Sexuality
Affective and sexual relationships of homeless people
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Contact : E. Lemener
The report describes the results of a survey on the affective and sexual relationships of homeless people. Around fifty biographic interviews of homeless people were carried out in various emergency centres of the Paris Samusocial. These interviews show the multiplicity of the individuals’ social careers as well as the plurality of their affective and sexual biographies. This multiplicity is closely related to the way people define their situation in the street, which does not systematically correspond to the usual categories of homelessness. People who are the most excluded, who consider themselves homeless and have no hopes of getting out of the street, express great difficulties in living intimate relationships. However, having no sexual relations does not necessarily result from a lack of opportunities. Having suffered great hardships may have affected the desire and the ability to love. As for those who do not recognize themselves as homeless, their affective relationships and their sexual life seem relatively independent of the exclusion’s environment. Thus, living in the street does not necessarily constitute a break in the course of one's affective and sexual experiences, neither in their organization, nor in their meanings.
Grants : Institut National de Prévention et d’Education pour la Santé.
Articles
"Sexualité et relations affectives des personnes sans domicile fixe - Entre contraintes sociales et parcours biographiques", Oppenchaim N., Pourette D., Le Méner E., Laporte A., Sociologie, 2, [accepté, à paraitre].
"Inclure les exclus comme objets de préoccupation scientifique : l’exemple de la vie affective et sexuelle des personnes sans domicile fixe", Oppenchaim N., Pourette D., in Lazzeri C., Nour S. (dir.), Reconnaissance, identité et intégration sociale, Nanterre, Presses universitaires de Paris Ouest, p. 261-276.
"L’hétérogénéité des expériences affectives et sexuelles de femmes vivant sans-domicile-fixe", Laporte A., Le Méner E., in Les femmes et le Sida en France – Enjeux sociaux et de santé publique, Médecine Sciences, 24, 2, p. 41-47.
"Améliorer les conditions de vie affectives et sexuelles des SDF", Pourette D., Laporte A., Le Méner E., Oppenchaim N., La santé de l’Homme, 392, p. 42-43.
