Weeks, J., B. Heaphy, et al. (2001). Same sex intimacies: families of choice and other life experiments. London and New York, Routledge.
Same Sex Intimacies explores what the authors call families of choice and other life experiments within same sex intimate relationships. The qualitative research is based on in-depth interviews with 96 self-identified 'non-heterosexuals' in the UK, including homosexuals, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, queers and a range of other labels that people used to identify their sexual orientations, and formed part of a wider study funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 1995 and 1996 of changes in family and personal life. The researchers also conducted comparative work in the US, Denmark and the Netherlands. The authors explore contemporary narratives and meanings of non-heterosexual relationships, as well as the power of friendship and the emergence of new forms of commitment for many non-heterosexuals in the context of 'institutional rejection'. This discussion of the 'friendship ethic' has some parallels with the work on 'Rethinking Friendship' by Spencer and Pahl*. The most extensive discussion of 'community' is in chapter four, 'in search of home', which examines notions of belonging and the idea of 'reflexive community' whereby '(i)n relocating and coming out of the heterosexual selves they have been allocated, non-heterosexuals come into new communities.' (p. 86)