Betydningen av seksuell erfaring, tiltrekning og identitet for ...

‘lesbian personae’ in a Francophone high school in Canada. Being
heterosexual, these girls were able to ‘successfully’ take up lesbianism as a
counter-discourse. This need for heterosexual confidence could assist our
understanding of why the group with homosexual kissing experience was
also the most heterosexually experienced. In this way homosexual necking
can be interpreted as a part of heterosexual development.
Although we argue that this means that both girls’ and boys’ homosexual
kissing behaviour does not pose a ’threat’ to the dichotomous sexual
identity categories, we will still open up for the view that is does in fact
represent a challenge to heteronormativity in terms of behaviour. If the
repertoire of sexual behaviour ‘allowed’ within the heterosexual norm
expands, this may in itself be a ‘queering’ of society. However, when asking
whether this may turn the homo-hetero dichotomy redundant, our findings
suggest that it will not. Rather, as this homosexual practise is incorporated in
a heterosexual script, even confirming the heterosexuality of the subject, it
may be seen as an example of how ‘queer’ practice is ‘straightened out’
among some young people with heterosexual experiences.
Homosexual experience – no sexual identity?
We have argued that the meaning of young people’s homosexual behaviour is
very different, related to the underlying sexual self-identity of the young
woman or young man: Coherence and authenticity, conflict or experimentation?
We have also argued that from such a point of departure, it is difficult
to interpret the lack of overlap between experience and attractions as ‘queer’.
However, a third possibility is that some of these young people have no sexual
identity. In his new book “The New Gay Teenager” (2005), Ritch C. Savin-
Williams claims that some young gays today do not require a sexual definition
in order to express who they are. Same-sex sexuality is not such a big deal to
them, and they are not interested in neatly categorising their sexual orientation,
he finds. Is this an underlying cultural change that may lie behind the
diversity in sexual behaviour and attractions found in this study? May this be
an indication that the arguments of queer identity politics have succeeded in
advocating people’s sexual freedom outside the binaries? Our data does not
allow conclusions on these questions. Qualitative data published elsewhere
(Larsen, Sandberg & Pedersen 2005) however, revealed that most homosexual
behaviour among the interviewed adolescents seemed to confirm rather than
destabilise (hetero)sexual identities. Still, the multiple combinations of sexual
behaviours and sexual attractions found in this study are intriguing, and
suggest that a definite ‘no’ to the questions is not warranted.
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– NOVA Rapport 1/07 –