In the public debate in Finland, same-sex couples' right to legal recognition is routinely defended by stressing their sameness to heterosexual couples within the discourse of romantic love. This article explores how bisexual women and their partners use these discourses. The five couple interviews were analyzed by implementing discourse analysis. The results highlight how, when taking positions within the discourse of the enduring couple relationship, the interviewees drew on the discourse of romantic love. Woman's bisexuality disappeared easily in this talk. Although it seemed effortless at first sight, negotiations and affective tensions arose when the interviewees tried to fit their relationship into the normative discourse: Is our relationship like traditional heterosexual relationship or is it more equal? Are we similar or are we different? What role does woman's bisexuality have in our relationship? Close reading of these negotiations revealed the hierarchies and norms related to gender and (bi)sexuality that constitute the enduring relationship discourse.
Provide short biographical notes on all contributors here if the journal requires them.Raisa Jurva is a doctoral researcher in gender studies at the University of Tampere, Finland. She is also part of the research team on the Academy of Finland-funded research project Just the two of us? Affective inequalities in intimate relationships (project 287983). Her research interests include entanglements of power and affect in intimate relationships, feminist theories and methodologies, and life course perspectives on gender. She is interested in the ways in which gendered conventions frame the lived experiences of couple relationships, and how those conventions are challenged both institutionally and individually in everyday life. She has published on discourses of heterosexuality in sex education materials, men's experiences of prostate cancer treatment, and female complaint as an expression of gender inequality.Annukka Lahti is a postdoctoral researcher in gender studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is also part of the research team on the Academy of Finland-funded research project Just the two of us?Affective inequalities in intimate relationships (project 287983). She is interested in the affective shaping of inequalities both between and within relationships, as well as in the ways in which those inequalities must be renegotiated by the people engaged in the relationships. Her doctoral research focused on how the notion of bisexuality fits into cultural understandings of couple relationships and the affective effects of this. She has previously published in Feminism & Psychology and Subjectivity. Her postdoctoral research project focuses on the separation experiences of LGBTIQ people.
Challenging unequal gendered conventions in heterosexual relationship contexts through affective dissonance
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.