(Hetero)Sexing Space: Lesbian Perceptions and Experiences of Everyday Spaces

TLDR

Heterosexuality dominates Western culture, shaping everyday spaces through power relations that marginalize lesbians, who feel out of place in workplaces and hotels, and experience antigay discrimination and violence that reinforce heterosexual spatial supremacy. The paper investigates how lesbians perceive and experience everyday spaces. The study concludes that fear of disclosure and antigay abuse suppress lesbian expression in everyday spaces, reinforcing heterosexual spatial dominance.

Abstract

Heterosexuality is the dominant sexuality in modern Western culture, However, it is not defined merely by sexual acts in private space but is a process of power relations which operates in most everyday environments. In this paper, therefore, the author explores how lesbians perceive and experience everyday spaces. It is argued that lesbians can feel ‘out of place’ in environments such as the workplace or hotels, because these spaces are organised and appropriated by heterosexuals and so express and reproduce asymmetrical sociosexual relations. Consideration is also given to the way heterosexual hegemony is reproduced and expressed in space through antigay discrimination and violence. In the conclusion, the author explores the way in which fear of disclosure and antigay abuse inhibit the expression of lesbian and gay sexualities in everyday spaces and so feed the spatial supremacy of heterosexuality.