https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8966-8044
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Abstract
The article demonstrates how the problematic socio-political situation of nonheterosexual communities in Poland and Polish traditionalism significantly impacts how nonheterosexual people develop their sexual stories and perceive their sexual practices. It aims to shift the discussion on sex life, primarily conducted in the Anglo-American context that often focuses on the frequency of sexual contact and heteronormative understanding of sexual practices, into a more critical one, attentive to the socio-political context. The article maps queer narratives on sex life and reconstructs the role of heteronormative and homophobic patterns, prejudices, and stereotypes. It demonstrates how public norms and discourses are mirrored, negotiated, and challenged in queer sexual stories. Finally, it shows how these negotiations deeply influence the positionality of nonheterosexual people in Poland and their sexual choices and practices. The article concludes by sharing future paths for research on queer sexual life inspired by geographies of gender and sexualities. The presented analysis draws on 53 individual in-depth narrative interviews and a monthly ethnographic study conducted with 21 nonheterosexual families done within the Families of Choice in Poland research project.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Valerie de Craene and Cesare di Feliciano for their work on bringing back sex within geographies of sexualities. We would also like to thank Valerie, Cesare, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive suggestions and engagement in the review process.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Agata Stasińska
Agata Stasińska is a sociologist. She holds a PhD in social sciences, University of Warsaw, Poland. She was a research officer in the project Families of Choice in Poland (2013-2016) and co-investigator in the international project Erasmus + project Doing Rights. Innovative Tools for Professionals Working with LGBT families (2017-2020). Currently she works at Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Graduate of the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and postgraduate of Gender Studies at the University of Warsaw. She coordinated organizing of national and international conferences i.e. Queer Kinship and Relationships (Polish Academy of Sciences 2015). She is the author of a book Sociology of the Couple. Intimate Practices in Nonheterosexual Relationships (2018) an co-author of Families of choice in Poland. Family life of Nonheterosexual Persons (2018). She co-edited books i.e. Strategie Queer. Od teorii do praktyki and special issues of journals such as: InterAlia and Studia Socjologiczne and published several articles on the sociology of intimate and familial life and sexuality e.g. Gender, Place and Culture, Sociological Research Online, Journal of Homosexuality, Sexualities, Studia Sociologiczne, Societas/Communitas and InterAlia.
Joanna Mizielińska
Joanna Mizielińska holds a D.S.s (habilitation) in sociology, the University of Warsaw and a Ph.D. in Feminist Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Currently, she works at Institute of Sociology, Collegium Civitas. She was the Principal Investigator of the project Families of Choice in Poland (2013-2016) which was the first multi-method project on nonheterosexual families in Poland and the Co-investigator in an international Erasmus + project Doing Rights. Innovative Tools for Professionals Working with LGBT families (2017-2020). She has been an expert in LGBTIQ issues for almost 20 years, conducting qualitative and quantitative research. She is an author of books and articles on gender, sexuality, queer kinship, including De-Centring Western Sexualities. Central and Eastern European Perspective (co-edited with R.Kulpa, 2011). The findings of her recent study include the books Families of choice in Poland. Family life of nonheterosexual persons (with M.Abramowicz and A.Stasińska, 2015), In Different Voices. Families of Choice in Poland (with J.Struzik and A. Król, 2017) and Different or Ordinary? Families of Choice in Poland (2017) - and numerous academic articles. Her book titled Queer Kinship at the Edge? Families of Choice in Poland (2022) has just been published by Routledge and it is available in open access.