Gay Parenthood and the Decline of Paternity as We Knew It

J. Stacey

Most analyses of postmodern transformations of intimacy feature adult unions, often placing gays and lesbians on the frontier. The contemporary pursuit of parenthood evinces a similar shift from obligation to desire and from an economic to an emotional calculus. Here too, gay men and lesbians serve as pioneers, with planned gay male parenthood occupying particularly avant-garde terrain and Los Angeles County. This article analyzes gay male narratives of parental desire and decision-making drawn from ethnographic research on gay male intimacy and kinship in Los Angeles, the unlikely global epicenter of gay paternity. It identifies a `passion for parenthood' continuum in which most men occupy an intermediate zone which leads them to situational paternity or childlessness contingent upon intimate relationships. Heterosexual `situations' lead most straight men to paternity, while homosexual `situations' lead a majority of gay men to childlessness. Yet the very success gay men achieve pursuing parenthood against enormous odds exposes conditions governing contemporary family life that represent the decline of paternity as we knew it. This does not augur the demise of male parenthood, however, but its creative, if controversial, reconfiguration.