Tender Gestures in heteronormative spaces. Displaying affection in public by families of choice in Poland

Abstract

This article discusses the ways in which non-heterosexual people living in Poland understand and navigate displaying affection in public. I trace how LGBTQ people negotiate and develop their strategies of (in)visibility. I investigate the landscape of queer visibility outside ‘the West’ and in particular discuss concepts developed in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). I argue that the geographies of sexualities should pay more attention to public displays of affection (PDA) from the perspective of agentic queer subjects. I propose an approach based on tenderness to capture and understand the ambiguity and complexity of strategies of (in)visibility. The paper draws on research on the intimate life of non-heterosexual people living in Poland that included 53 individual in-depth narrative interviews and a monthly ethnographic study conducted with 21 non-heterosexual families.

Keywords:

• Families of choice in Poland
• (in)visibility
• LGBTQ
• public displays of affection
• sexuality
• tenderness

Acknowledgements

I would like to especially thank Joanna Mizielińska for her feedback and support while writing this paper. I am grateful to Ruth Preser for her comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. I also appreciated thoughtful and constructive suggestions given by anonymous reviewers and their engagement in the reviewing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education, program Ideas Plus, research grant “Rodziny z wyboru w Polsce” (“Families of Choice in Poland”), grant number IdP2012000462.

Notes on contributors

Agata Stasińska

Agata Stasińska is a sociologist. She holds a PhD in social sciences, University of Warsaw, Poland. She was a research officer in the project Families of Choice in Poland at the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences were she now works as assistant professor. Graduate of the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and postgraduate of Gender Studies at the University of Warsaw. She coordinated organizing of national and international conferences, i.e. Queer Kinship and Relationships (Polish Academy of Sciences 2015). She is the author of a book ‘Sociology of the Couple. Intimate Practices in Nonheterosexual Relationships’ (2018) an co-author of Families of choice in Poland. Family life of Nonheterosexual Persons (2018) (with Marta Abramowicz and Agata Stasińska). She co-edited books, i.e. Strategie Queer. Od teorii do praktyki and special issues of journals such as: InterAlia and Studia Socjologiczne and published several articles on the sociology of intimate and familial life and sexuality, e.g. Journal of Homosexuality, Sexualities, Studia Sociologiczne, Societas/Communitas and InterAlia.