Sex Zones: Intimacy, Citizenship and Public Space

Abstract

Recent studies of sexuality and space have demonstrated that public spaces are constructed around particular notions of appropriate sexual comportment which exclude those whose lives do not centre on monogamous, heterosexual, procreative sex. In a wider sense, such studies have noted that this spatial exclusion of sexual dissidents reflects (and reproduces) notions of citizenship based on heteronormality. Elaborating these ideas, this article proceeds to explore the way in which dissidents have transgressed public and civic spaces in their attempt to undermine this dominant notion of citizenship. In so doing, the article questions the idealization of public space as a site where new notions of sexual citizenship can be forged, arguing that the relationship between intimacy, citizenship and space is less straightforward than some commentators suggest.