Sexuality, subjectivity…and political economy?

This article argues that the relationship between sexuality and political economy remains elusive to the extent that fantasy is under-theorized. Queer and feminist theorists of this relationship provide accounts that assume we have moved away from kinship formations and towards new intimacies within late capitalism, yet continue to pay exclusive attention to ‘gay and lesbian’ subjects as the litmus test of sexual inequality. Debates about how far such subjects remain marginal (and in need of recognition), or have become co-opted (through commodification and reification) misses the ways in which kinship structures are not only an empirical issue. Reading Lauren Berlant and Teresa de Lauretis together, this article re-examines their arguments about the importance of ongoing and complex attachments to the familial, and proposes interdisciplinary ways of considering the relationship between sexuality and political economy otherwise.