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Heteronormativity is everywhere. It is always already present in our individual and collective psyches, social institutions, cultural practices, and knowledge systems. In this essay, I provide some sketches for a critical analysis of heteronormativity in the communication discipline. More specifically, I examine the symbolic, discursive, psychological, and material violence of heteronormativity, and begin exploring ways to heal, grow, transform, and contemplate new possibilities in our social world. To accomplish this, this essay is divided into live sections. First, I discuss the study of sexuality in Communication. Next, through the notion of injury, I focus on the violence of heteronormativity. Third, using the concept of healing, I discuss ways of unpacking heteronormativity through a critique of hegemonic heterosexuality. Further, I offer potential ways for queer world-making through the lens of queer theory. I conclude by exploring the need for more sexuality research in the discipline by engaging the productive tensions between constructive and deconstructive impulses.

Debates over same-sex marriage have reached the main stage of contemporary U.S. politics. The purpose of this essay is to identify and examine how sexual ideologies in U.S. LGBT communities inform and influence relationship construction in general and same-sex marriage in particular. To accomplish this, we first discuss the nature of sexual ideologies. Next, we identify current sexual ideologies in LGBT communities and examine some of their fundamental features and their implications for relationship construction with a focus on same-sex marriage. We conclude with a discussion of what is potentially gained and lost by same-sex matrimonial bonds and explore some of the prospects of relationship construction within LGBT communities in the future.

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In the United States, HIV/AIDS is invisible in Asian and Pacific Islander (A/PI) communities even though it has affected them since 1981. As the AIDS crisis enters its second decade, A/PI communities continue to face a classic Catch-22: They receive modest, if any, funding for services, education, or research because there are relatively few reported Asian AIDS cases, but no one can financially, socially, and ethically afford to wait for an explosion of HIV infection in these communities. This article, using the AIDS Risk Reduction Model (ARRM) as an organizing framework, reviews, analyzes, and integrates the current state of knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors associated with HIV/AIDS among Asians and Pacific Islanders. Implications for community health education programs and future directions for research are discussed.