ABSTRACT
This chapter presents ways forward for the study of the still-neglected relationship between non-heterosexual sexualities and class. I begin with a critical review of present work, focusing on both the contemporary interdisciplinary social science of sex and the classed roots of the study of sexuality in the sciences and literatures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I discuss ways of conceptualising sex and class to take account of sexuality as a social object through a turn to Mary McIntosh’s 1968 ‘The Homosexual Role’, arguing that a return to this often-neglected work can provide an important counterbalance to how sexuality and class have been treated in more recent works in social science. I also consider sexuality and class with specific reference to Didier Eribon’s concept of the social mirror stage. I examine classed divisions at the heart of the formation of modern sexuality (particularly the division between inverts and perverts) and the present state of neglect in which the field is found, arguing that it is vital to establish innovative ways of viewing the relationship in question by returning to early works in the social science of sex, reflecting on how dominant theories might be adapted.
