South African research on same-sex sexuality is sparse. Black men living in rural areas, and particularly coloured men, have often been neglected in same-sex sexuality research. This paper describes the findings from a study that explored the sexuality constructions of a group of young, coloured, self-identified gay men who live in a semi-rural, low-income, South African community. Social constructionist grounded theory was used to analyse interviews conducted with 12 men between the ages of 20 and 31. It was found that these men construct their sexuality as being 'like a woman'. In our exploration of this core category, we show how men use notions of femininity to construct their sexuality. We conclude by considering how this group of gay men's performance of femininity could be viewed as reproducing mainstream ideas of gender within their community, while at the same time functioning as acts of subversion.
Many gay couples engage in nonmonogamous relationships. Ideas about nonmonogamy have historically been theorised as individual pathology and indicating relational distress. Unlike mixed-sex couples, boundaries for gay couples are often not determined by sexual exclusivity. These relationships are built along a continuum of open and closed, and sexual exclusivity agreements are not restricted to binaries, thus requiring innovation and re-evaluation. Three white South African gay couples were each jointly interviewed about their open relationship, specifically about how this is negotiated. In contrast to research that uses the individual to investigate this topic, this study recruited dyads. The couples recalled the initial endorsement of heteronormative romantic constructions, after which they shifted to psychological restructuring. The dyad, domesticated through the stock image of a white picket fence, moved to a renewed arrangement, protected by “rules” and imperatives. Abbreviated grounded theory strategies led to a core category, “co-creating porous boundaries”, and two themes. First, the couple jointly made heteronormative ideals porous and, second, they reconfigured the relationship through dyadic protection. The overall relationship ideology associated with the white picket fence remained intact despite the micro-innovations through which the original heteronormative patterning was reconfigured.
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