Cruising to Familyland: Gay Hypergamy and Rainbow Kinship

Abstract

Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted among gay men in Los Angeles, this article demonstrates that while gay male recreational sex disrupts conventional family norms and practices, it also serves as a cultural resource for constructing creative ‘families of choice’. In the unfettered pursuit of masculine sexuality, gay men reconfigure eros, domesticity, parenthood and kinship in ways that simultaneously reinforce and challenge conventional gender and family practices and values. Those who breach sexual norms often cross social divides as well, forging hypergamous intimate attachments that cross racial, generational and social class boundaries more frequently than heterosexuals do.