Academic literature on the topic 'Mononormativity'

Abstract Success in the digital dating world is often dependent on an individual’s ability to negotiate the affordances and constraints of platforms (Bucher & Helmond 2017) while effectively expressing who one is and what they are looking for. Since mononormativity is the dominant script that underpins ideals of romantic love and intimate relations in our society (Wolkomir 2019), for the millions who ascribe to non-monogamy, profile creation is often complicated by dating platform interfaces and relationship orientations. This research takes a critical multimodal discourse approach (Machin 2016, Milani 2013) to examine the interplay between various semiotic modes in meaning making about sexual normativities (Motschenbacher 2019) in digital dating contexts, and considers how people navigating non-traditional relationship orientations negotiate discourse in digital dating contexts to demonstrate how discourse and design have the ability to empower and marginalize users (Sun 2020) as well maintain cultural norms (Wachter-Boettcher 2017) about emotional bonding and sexuality.

In queer theory ‘heteronormativity’ has become a central tool for understanding the social conditions of our sexual and intimate lives. The term is most often used to shed light on how those lives are patterned in a way that shapes and privileges binary genders and heterosexual identities, lifestyles and practices. Frequently, however, ‘heteronormativity’ is stretched beyond its capacity when called upon to explain other normative patterns of intimacy. Drawing on Cathy Cohen’s (1997) ground breaking essay ‘Punks, bulldaggers and welfare queens: The radical potential of queer?’, this article argues that analysing the political landscape of our intimate lives in terms of heteronormativity alone fails to adequately account for the way some familial and sexual cultures are stigmatised along class and race lines. This article gestures towards examples of those whose intimacies are unquestionably marginalised and yet non-queer, or at least not-necessarily-queer, placing Cohen’s ‘welfare queens’ alongside examples from contemporary Australia public culture to argue for the critical efficacy of the concept ‘mononormativity’ for intersectional analysis.

This article examines the impact that different normative understandings of sexuality and relationships have on LGBTIQ+ people’s experience of the UK Immigration System, with a particular focus on mononormative conceptions that privilege forms of coupledom. By examining legal regulations and case judgments, the mononormative bias is shown to disadvantage LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers and make it difficult for those not seen to be in long-term romantic relationships to have their sexuality acknowledged and their claims for asylum upheld. The article considers how mononormativity intersects with heteronormative stereotypes and narrow homonormative prescriptions of gay identity such as “coming out” or expressing particular lifestyle choices. Taken together these normativities combine in a culture of disbelief in the immigration system that negates the self-identification of LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers and refugees by requiring them conform to norms that do not reflect the diversity of queer lives and experiences.

We are living in an era characterized by multilingualism, global mobility, superdiversity (Blommaert, 2010), and digital communications. Mobility and multilingualism, however, have long characterized most geolinguistic contexts, including those where monolingual ideologies have influenced the formation of contemporary nation states (Cenoz, 2013). As language is a pillar of both curriculum and instruction, in many academic spaces around the world efforts are on the rise to acknowledge the colonial origins of English, decenter the dominance of Standard English(es), and decolonize knowledge production (e.g., Bhambra et al., 2018; de Sousa Santos, 2017). Additionally, many ‘inner circle’ (Kachru, 2001) Anglophone contexts have long witnessed the centrifugal forces of multilingualism. Yet what prevails in institutional academic contexts is a centripetal pull toward what has been captured in phrases such as ‘linguistic mononormativity’ (Blommaert & Horner, 2017) or ‘Anglonormativity’ (McKinney, 2017). Nowhere is this pull more evident than in the sphere of writing for publication, relentlessly construed as an ‘English Only’ space, as exemplified in Elnathan's (2021) claim in the journal Nature: ‘English is the international language of science, for better or for worse.’

Increasingly described as a legislative inevitability in Australia, gay marriage is often heralded as the certain, if temporarily stalled, triumph of love and an overdue public symbol of the tolerance of sexual diversity. In this context it is worth renewing queer questions about the limits of legitimate intimacy in contemporary Western cultures – limits which may not be challenged by granting same-sex couples state recognition. Instead of adding another voice to debates about the potential consequences of same-sex marriage, this thesis approaches the contemporary politics of love from the perspective of those who do not march two by two, asking what we might learn from practices of negotiated non-monogamy. Analysing TV series, blogs, self-help books and first-person accounts alongside 23 qualitative interviews conducted with queer non-monogamists in and around Sydney, the thesis explores the way sex, love, friendship, emotion, and intimacy are currently theorised in relation to non-dyadic relationships. Friends who fuck, fictional polygamists, ‘ethical sluts’, swingers, and polyamorists are considered side by side in order to draw out the tensions (productive and otherwise) that animate stories of sex and love beyond the couple. The thesis considers non-monogamous scheduling strategies, taxonomic skirmishes, measures of significance and theories of jealousy in relation to queer and feminist thinking on intimacy. Idiosyncrasies and unexpected resonances within the material are used to map the political valencies of discourses surrounding these marginalised relationship styles, contributing to scholarship on how contemporary negotiated non-monogamy can be understood - an active concern as queers are increasingly encouraged to dream of wedding whites. Offering an extended conceptualisation of mononormativity - one entwined with but ultimately distinct from heteronormativity - the thesis also addresses broader patterns, ideals and institutions of intimacy, arguing that more people stand to benefit from the decentring of monogamy than those who actively pursue a life outside it.

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the experience of polyamory from the perspective of heterosexual polyamorous women through a mononormative framework. Interpretive phenomenology was used because it gives participants the opportunity to express this phenomenon on their own terms. This study focused on understanding the experience of heterosexual polyamorous women in the following areas: (1) understanding the decision to participate in polyamorous relationships, (2) exploring the boundaries heterosexual women use to regulate and maintain multiple relationships, and (3) giving these women the opportunity to refute assumptions and stereotypes associated with identifying themselves as polyamorous. Eight women whom identified as heterosexual and polyamorous participated in semi-structured telephone interviews. Data form these interviews were analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological approach. Open coding and in-vivo coding were used to organize similar experiences into concepts that were then organized into themes and subthemes that emerged from the data. From this study, researchers gained insight into how polyamorous heterosexual woman make meaning of this phenomenon and offer recommendations for clinical professionals to use when working with this population.
Master of Science
Polyamory has been practiced for centuries in many different cultures (Labriola, 1999; Klesse, 2006; Robinson, 2013). Previous research on polyamorous relationships has focused primarily on homosexual males. There has been limited research on polyamorous relationships from the woman's perspective and no research focused exclusively on heterosexual women who identify as polyamorous. This study explored the lived experience of heterosexual polyamorous women in polyamorous relationships using interpretive phenomenology. This included understanding the decision to participate in polyamorous relationships, exploring the boundaries heterosexual women use to regulate and maintain multiple relationships, and giving these women the opportunity to refute assumptions and stereotypes associated with identifying themselves as polyamorous. The results of this research study provide insight into this perspective on polyamory and offer recommendations for clinical professionals to use when working with this population.

This essay aims to examine what subject positions are possible within the discourse of relationship anarchy. Through semi-structured interviews with four people who define themselves as relationship anarchists I've made a discourse analysis to determine how these relationship anarchists explain what, in the discourse they’re in, is described as an relationship anarchistic way of being, what isn’t and how they relate to this. Relationship anarchy is described as an ideology based on freedom. It is about the right to define their relationships as they like, as something constantly changing and that does not hold a specific value based on its label. But it is apparent that the freedom is relative when it occurs in a discourse where other standards are created. Based on these standards, both the hegemonic discourse, where being a couple is the relationship standard, and the counter-hegemonic relationship anarchist discourse, the respondents are positioning themselves as something different from that, and that their way of practicing relationships are based on responsibility and communication. Based on this I find that there are three possible subject positions within relationship anarchy: the idealogical, the player and the responsible.

Polyamori i terapikontext är ett outforskat ämne i Sverige. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka polyamorösa klienters erfarenheter av familjerådgivning. Metoden är enskilda halvstrukturerade intervjuer med nio polyidentifierade personer, som har analyserats med hjälp av Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, IPA, och teoretiska ramverk som Rubins sexuella värdehierarki och den obligatoriska monogamin. Resultaten går i linje med inter-nationell forskning om terapi¬erfarenheter hos poly¬identi¬fierade klienter. Intervjupersonerna beskriver varierande erfarenheter av familje¬rådgivning. Terapirummet tenderar å ena sidan att vara en plats där familjerådgivarens mononormativa värderingar får fritt spelrum. I detta rum nedvärderas polyamori och monogami görs till det ideala sättet att ha kärleksrelationer. Klienterna riskerar därmed att utsättas för stigmatisering och diskriminering i familje-rådgivningen. De polyamorösa klienterna berättar också om kunskapsbrister hos behandlare både när det handlar om relationsnormer och om poly¬specifika frågeställningar. Studien visar å andra sidan exempel på när familjerådgivningen blir ett polyvänligt rum. I detta rum har terapeuten kunskap om polyamori, en vilja att lära mer eller åtminstone ett neutralt förhåll¬ningssätt. I studien beskrivs också strategier som informanterna tar till för att tillförskaffa sig ett gott bemötande. Slutsatsen är att de erfarenheter som studien beskriver pekar på att det finns kunskapsbrister i den svenska familjerådgivningen när det handlar om att bemöta den icke-monogama klienten. Terapeutens och klientens normsystem kolliderar, vilket bland annat kan leda till att klienten blir utpekad och avstår ifrån att söka vidare hjälp. Ökad kunskap i familjerådgivningen om mononormativitet och om polyamorösa personers unika behov skulle förbättra de poly¬amorösa klienternas förutsättningar att få hjälp vid relationsproblem.
Polyamory in a therapy context is a field with little research in Sweden today. The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of polyamorous clients in relationship counselling (familjerådgivning). The method is semi-structured individual interviews with nine informants. The interviews are analysed with interpretative phenomenological analysis, IPA. The results are further analysed by applying the frameworks of Rubin’s sexual hierarchy and compulsory monogamy. The results agree with international research regarding polyamorous persons’ experiences of relationship counselling. The informants describe both helpful and harmful experiences in the counselling room. On the one hand, it tends to be a room where the counsellor’s mononormative values reign free. In this room polyamory is degraded and monogamy is idealized. The client is in risk of stigmatisation and discrimination. The informants describe that the therapists lack knowledge regarding both relationship norms and poly-specific issues. One the other hand, the study exemplifies when the counselling room is poly-friendly. In this room, the therapist has knowledge about polyamory, a desire to learn more about it or at least shows a neutral attitude. The results also exemplify strategies that the informants use in order to get a good treatment. The conclusion of the study is that there is a lack of knowledge in Swedish couples counselling regarding the treatment of non-monogamous clients. The norm systems of the therapist and the client collide. The client can thereby feel accused and excluded, and may as a result refrain from seeking further help. Increased knowledge regarding mononormativity and the unique needs of polyamorous persons would improve the way that their needs are met in the counselling.

This thesis aims to highlight, analyse and problematize how sexualities and relationships are constructed as normative and deviant in the Hunger Games trilogy through the character Katniss Everdeen. With this analysis, the thesis aims to further elucidate the pluralism of meaning within literature as a contribution to the field of feminist cultural studies. Queer theory and queer temporality studies have been used to identify and discuss concepts such as the heterosexual matrix, monogamy and mononormativity, polyamory and other marginalized sexualities. A thematic queer reading serves as a methodological approach to the material to enable searching for queer themes in the series. The thesis shows how heterosexuality and monogamy are constructed and portrayed as normative and compulsory, where all other expressions of sexuality are presented as deviant and thereby can be view as different expressions of queer temporality.

AbstractFriendship can release intimacy from the normativity imposed by heteronormativity, monomaternalism and mononormativity. In the Mediterranean welfare regime, care is supposed to be granted by the family, and LGBTQ partners, mothers and friends are not legitimized in their desire to have more than one intimate relationship at a time, to parent and to live a satisfactory life beyond the couple. Therefore, through the subversive and transformative power of friendship, LGBTQ people question relational normativity, blur the boundaries of intimate relationships and redefine care. Taking into account the language used to make friendship intelligible in the neoliberalism, I describe these networks as “complicit”: they entail a multidimensionality of intimacy rooted in emotional and psychological assistance, companionship, pleasure, economic and material support, beauty and imagination.