Religion and Heteronormativity - How Christian Couples in Post-colonial Hong Kong Interpret and Practice Christian Meanings of Heterosexual Intimacy
Creators: name: Chung, Yat Nam
Publisher: name: University of Surrey
Year: 2025
Subjects: Religion, Heterosexuality, Christian Couples, Sexual Script Theory, Postcolonialism, Qualitative Research, Couple Interviews, Critical Discourse Analysis, Thematic Analysis

description: In the past few decades, there has been a growing body of sociological literature exploring religion and intimate lifestyles – with close attention to the role of religious institutions in shaping people’s views and arrangements of mundane intimate life. While many studies have investigated religious understandings of and impacts on LGBT intimate lifestyles, there is a lack of knowledge examining Western religious values and institutions of heterosexual intimacy circulating in post-colonial Asian societies. To address this concern, this thesis seeks to uncover meaningful scripts of heterosexuality derived from the Protestant Christian community in post-colonial Hong Kong. The thesis draws on the analysis of 6 Christian self-help manuals for couple sexuality/intimate life and conducting 24 interviews with members of different Christian couples (8 dyadic couple interviews and 16 individual interviews). Sociological approaches, such as the interactionist approach to sexual scripting, Postcolonialism, and theories on reflexive modernisation are utilised to elucidate the complex intersection between religion and heterosexual intimacy.
description: The findings of a critical discourse analysis of the self-help manuals reveal Christian-based cultural scenarios of desirable/undesirable heterosexual lifestyles wherein multiple discursive techniques – such as metaphors or risk-factor discourses – have been utilised to promote and discourage different forms of heterosexual intimacies. The findings of individual interviews uncover the subjective, yet complex understandings of heterosexual intimacies developed by members of each Christian couple in line with both religious and secular cultural meanings of heterosexuality. The findings of couple interviews bring to light the dyadic scripts of heterosexual intimate practices negotiated by different Christian couples through which various aspects of their everyday couple lives (both sexual and non-sexual) are arranged. These results provide examples for the persistence of colonial/traditional Western societal institutions (i.e., of monogamous marriage, premarital sexual purity/abstinence, or marital heterosex) as well as the emergence of novel/hybridised values about heterosexual intimate lifestyles (i.e., mutual and flexible roles in marriage, alternative understandings/means of sexual abstinence, or premarital sexual engagement) within a post-colonial Hong Kong society. They also address subtle congruences and differences in meaningful ideas of heterosexual intimacy endorsed by official church publications and lay Christian couple members, thereby enabling further insights into the meaningful Christian scripts of heterosexual intimacy circulating in 3 levels – cultural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic – of mundane intimate life.