Boston marriages : romantic but asexual relationships among contemporary lesbians

Boston Marriages: Romantic but A sexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians is an interesting addition to the varied discourses on devising and defining lesbian relationships and sexualities. Rothblum and Brehony provide a collection of theoretical articles and personal narratives which open a discussion of the centrality of sex to the definition of lesbian relationships. This discussion implicitly challenges what has been the definitive moment for the category lesbian. It also offers an opportunity to think about the links (and the ruptures) between sexual activity and intimacy in lesbian relationships.Although this book is aimed primarily at psychologists and psychotherapists, the project of finding ways to redefine or to expand existing definitions of "relationship," "intimacy," and "sexuality" in the lives of lesbians is of interest to any of us who live and theorize in, around, and through the boundaries of those definitions. Taking a critical look at the meanings of the terms "sexuality," "intimacy" and "relationship" has profound implications for our lives, loves and politics, especially since such an examination necessarily calls the hegemonic meanings associated with these terms into question.Rothblum and Brehony suggest that we reclaim the nineteenth-century term "Boston Marriage" as one means to discuss intimate, but not sexually active, committed relationships without resorting to terms which would pathologize that sexual (in)activity. Many of the essays in the introductory and theoretical sections suggest inadequate and inaccurate language to describe lesbian sexualities and/or lesbian relationships. Indeed, the complex and various meanings associated with the terms of reference disrupt rather than connect the theoretical perspectives. The terms of the language, and the meanings attached to a "Boston Marriage" seem to muffle rather than clarify the voices of women trying to tell their own stories.The inadequacies of language are a problem of this text as well as a problem for this text. Although many of the authors give lip service to the need to rethink these terms, they often do not take this rethinking very far, nor do they provide any working consensus for how we should redefine these terms. The brunt of the blame for our inadequate language is levelled at the "patriarchy" for its role in erasing some original (essential) positively-valued feminine sexuality. What seems to be going on in many of the "theoretical" pieces here is a series of assumptions that this reader was not willing to leave unchallenged. For the most part, the term "sex" gets defined (implicitly and explicitly) as some form of genital contact which culminates in one or both partners having an orgasm. This definition produces an "event-driven" model of sex. In this model, pleasure is all but erased (subsumed by the orgasmic "moment") and the model itself is strongly rooted in what could be characterized as a phallogocentric and/or heterosexist conceptualization of sexuality. Thus, there is a logical inconsistency between the model of sex being employed and the project to redefine its meaning. …