Sexual and Emotional Relationships among the Homeless: Between Social Pressures and Life Journeys

This article describes the results of a study on the emotional and sexual relationships of homeless people. Around fifty semi-directive interviews were carried out among the homeless people frequenting the various day-centres and shelters of the Paris Samusocial. These interviews show the diversity the individuals’ social biographies, as well as the plurality of their emotional and sexual experiences. This multiplicity is closely related to the way people define their situation (Thomas, 1923) in the street, which does not systematically correspond to the usual categories of homelessness. The most excluded people – who consider themselves homeless and show no hope to move from the street – express great difficulties in experiencing intimate relationships. However, for some, the absence of sexual relations is not necessarily the result of a lack of opportunity. For some, having suffered great hardships has affected their desire and their ability to love. As for those who do not recognize themselves as homeless, their emotional relationships and their sexual lives seem relatively independent of the environment of exclusion. Thus, living on the street does not necessarily constitute a break in the course of one’s emotional and sexual experiences, neither in their organisation nor in their meanings.

Publication Date: 
2010
Editor(s): 
Presses Universitaires de France
Pages: 
128
Volume: 
1
Issue: 
3
Journal Name: 
Sociologie
Location: 
Paris, France