Martine Gross
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814791011
- eISBN:
- 9780814764473
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814791011.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter analyzes interviews with gays and lesbians, who are contemplating or embarking on parenthood, in exploring the relationship between individuals' and couples' desires for children. It ...
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This chapter analyzes interviews with gays and lesbians, who are contemplating or embarking on parenthood, in exploring the relationship between individuals' and couples' desires for children. It considers if gay and lesbian couples, who can separate the biological from the social forms of reproduction, understand their children as an outgrowth of their relationship, a “couple project,” or if they understand parenting as an individual project. In their notions of the couple and the connection between sexuality and attachment, women and men differ quite strikingly. The chapter questions whether similar patterns prevail in other countries and cultures where feminist and queer movements may have had greater influence and where lesbians have unimpeded access to assisted reproductive technologies.Less
This chapter analyzes interviews with gays and lesbians, who are contemplating or embarking on parenthood, in exploring the relationship between individuals' and couples' desires for children. It considers if gay and lesbian couples, who can separate the biological from the social forms of reproduction, understand their children as an outgrowth of their relationship, a “couple project,” or if they understand parenting as an individual project. In their notions of the couple and the connection between sexuality and attachment, women and men differ quite strikingly. The chapter questions whether similar patterns prevail in other countries and cultures where feminist and queer movements may have had greater influence and where lesbians have unimpeded access to assisted reproductive technologies.
