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Abstract:

This article explores ‘bad’ sex in an age of same-sex marriage, through an analysis of the ‘homoradical’ as a rejection of both hetero and homo-normativities. Drawing on qualitative data from 29 LGBTQ interviewees, the article considers resistance to the discursive privileging of same-sex marriage in the context of Gayle Rubin’s theories of respectability and sexual hierarchies. These hierarchies constitute a ‘charmed circle’ of accepted sexual practices which are traditionally justified by marriage, procreation and/or love. It examines non-normative sexuality through the example of the lived experiences of non-normative, anti-assimilationist identities, particularly non-monogamy, public sex, and kink sex, showing how the ‘homoradical’ deviates from the normative practices that same-sex marriage reinforces.

۱٫ Introduction

The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013 (hereafter, the 2013 Act) allowed same-sex couples to enter into a marriage for the first time in England and Wales.1 This change in the law is a significant development in the relationship of law and sexuality, and is of particular significance for LGBTQ people who are now be seen as ‘equal’, ‘normal’, or ‘the same as’ different-sex couples when formally recognizing their relationship. LGBTQ people’s sexuality was seen, traditionally, as antithetical to marriage; abject, immoral, and dangerous. In the 1980s, LGBTQ couples were described by Parliament as ‘a pretended family relationship’ in s28 of the Local Government Act, while the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013 explicitly removes the sex from same-sex marriage by omitting adultery and consummation provisions (see Maine 2021). Marriage is representative of notions of ‘good sex’, as the legitimate and appropriate location for sex and procreation to take place: marriage’s introduction occupied a large swathe of LGBTQ rights campaigns for the best part of the last decade, and reaffirms the normative centrality of marriage and promotions of good gay, bad queer narratives (Ashford et al. 2020). This article seeks to highlight the queer challenge to the normative ideals of marriage and, particularly, the homonormative ideals of same-sex marriage.

Heteronormativity describes the social norm in which heterosexuality is seen as a ‘default’ position. Heteronormativity sustains and fosters a sexual hierarchy (Rubin 1984) in creating an expectation of heterosexuality, monogamy, and procreativity. Comparatively, homonormativity may be viewed as a conduit of heteronormativity, a form of identity and relationship that closely mirrors and reinforces heteronormativity and that ‘straightens’ queer politics. Homonormativity describes a dominant politics of liberal equality that upholds and sustains desexualised and depoliticised perspectives of same-sex couples, defined by Duggan (2003) as a ‘politic of assimilation’.