available at: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cissexual (accessed June 2013).

77.

Warner M (2012) Queer and then? The Chronicle of Higher Education 58(19) 1 January. Available at: http://chronicle.com/article/QueerThen-/130161/ (accessed June 2013).

78.

Wilson

(1997) Is transgression transgressive? In: Kemp

Squires

(eds) Feminisms, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 368–369.

79.

Wintemute

Andenæs

(2001) Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnerships: A Study of National, European and International Law, Oxford: Hart.

80.

Wolfson

(1994) Crossing the threshold: Equal marriage rights for lesbians and gay men, and the intracommunity critique Vol 21, New York: University Review of Law and Social Change, pp. 567–615.

Heterodoxy: Challenging orthodoxies about heterosexuality

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References