Alongside the struggles of lesbians and gays, research into homosexuality has increased. Sébastien Chauvin and Arnaud Lerch take stock. They show that homosexuality cannot be reduced to a sexual orientation, but must be approached as a set of heterogeneous social practices and cultures, which make it possible to examine majority norms.
Can we speak today, in France, of the existence of a “ sociology of homosexuality » as a field established by multiple thematic axes, teams of researchers fully devoting themselves to it, spaces for exchange and teaching ad hoc, specialized publications ? Certainly not. However, it is indeed a process of development and progressive legitimization of research on homosexuality which has been at work for several years. It is striking to note how this process is inseparable from the social transformations of homosexuality. This was still considered a deviance a few decades ago (we spoke of “ social scourge » in the 1960s within the National Assembly). It has become a more visible form of intimacy and sexuality, recognized in 1999 in its conjugal form by the civil partnership, and more recently by the opening of marriage to same-sex couples. Parallel to these transformations, several major events have more or less directly marked the progressive creation of a new field of research: the routinization of an investigation into male homosexual practices under the leadership of Michael Pollak and Marie-Ange Schiltz in the 1990s. 1980, the creation of the multidisciplinary gay and lesbian studies seminar at theEHESS by Françoise Gaspard and Didier Eribon at the end of the 1990s. In the same way, the founding of research networks on sexualities within the French Association of Sociology and the International Association of French-speaking Sociologists constituted privileged frameworks for transmitting work on homosexuality in France. We could cite other initiatives or work which have consolidated this process, such as the creation of the journal Gender, sexuality and society in 2009, which devoted several of its issues to homosexualities. More broadly, the expansion of gender research has been conducive to the growth of gay and lesbian studies.
Desexualize homosexuality
In this journey towards the institutionalization of a sociology of homosexuality, the book by Sébastien Chauvin and Arnaud Lerch constitutes a major event. And this for several reasons. The work is much more than an inventory of work on homosexualities, making it possible to account for the vitality of this area of research. His great strength lies in the way he approaches his subject, as opposed to a reification that would make homosexuality a homogeneous and timeless reality. If, as the authors point out, “ the sociology of homosexuality is confronted with the elusive nature of its object, which its contingency and the diversity of its contemporary incarnations make difficult to define » (p. 109), they manage in a particularly convincing manner to restore this diversity, its social and historical variations and to account for what underlies it.
Another strong point of the work is the way in which it articulates the sexual and the non-sexual. If work on homosexuality has largely developed within the framework of research on sexuality, the work also implicitly offers a “ desexualization » of homosexuality: it is not reducible to a set of sexual practices but is structuring of individual and collective identities, cultures, experiences and trajectories.
The first part, “ social sciences and homosexuality » offers a sociological and historical perspective of research on homosexuality. The authors indicate how homosexuality is “ entrance » in sociology, through work that is often innovative and therefore not very legitimate in the discipline: studies on sexual behavior on the one hand, work of interactionist inspiration on deviance on the other. Other social sciences also took up this issue and allowed us to see how the diversity of contexts shaped distinct socio-historical constructions of homosexuality.
The next chapter “ the keys to the closet: homophobia, coming out, communities » is devoted to a central dimension of what the authors call “ how of gay and lesbian existence “. It emphasizes the minority dimension and the stigma which contribute to structuring the homosexual experience. Two structuring lines of the work appear in this chapter. The first consists of never disconnecting the analysis of experiences from the definitional questions which are central to the understanding of homosexuality. The second lies in the systematic consideration of the way in which homosexuality is shaped by gender, understood as the social construction of the difference between the sexes and their hierarchy. The analysis of forms of rejection of homosexuality illustrates this double approach by succeeding in highlighting the common and specific mechanisms of gayphobia and lesbophobia. It also shows that their evolution is inseparable from the individualization which characterizes contemporary societies: it is sometimes less institutional devices which express the hierarchy of sexualities than more subtle forms of rejection or distancing, internalized by individuals. The figures of “ disidentification » which consist of men constantly providing proof of their non-homosexuality are a perfect illustration of this.
The third chapter fully illustrates the choice, central to the work, to understand homosexuality through characteristic cultural traits, well beyond the sole question of sexual practices in the strict sense which is not forgotten. Lifestyles, sexuality and health are discussed, which contribute to the structuring of the homosexual experience, again, differently for men and women.
The next chapter, “ Connections and families », draws heavily on recent research: while showing how friendship occupies a specific place in homosexual careers, the chapter discusses questions relating to the recognition of the same-sex couple and filiation. One of the great skills of this part is its way of approaching individual experiences head-on and the more theoretical questions that arise. The scope of the subject goes beyond knowledge concerning homosexuality: the way in which it calls into question the couple, filiation, and the organization of private life destabilizes dominant forms. We then understand how a sociology of homosexuality can make it possible to break with the overly systematic approach which approaches heterosexuality as “ a reference category never questioned “. While recalling the terms, the authors then take some distance from the standardization debate vs. transgression whose sociological scope (like the empirical basis) is ultimately quite poor.
The last two chapters political and associative movements ” And “ major sociological questions through the prism of homosexuality » are probably the most original. They show the interest for the study of homosexualities in investing in now classic themes of the social sciences (political and associative commitment, globalization, social stratification and mobility, choice of spouse, etc.), but above all how these themes benefit from being revisited from the angle of homosexuality. These are certain paradigms which are thus examined, like for example the “ new social movements » or the way in which the homogamy of couples is classically envisaged.
A fruitful reading key
In summary, we perceive through reading this work that the “ abundance » research on homosexuality that the authors talk about remains very relative. Many blind spots exist in all the areas covered by the work: that of cultural productions and practices. classics ” For example. What cinema, literature, music, but also sporting practices say about homosexuality ? How are they worked by her ? Within research on the family, the relationships of gays and lesbians with their relatives are very little studied, even though they are probably a privileged prism for understanding the specificities of the gay or lesbian experience. In other fields, such as the sociology of professions or that of political behavior, the abundance of research contrasts with the absence of work that takes homosexuality into account.
These blind spots also invite methodological reflection to the extent that they are often linked to the weakness of quantitative approaches to understanding homosexuality. As the authors very well point out, the work has often been carried out using innovative methods such as interactionist approaches. But it would be appropriate for more traditional methodological bases to also be opened up to research on homosexuality: quantitative sociology and demography would benefit from systematizing reflection on the insertion of homosexuality indicators in major surveys. The institutionalization of a field of research is therefore far from being achieved. It also involves a change in the outlook of the academic community, which too often observes this type of work with a distance (like many others which concern minority groups). The work of Arnaud Lerch and Sébastien Chauvin is, in this perspective, an indispensable instrument: it breaks down the barriers between homosexuality as an object of research and poses questions to sociology as a whole.