Suspended transitions and affective orderings: From troubled monogamy to liminal polyamory

While monogamy is the norm for romantic and intimate relationships in contemporary western societies, having other sexual and affective interactions alongside a monogamous relationship is a common practice. Instead of a unilateral and/or covert non-monogamy, polyamory promises a consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy. The personal transformation of normative cultural frameworks is fundamental to the experience of “becoming polyamorous.” This article explores such occasions using the notion of liminality in order to illustrate the phenomenon of “liminal hotspots.” Focusing on a specific and exemplary case describing the first stages of a polyamorous relationship, the paper explores the reordering of social formations involved. In this case, “becoming polyamorous” is expressed through a process of suspended transition where categories can be described as both/and monogamous/polyamorous and neither/nor monogamous/polyamorous.

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The Detraditionalization of Intimacy Reconsidered

Sociological Theory ◽

10.1111/j.0735-2751.2005.00255.x ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 286-311 ◽

Cited By ~ 108

Author(s):

Neil Gross

Keyword(s):

Intimate Relationships ◽

The United States ◽

Sexual Intimacy ◽

Moral Communities ◽

Cultural Frameworks ◽

The World ◽

Relative Decline ◽

Modern Era ◽

Late Modern ◽

The U.S

This essay challenges those strains of contemporary social theory that regard romantic/ sexual intimacy as a premier site of detraditionalization in the late modern era. Striking changes have occurred in intimacy and family life over the last half-century, but the notion of detraditionalization as currently formulated does not capture them very well. With the goal of achieving a more refined understanding, the article proposes a distinction between “regulative” and “meaning-constitutive” traditions. The former involve threats of exclusion from various moral communities; the latter involve linguistic and cultural frameworks within which sense is made of the world. Focusing on the U.S. case and marshaling various kinds of empirical evidence, the article argues that while the regulative tradition of what it terms lifelong, internally stratified marriage has declined in strength in recent years, the image of the form of couplehood inscribed in this regulative tradition continues to function as a hegemonic ideal in many American intimate relationships. Intimacy in the United States also remains beholden to the tradition of romantic love. That these meaning-constitutive traditions continue to play a central role in structuring contemporary intimacy suggests that detraditionalization involves the relative decline only of certain regulative traditions, a point that calls into question some of the normative assessments that often accompany the detraditionalization thesis.

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Effects of Attachment Styles on the Experience of Equity in Heterosexual Couples Relationships

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1026//1618-3169.50.4.298 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 50 (4) ◽

pp. 298-310 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Ina Grau ◽

Jörg Doll

Keyword(s):

Attachment Theory ◽

Attachment Style ◽

Intimate Relationships ◽

Attachment Styles ◽

Experimental Studies ◽

The Other ◽

Heterosexual Couples ◽

Secure Attachment ◽

Dependent Variables ◽

Equity Ratio

Abstract. Employing one correlational and two experimental studies, this paper examines the influence of attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) on a person’s experience of equity in intimate relationships. While one experimental study employed a priming technique to stimulate the different attachment styles, the other involved vignettes describing fictitious characters with typical attachment styles. As the specific hypotheses about the single equity components have been developed on the basis of the attachment theory, the equity ratio itself and the four equity components (own outcome, own input, partner’s outcome, partner’s input) are analyzed as dependent variables. While partners with a secure attachment style tend to describe their relationship as equitable (i.e., they give and take extensively), partners who feel anxious about their relationship generally see themselves as being in an inequitable, disadvantaged position (i.e., they receive little from their partner). The hypothesis that avoidant partners would feel advantaged as they were less committed was only supported by the correlational study. Against expectations, the results of both experiments indicate that avoidant partners generally see themselves (or see avoidant vignettes) as being treated equitably, but that there is less emotional exchange than is the case with secure partners. Avoidant partners give and take less than secure ones.

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