Producing Norms: Same-Sex Marriage, Refiguring Kinship and the Cultural Groundswell of Queer Coupledom

Abstract

Poststructuralist feminism, postmodern inquiry, queer theory and various radical and liberal-humanist forms of lesbian/gay rights have worked to undo the claim to the naturalness of masculine-feminine and male-female complementarity in sex and relationships. That is, the rhetorical grounding of the very notion of relationship ‘coupledom’ has been put in question over the past half-century and opened the possibility of a radical reorganisation of modern kinship. The destabilising impact on much contemporary western legislation concerning family, children, IVF access, adoption, immigration rights and social security centers on whether or not the subject of that legislation is ‘single’ or ‘coupled’. Such legislation frequently seeks to restore coupledom’s claim to normativity: in conservative formats as a claim to heteronormativity, and in more liberal and sometimes radical perspectives as a claim to the normativity of coupled relationships, regardless of the genders involved. Taking a queer theory approach, this article examines the ways in which lesbian/gay cultural rhetoric has sought to re-affirm coupledom as the primary, acceptable form of everyday sexual and relational sociality. The dominant political strand of lesbian/gay politics asserts a pro-coupledom discourse through the claim to same-sex partnership legislation and gay marriage rights. Arguing that the normalisation of coupledom is out of step with the radical roots of (1970s) lesbian/gay politics, a number of the mechanisms by which same-sex coupledom becomes popular, enters public sphere dialogue and achieves a political groundswell are examined here.