Theorising Multi-partner Relationships and Sexualities – Recent Work on Non-monogamy and Polyamory (Book review)

Klesse, C (2018) Theorising Multi-partner Relationships and Sexualities – Recent Work on Non-monogamy and Polyamory (Book review). Sexualities, 21 (7). pp. 1109-1124. ISSN 1363-4607

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Abstract

This review article attests to the maturation of research into consensual non-monogamy and polyamory. It provides an in-depth review of a selection of recent publications that push boundaries and pair interdisciplinary inquiry with queer sensibility and theoretical sophistication in the three areas of theorizing emotions, theorizing intimacies and sexualities and theorizing discourses and the public sphere. This work foregrounds the persistence of moral normativity and judgemental attitudes regarding consensual nonmonogamy. It underscores the power dimension around non/monogamy and reveals the complexity of contradictory dynamics of discrimination and privileging around non/ monogamous life choices. It shows how non-monogamous people deconstruct feeling rules and demonstrates the nodal function of gender and race/ethnicity in the discursive framings of different forms of non-monogamy.