Unhitched

The book UNHITCHED by Judith Stacey was published in 2011 by NY: New York University Press. The book talks about family relationships and parenthood with a critical look at the gay men. Judith Stacey is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and Sociology at New York University and so the book is written with utmost authority due to her background. She spent ten years doing her research and this is reflected in the way she brings out her thoughts and facts. Through this book, she has done well in enlightening the society that they could be wrong on perspectives surrounding family life. She demystifies these theories using case studies and interviews from her research. She puts forward the argument that marriage and nuclear family is not the only form of family structure and that children do not necessarily have to grow up with both parents, turning out normal and good as those brought up in this kind of family structure. She observes that in this modern world, everybody is trying to love, be loved and find their place in the family. She has shed light on unconventional families and described their wider political and cultural contexts. Many governments and conservative groups put pressure on the society to have certain forms of relationships and argue that science supports their claims and it is what is good for them, their families and the society as a whole. She argues that a government should be sensitive to all citizens and should not favor any type of intimacy or family life (Stacey, 2011). The definition of family continues to change overtime from the simple father, mother and children to where there are same sex marriages and children adopted or born into these marriages. This book is based on real research into the lives of the gay couple’s intimacies and parenting in America to marriage and relationships in South Africa and china. In the Unhitched, Stacey talks about three different cultures i.e. the gay relationships in Los Angeles, the less liberal and polygamous South Africa, as well as, the West China’s Mosuo culture. She describes these cultures with the aid of numerous case-studies and interviews. In the first section of the book, she talks about gays living in Los Angeles. It tells the story of numerous people who have made a family structure that suits them from scratch (Stacey, 2011). One interesting case of such family structure is that of Kevin, Tom and Scott. Kevin is Matt’s brother in law who is also gay and lives with his partner Robert. Kevin and Tom had formed a domestic-sexual trio by adding Scott into their relationship and family and marriage. Scott was twelve years younger than the couple and they had met him when they were having an open relationship. Their sexual relationship had undergone various stages and they had decided to have an open relationship (Stacey 23). In their open relationship, they allowed each other “occasional serendipitous” recreational sexual encounters and also to occasiona...