Coming Home to Love and Class
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: This article explores how romantic love, desire, and social class are mutually influencing factors in the formation and enactment of heterosexual intimate relationships. Using qualitative interview data from a study of heterosexuality and love we analyse some of the ways in which social class structures love relationships and, furthermore, how such relationships are a site in which class is ‘done’. In particular, we explore a central paradox of the heterosexual love relationship: while heterosexuality relies upon the difference it creates in terms of sex and gender one other form of difference - class difference - is understood to be an obstacle to, if not antithetical to, a ‘successful’ relationship. Indeed, as we will show, this form of difference, for some people at least, is one that must be guarded and defended against.
Source: Sociological Research Online
DOI: 10.5153/sro.1116
Authors: Paul Johnson, Steph Lawler
Institution: Durham University
Language: English
Topic: Gender and Feminist Studies
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Durham University
OpenAlex ID: W2171963953