Will sociological theory and methodology, with its inclination towards ordering and structuring of the social, ever manage to come to grips with sexuality and the vicissitudes of fantasy, desire and passion? There is no clear answer to the question, and sociologists engage theoretically and empirically in a number of ways in studies of the sexual, often looking to other disciplines for perspectives to inform the analysis. In this paper, theoretical concepts from psychoanalysis are deployed in an attempt to deconstruct the conceptual distinction between homosexual and heterosexual practices. The author introduces a notion of 'triangulation', drawn from psychoanalysis, where a third eroticising element is seen as part of the relation between desiring individuals, thereby making the distinction between 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual' a more problematic one.
This article applies a perspective on the study of lesbian sexuality, in which lesbian sexuality is seen as a process where the power domains of heterosexuality are reinscribed. Using empirical material, consisting of interviews with Norwegian lesbians, I analyse the way informants use the term `to take somebody' in a (hetero) sexual interpretation of the word. It is demonstrated how heterosexual connotations of the term are reinscribed, and at the same time being reworked and given different meanings. The article briefly discusses the question of lesbian specificity on the basis of this kind of analysis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.