Heterosexuality in Theory and Practice

This book explores heterosexualities in their complex and everyday expressions. It engages with theories about the intersection of sexuality with other markers of difference, and gender in particular. The outcome will productively upset equations of heterosexuality with heteronormativity and accounts that cast heterosexuality in "sex critical, sex as danger" terms. Queer/feminist ‘pro-sex’ perspectives have become prevalent in analyses of sexuality, but in these approaches queer becomes the site of subversive, transgressive, exciting and pleasurable sex, while heterosex, if mentioned at all, continues to be seen as objectionable or dowdy. It challenges heterosexuality’s comparative absence in gender/sexuality debates and the common constitution of heterosexuality as nasty, boring and normative. The authors develop an innovative analysis showing the limits of the sharply bifurcated perspectives of the "sex wars". This is not a revisionist account of heterosexuality as merely one option in a fluid smorgasbord, nor does it dismiss the weight of feminist/pro-feminist critiques of heterosexuality. This book establishes that if relations of domination do not constitute the analytical sum of heterosexuality, then identifying its range of potentialities is clearly important for understanding and helping to undo its "nastier" elements.

Chris Beasley is Associate Professor in Politics at the University of Adelaide. Her books include Gender and Sexuality (2005) and What is Feminism? (1999) for Sage/Allen & Unwin. She has taught on gender and sexuality for over twenty years.

Heather Brook has taught within the women’s studies programme at Flinders University of South Australia for eight years and is a Senior Lecturer. Her book Conjugal Rites: Marriage and Marriage-like Relationships (2007) was published by Palgrave.

Mary Holmes is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Flinders University and has taught courses on gender and sexuality there and in the UK over the last decade. She is the author of What is Gender? (Sage, 2007) and Gender and Everyday Life (Routledge, 2009).