Chris Beasley - Heterosexuality in Theory and Practice

Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality

Core Editorial Group: Dr. KATHY DAVIS (Institute for History and Culture, Utrecht, The Netherlands), PROFESSOR JEFF HEARN (managing editor; Linkping University, Sweden; Hanken School of Economics, Finland; University of Huddersfi eld, UK), PROFESSOR A NNA G. JNASDTTIR (rebro University, Sweden), PROFESSOR NINA LYKKE (managing editor; Linkping University, Sweden), PROFESSOR CHANDRA TALPADE MOHANTY (Syracuse University, USA), PROFESSOR ELZBIETA H. OLEKSY (University of Ldz, Poland), DR. ANDREA PET (Central European University, Hungary), PROFESSOR ANN PHOENIX (Institute of Education, University of London, UK)

Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality is committed to the development of new feminist and profeminist perspectives on changing gender relations, with special attention to:

1 Feminist Studies

A Guide to Intersectional Theory,
Methodology and Writing
Nina Lykke

2 Women, Civil Society and the Geopolitics of Democratization

Denise M. Horn

3 Sexuality, Gender and Power

Intersectional and Transnational

Perspectives

Edited by Anna G. Jnasdttir, Valerie

Bryson and Kathleen B. Jones

4 The Limits of Gendered Citizenship

Contexts and Complexities
Edited by Elzbieta H. Oleksy,
Jeff Hearn and Dorota Golanska

5 Theories and Methodologies in Postgraduate Feminist Research

Researching Differently
Edited by Rosemarie Buikema,
Gabriele Griffi n and Nina Lykke

6 Making Gender, Making War

Violence, Military and
Peacekeeping Practices
Edited by Annica Kronsell
and Erika Svedberg

7 Emergent Writing Methodologies in Feminist Studies

Edited by Mona Livholts

8 Gender and Sexuality in Online Game Cultures

Passionate Play
Jenny Sundn and
Malin Sveningsson

9 Heterosexuality in Theory and Practice

Chris Beasley, Heather Brook and
Mary Holmes

First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
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2012 Taylor & Francis

The right of Chris Beasley, Heather Brook and Mary Holmes to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Beasley, Chris.
Heterosexuality in theory and practice/by Chris Beasley, Heather Brook, and Mary Holmes. 1st ed.
p. cm. (Routledge advances in feminist studies and intersectionality; 9)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Heterosexuality. I. Brook, Heather. II. Holmes, Mary, 1965 III. Title.
HQ76.4.B43 2012
306.764dc23
2012004831

ISBN: 978-0-415-89009-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-10392-0 (ebk)

This book has been an adventure of the best kind. We must begin by acknowledging the Adelaide Hills winemakers, Shaw and Smith, for it was out of a bottle of their excellent Sauvignon Blanc that the idea for the book first appeared like a Genie granting us wishes. Our first wish was to do some work together, because we knew that would be intellectually enriching and thoroughly good fun. And so it has proved.

Chris thanks the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender at the University of Adelaide and GEXcel: Centre for Gender Excellence in Sweden for their scholarly and other assistance, which advanced early versions of several chapters. Heather wants to thank, above all, her sister, Wendy Miller, without whose love and support she would never have been able to dedicate time and energy to this project. Mary would like to thank the ESRC for the grant that enabled her to undertake her research; and Flinders University for granting her extended leave, which gave her a head-start on a couple of chapters. This meant that she could annoy Chris and Heather while they were desperately trying to write in the midst of teaching and other ongoing aspects of academic life. We all want to thank Carolyn Corkindale for her always friendly assistance. Furthermore, we dips our lids to the Unley and Glenelg Institute of Heterosexuality, for generous hosting of our research retreatsthat is, our designated days of working togetherwhich were absolutely central to completing this thoroughly joint and joyous project. To all partners, children, and pets disrupted by said retreats we offer apologies and thanks for your support. Whether the other wishes we made over that bottle of Shaw and Smith are granted depends upon what readers make of this book.

Chris Beasley, Heather Brook, and Mary Holmes, December 2011

Heterosexuality is traditionally defined as involving attraction, interest, or desire between persons of the opposite sex (understood as men and women), and sexual relations between them (OED online). This dictionary definition is commonly interpreted to mean that heterosexuality involves a complementarity between the sexes, whereby men actively pursue women, and women succumb to their advances (Hamilton and Armstrong 2009; Bogle 2008). Heterosex is more specifically understood in terms of the coital imperative rooted in the idea of a biological drive towards reproduction, necessitating penis-in-vagina intercourse, and with male orgasm as the goal (Jackson and Scott 2010: 74100; Gavey 2005; Tiefer 2000). This volume departs from such a starting point by engaging in a range of debates in order to redefine and re-imagine heterosexuality. In our view, heterosexuality is fissured in its ever yday complexity; it is fractured, grainy, layered. However, scholarly attempts to understand heterosexuality have overwhelmingly focused on its more negative and disturbing aspects. At the same time, it is also thought to be uninteresting; it is supposed that heterosexuality is always normative. Such presumptions play out the antagonisms of the sex wars, which raged in the 1980s but continue to be both implicitly and explicitly deployed in sexuality debates. The sex wars involve a dispute over whether sex is primarily dangerous or should be embraced as pleasurable (Duggan and Hunter [1995] 2006). However, in this dispute, pleasure is routinely constituted as residing in queermeaning non-heterosexualsex. The oppositional stances of the sex wars thus leave heterosexuality in a dark, dull corner, its potential for joy and excitement virtually unacknowledged and unexplored (but see Meah et al 2011; Jackson and Scott 2007, 2001).