Parentalidade e conjugabilidades em uniões homoafetivas femininas

Abstract

Social changes in the last decades have been generating profound alterations in the way how affective relationships are established, originating multiple family configurations. Among these new families, we highlight the conjugality and parenthood relations in homosexual couples, which are the central thematic of this research. We focused our analysis on how lesbian women are living conjugality and parenthood. Our sample was constituted by seven women, who maintain a love relationship with other women and, in these relations, share the caring with one or two children. We aimed to understand the affective universe of these women through their narratives. By the time of the interview, all of them were residents in Recife Metropolitan Region and had middle class social status, with ages varying from 30 to 46 years old. To classify social status the following social indicators were used: formal education level, profession, residence location and monthly income. Although it was not a prerequisite for our investigation, all of them had experienced one or two previous heterosexual conjugalities. Those relationships made possible the access to children. Six of them are biological mothers and one of them is an adoptive one. The interview began with a starter question, which was: how is your conjugality at the moment and how is it to share this relationship with your kid(s)? The narratives were submitted to Content Analysis. Three units of meaning were identified: the homosexual condition, conjugality between women and parenthood in the couple. The homosexual condition showed that those women s homosexuality was never something permanent. It appeared with time, through the desire of a sexual practice based on affectivity and on the possibility of new findings regarding the exercise of sexuality. Conjugality is lived as a pleasant experience, despite the challenges faced in the transition from a heterosexual to a homosexual relationship. All of the participants trust on these new relations, as they find in their relationship contracts the affective possibilities of a equalitarian parenthood. Therefore, the parenthood relation supplements a family dynamics based on the couple s possibility to share affective bonds and the necessary responsibilities of raising the children