Since then, Fabrice has tried to cover these overdraft payments by making deposits from his own account, then, when Johan gets some payments in, he reimburses himself. Johan, thirty-three, an artist, tired of managing his frighteningly steep overdraft, one day suggested that his partner Fabrice, thirty-eight, a teacher, should take over control of his account. The monthly repayments on their mortgage will be one thousand euros they calculate their individual contributions in proportion to their incomes, which means that Olivier contributes more to the financing of their apartment. Some couples calculate each person’s share proportionately according to his income level (Carrington 1999, 91–93), such as François, thirty-four years old, an IT technician, and Olivier, thirty-six, an engineer, who have decided to buy an apartment together. The two partners share expenses, and the arrangements which have been adopted last until there is some change which necessitates a new sharing of responsibility, such as an increase in income or the purchase of an apartment. ■ Domestic OrganizationģIt is in the financial domain that facts accord most easily with principles. How are these inequalities managed? This is what we will analyze by briefly considering the question of the organization of the couple’s finances, then, more deeply, that of domestic chores, and finally of conjugal sexuality. Because of this, concern for equality in various areas of conjugal life becomes even more pressing, especially, it must be said, for the partner who is in a position he judges as disadvantageous, and in which in many cases his partner shares the same concern. What is the situation in male homosexual couples? How do they accept the norm of conjugal equality? The difference between the sexes cannot be cited here but are there not nevertheless operational inequalities, in particular in the areas of domestic work and sexuality? How, specifically, does the management of sexuality in gay couples work? The question arises even more when one considers the fact that male couples tend to include factors of possible inequality more often than other couples: age differences seem to be greater than between men and women and they are often accompanied by social and income disparities. Like heterosexuals, they share the norm of conjugal equality which seems to them even more obvious than it does between man and woman, since the gay couple does not unite two people belonging to hierarchically organized sexes.ĢAll studies carried out to date on heterosexual couples show that despite the strength of the egalitarian norm, role distribution remains sexualized and unequal, even with all the progress made in female emancipation and the calling into question of the necessary link between biological sex and social roles. Like heterosexuals, gays meet up, fall in love, often live together, and sometimes fall out.
This evolution and the recognition of same-sex couples in France have led us to examine modes of gay conjugal life. Nowadays, private and conjugal life offers a real alternative (Schiltz 1999 Adam 1998).
1Reference models among homosexual men have changed since the 1980s, when sociologist Michael Pollak described the ghetto lifestyle and the “market in sexual exchanges” (Pollak 1982, 56–80).