Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians

by Esther D. Rothblum (Editor), Kathleen A. Brehony (Editor)

This collection of theoretical essays and personal stories is not just about "Boston marriages," a term referring to two women in a nonsexual but nonetheless deeply committed relationship. As the book so well concludes, there is no language for this type of relationship, not just for lesbians but for anyone—gay, straight, male, or female—who relates to others outside the traditional roles of friend, lover, spouse, or relative. Living in a society that invalidates a love that has not been sexually validated, the women subjects of this book speak passionately about relationships they have kept hidden even from their own lesbian community; the essays by well-known writers in the area of lesbian studies pale in comparison. This book's apparently specific nature should not deter academics and others interested in the study of human relationships. For academic libraries and women's studies collections.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Feminism, Lesbian, History, Sexuality

210 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 1993

About the author

Esther D. Rothblum is professor of women's studies at San Diego State University. She is the editor or co-editor of over twenty books, including Overcoming Fear of Fat.

[from B&N]

Reviews

[KP · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an asexual female, it's hard to find any literature about people who live and love the way I do. This book is the closest I could find, with essays about lesbians who love each other but do not have sex together, including personal interviews with many women. Some of the stories I found downright depressing, but there were a couple that made me cry because they were so full of love and commitment- without sex, a rare thing in United States culture nowadays, or so it seems given our media's depictions of women and men. Truly inspiring and, if you're an asexual, sort of relieving to know that you're not alone...

[Everett Holmgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started strong, but honestly I felt that the personal stories section was unnecessary and hurt it. I also would have liked it if at least one of the formal essays was written by someone who was asexual, rather than just occasionally celibate.

That said, I would still recommend people read it, so long as they are aware that it is limited in its viewpoints and occasionally contradictory even within the same essay.

I would have liked a more comprehensive look at the history of the Boston marriage, and I would have liked a little less of a suggestion that asexuality is just a phase. It may well be, in some cases, but I think the message of "hey, just think about how maybe it won't be completely an asexual relationship forever and tough it out" is missing out on how people should appreciate the present of their relationship.

I would definitely like to see an updated version of this book; I want to see how some of the views and ideas expressed may have shifted in the past 20 years, particularly as gay marriage is legal in more and more places.

[Alba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome back al goodreads. Volveré mejor el año que viene cuando temine mi tfg. Para mi tfg he leído este libro y es chulísimo, todas mis lesbianas, leeros este libro, habla sobre los matrimonios bostonianos y los compara con como son las relaciones de lesbianas en la actualidad :)

[☼ anne ☼ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. It wasn't bad but it certainly wasn't what I expected nor what I need in a book about asexual lesbians.

Of course, it was interesting to learn more about lesbians from different time periods, ranging from the late 19th century to the late 20th century. There were also references to second wave feminism which I also enjoyed.

However, I wish the academic texts as well as the personal stories in the end had talked more about actual asexuality than just celibacy which are very different things. Asexuality is not the decision not to have sex, it is the lack of sexual attraction. This book talked more about celibacy than asexuality and used the terms interchangeably. It is also heavily implied that these women are in non-sexual relationships due to internalized homophobia and the fear of being a "real" lesbian if they do engage in sexual activity with another woman. I really didn't like that because asexuality isn't the "result" of self-hatred or anything.

To summarize, I'd say this was an okay book to learn more about lesbians from before the 2000's but it did not at all cover the topic of asexuality.

TW// discussions of rape, incest, and sexual harassment; homophobia (as well as internalized homophobia), aphobia

[Zoe Hiscutt · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the first books in queer theory I could find on asexuality. The theoretical essays were useful and so readable, but the stories (second half) seemed like a bit of an add-on. Would have loved more of the theory - it’s a subject underrepresented and under researched. Would love to see a second edition with 21st century asexuality theory included!

[Adele]

A reminder that queer norms and communities (like all norms and communities) are always changing, even if they claim not to be!

[kory. · Rating 2 out of 5]

“imagine saying, ‘just lovers,’ like some people say, ‘just friends.’ what if people said: ‘we’re not friends, we’re just lovers.’”

given the title of this book, i expected an exploration of asexual lesbians in romantic relationship, maybe even what were queerplatonic relationships before the term existed, but instead this book is about different types of relationships among lesbians who largely don’t have sex (but also some do or wish they did) and the part sex plays in “lesbian relationships” even when it isn’t present in said relationships. all that’s well and good, but the title doesn’t reflect that, as asexuality and celibacy are two completely different things.

it’s honestly frustrating to me how focused this book is on sex for a text supposedly about sexless relationships. i get acknowledging why a couple doesn’t have sex or their history with sex, but that’s all this is: why they don’t have sex, what it means for their relationship that they don’t have sex, how others perceive their relationship not knowing and knowing they don’t have sex, how their relationship can be defined and what language can be used for it since they don’t have sex. there is little to no focus on literally anything else about the relationships. how relationships that don’t include sex can still be so entirely defined by sex is wild to me. and like, these authors had a choice in how they talked about the relationships and what angle to take with this book, and they...certainly made a choice. it reminds me of certain people in certain internet circles who define lesbianism on the exclusion of men, to the point where a lot of their conversations about being lesbians become focused on men. when you’re constantly talking about how and why you don’t “center men” (an often mspec-phobic talking point, by the way), you start to center men. ya know? and while the book is supposedly about nonsexual relationships, a lot of these women were nonsexual only out of internalized lesbophobia, nonsexual but wished they were having sex, nonsexual only because their partner didn’t want sex, nonsexual due to past traumatic experience, nonsexual only in that specific relationship, and nonsexual but ashamed of it. which kind of speaks to how much this book doesn’t really know what it wants to be about, in my opinion.

a major annoyance for me is the lack of clear language used throughout. it’s never really clear what terms mean or how they’re being used, because one minute they’re defined one way and the next minute they’re being used in a different way. the most notable is the use of asexual, which means little to no sexual attraction, but throughout this book, it’s used to mean “doesn’t have sex” and is used interchangeably with “celibate.” asexual here is used to describe the relationships, as in “nonsexual relationships,” rather than its proper use. other examples: in the same paragraph, “friendship” is defined as not having a sexual component, then the term “nonsexual friendship” is used, which following the previous definition of friendship, is redundant. at one point, it’s said that relationships don’t necessarily need sex to be relationships, then another point it’s said that sexual attraction and activity are what differentiate friendships and relationships. a “boston marriage” is defined in the book as not being sexual, even if the people in them have sexual feelings for one another, but then boston marriages that do include or once included sex are talked about. “romantic friendships” are discussed, but it’s not really clear if they’re romantic relationships that are only called friendships because of the lack of sex, or if they’re platonic relationships that are only called romantic because they’re passionate and intense. and i guess that’s a fault of this being an anthology from different people, who all understand and use terms differently. but it definitely made for a tiresome read.

there’s a lot of amatonormativity in the language used, such as “just friends” (which is often put in quotes, as if to challenge it as a phrase, but the sentiment is still expressed elsewhere) and “beyond friendship” kind of language. in one example, an author says to call those in a boston marriage “just friends” is to “minimize the importance the women have to one another” and while they note that the “dominant culture devalues friendship,” to say “just friends” minimizes the importance of a relationship is to say in itself that friendship is lesser than whatever the other relationship is. it’s more appropriate to say “just friends” is a misnomer for relationships that are not friendships and that the phrase itself devalues friendship, not the other relationship. amatonomativity also pops up, quite glaringly, in the conversations about sex, which is talked about as if it’s an inherent desire that everyone has and makes us human. but that belief, that sex and sexual attraction are inherent, automatic, and compulsory, leads to people feeling wrong for not wanting sex and pressured into having sex they don’t want at all or with people they don’t want to have it with. one author quite literally says sex is a “natural biological function” akin to sleeping, eating, and breathing. this author is a “sex therapist,” which just adds to the ick i have about people who claim to be “experts” in sex. a human being needs to breathe, eat, and sleep in order to, you know, live. they don’t, however, need to have sex in order to live, or even function properly or healthily. to make this comparison is wildly offensive and quite frankly dangerous.

i’d like to note real quick that i’m sure some people find these critiques pedantic or overly semantic, but as i’ve noted in other reviews of mine, this book acknowledges the importance of language and even that the book itself is one that is ultimately about language. so i think it’s fair and appropriate to discuss and critique the language used in it.

“cultures devise language precisely to describe things that are important to them.”

there’s one chapter that has some wild mspecphobia. the author details just how untrustworthy her former partner is because of her “wishy-washy identity” and that she has been “flirting with something [the author] lived.” her ex describes her sexuality as “straight but not straight-straight” and had been with men, which to me signals maybe she’s mspec. but the author takes that to mean her ex is just a straight woman who “masqueraded as a lesbian.” the ex is further described as “indecisive” and the author wishes she would “make up her mind” and “be honest about who she is.” the author explains not being able to “live with the idea” of her ex having sex with a man and that actually kept her from being friends with her after they broke up. she says she’d be able to be happy for and friends with her ex if she became involved with women, rather than men. this is all so wildly mspecphobic and hits nearly every mspecphobic stigma on the head that i’m having a hard time processing it. let me just spell it out for y’all: a woman can be attracted to women and men at the same time. a woman can date men after dating a woman and neither one cancels out the other. a woman doesn’t have to identify as a lesbian to like women. lesbians are not the only or most true/pure women who like women. women who like women and men are not dirty or untrustworthy. the fact that this made it into this book is fucked.

some things i did like: the acknowledgement that historically, it was normal and accepted for women to have extremely close and affectionate friendships with one another, and that while it might be nice for some queer people to say the relationships were obviously romantic or sexual (or funny to dunk on the “just gal pals” interpretations), it’s impossible to definitively determine that. and while some of those relationships likely could’ve been romantic or sexual, that given the historical context, it’s also likely that many of those relationships were in fact, not sexual or romantic. on a related note, this reminds me of george chauncey’s book gay new york, in which he talked about how before certain behaviors were negatively associated with gayness, it was normal and accepted for men to have very close, affectionate friendships with one another. it was queerphobia and the fear of being stigmatized that way that changed the dynamic of friendship and what was “normal” or “allowed” behavior among friends. and it’s kind of funny (read: not funny at all), because nowadays, queer people see two friends being affectionate or having an intense connection and immediately think there is something romantic/sexual going on between them. the idea that two people can’t be close and affectionate with and committed to one another without their feelings being romantic or sexual in nature was born out of queerphobia and now queer people parrot that logic uncritically as if it’s progressive.

in the chapter specifically about celibacy that explored the reasons behind becoming celibate it’s acknowledged that not everyone who chooses to be celibate is doing so out of some desire for spiritual or personal growth or because of a traumatic experience. some people are indifferent to sex, some hate it and don’t enjoy it at all, some just find other things more worthy of their time. although, i’m not sure i’d consider not having sex simply because there isn’t really any interest or urgency there as celibacy, because celibacy is an active choice one is committed to. take vegetarianism for an example: there’s a difference between a vegetarian who actively chooses to not eat meat and someone who doesn’t eat meat because they don’t care for it. ya know? (yes, i know, semantics.) aside from that, i do wish these other reasons for celibacy had been explored more, rather than just getting a small paragraph.

some other bothersome things: i disagree that heterosexuals who marry don’t need to have sex in order for their relationship to be considered a relationship. not only is not having a sex a valid reason to get an annulment, but in a society that is so sex-based and where compulsory sexuality is a real thing, relationships are often mocked and their validity dismissed if they aren’t sexual. the status quo is that if you’re dating someone, and especially if you’re married to someone, then you have sex with them. the idea that only heterosexual relationships are deemed valid when sex is absent just doesn’t track with me. i mean, people defend cheating all the time with things like, “if she’s not sleeping with him, someone is” and “she wasn’t having sex with him, what did she expect?” because sex is viewed as a given in heterosexual relationships because of how sex focused our society is and cishet men are encouraged to be.

content/trigger warnings; misogyny, lesbophobia, aphobia, cissexism, heterosexism, amatonormativity, compulsory sexuality, rape, sexual harassment, incest, child sexual abuse, therapy, mspecphobia,

[camilla hects pr rep · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting and validating as hell!!! the history of love between women is so rich and complex!!!! ❤️ admittedly the prevalence of age gap relationships was a bit of a jumpscare but this book literally changed lives you guys..

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a touching and warm read.

The authors/women interrogate asexuality within lesbian romantic, intimate, monogamous adult relationships while trying to dislodge the heteropatriarchal imperative of "sex as 'normal' and expected and asexuality as pathological".

The second half of the book, which features personal stories by women, was my fave. Their openness about the complicatedness, murkiness and fluidity of how their relationships "became" nonsexual as well as the constant emotional jostling of accepting but refusing, stirred me.

Always a big fan of feminist work that challenges the "sex is a natural act" narrative.

[elstaffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read. My one quibble was the same one that one of the "discussants" at the end of the book had - namely, that the definition of a "Boston marriage" was too wide in some cases. I'm now curious to see if there's been any research published in this area in the last 25 years since the book was published.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and liberating ideas about how relationships are defined, but don't look here for examples of thriving, healthy alternative/asexual partnerships or you'll be disappointed.

[JarShi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title of the book is slightly misleading, as it’s more of a discussion of celibacy and the varying levels of sexual intimacy in lesbian relationships, rather than a text that highlights the existence of asexual lesbians and their relationships. I would’ve really appreciated a book about the latter, but I somewhat enjoyed reading lesbian theory from the early 90s when terms like asexual, aromantic, platonic soulmates, and queerplatonic weren’t passed around as frequently as they are now.  

I will say, for a book that ends with a comment about maybe deprioritizing the importance of sex to define “legitimate” lesbian relationships, this book spends a lot of time despairing at being engaged with a person romantically when there is a lack of sexual intimacy. And, even more so, there is a tone of surprise at the notion that two women can be involved and connected with each other so deeply even when there is no romance or sex involved at all.

Although I can appreciate the desire to find vocabulary (in English) that accurately defines the various complex relationships that lesbians find themselves living in, I think that intersectionality regarding queer identities on the asexual and aromantic spectrum would be beneficial to the thoughts outlined in this book. I also think deeper research into other non-white platonic and familial structures would help, as there are often words and dynamics that exist in other cultures that white folks don’t know anything about.

I didn’t mean for this to write out so formally, but here we are I guess. I hope that made sense.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was really great!! I am amazed at how it came out in the 90s like, wild, it's also interesting to learn about the absolute hangups people had then (and maybe do now? no one in my friend circle does I think but,,, who knows) like, people are so wildly On About Sex and that's not really how my group does it lmaoo but,,, I am also not a lesbian so Shrug maybe it's like that. it was cool to hear from a range of people and ironically I really enjoyed the theoretical discussions more than the actual experience section because like,,,, i skipped the second half of those because most of them were wildly dysfunctional (i agree with that one college kid in the discussion section whole heartedly good lord) half of them were good relationships but,,, still disheartening idk especially because they're put in as examples of boston marriages which is, unfair. i feel like language has changed since then because i don't know anyone in a boston marriage but i certainly know ace lesbians y'know? so the label isn't on the relationship but the person, which is what i think has changed. there was also a mention of a desire for relationship words between like, strong friendships and families and stuff which is also good and interesting,,, it was a great book and WOW stunning it came out in the 90s but the dysfunctional relationships portrayed in the irl section (half of them, not all but enough) was enough to make me skip the rest of that section in frustration

[guillxmill · Rating 5 out of 5]

supongo que acabo de encontrar mi modelo relacional... gracias Ro <3

[Jasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is amazing. Read it.