Do Couples Negotiate their Sexuality? Meanings Associated to Sexuality and Sexual Negotiation Practices

Abstract

This article exposes some of the results of a qualitative study on meanings associated to sexuality and sexual negotiation practices among low-income level men and women of Santiago. The results are analyzed under the light of the permanence and transformations in existing gender inequalities among interviewed discourses. Despite the presence of more egalitarian discourses related to sexuality and couple relationships, which prescribe individual autonomy, inter-individual negotiation and mutual sexual satisfaction as a source of well-being of couple relationship, the persistence of more traditional discourses became evident, which reflects a conception of male sexuality as unlimited and the female sexuality as more controlled, maintaining the idea that men and women are essentially different. In this aspect, the silence or submittal were described as the major practices before discrepancies in sexual matters. We discuss the concept of verbal sexual negotiation, suggesting that it would be more an adjustment of meanings, which does not always imply recognition of the needs of the other, but many times a deferral from one member of the couple, generally the woman, in pursuit of the new status of sexuality in the maintenance of the relationship.