Welcome to a seminar with Professor Róisín Ryan-Flood organised by CSS and the Nordic network for LGBTQ+-research on health and living conditions!
Stone Sexuality as Erotic Framework: Boundaries, Agency, and Intimacy
Abstract:
The term ‘stone’ refers to an erotic identity or orientation characterised by firm boundaries around receiving particular forms of sexual touch, alongside a preference for giving sexual pleasure. Stone identities have long been present within lesbian and queer
communities, yet remain under-researched and frequently misunderstood through frameworks that position non-reciprocal erotics as deficit, trauma, or dysfunction. This paper presents findings from a qualitative interview study exploring contemporary experiences
of stone identity, including stone butch, stone femme, and relational orientations towards stone sexuality. While ‘stone’ is historically associated with butch identities and butch-femme dynamics, this research moves beyond those categories. Drawing on twenty-five
in-depth interviews with stone-identified individuals and people currently or formerly partnered with them, the study examines understandings of identity, erotic boundaries, embodiment, intimacy, and relational ethics. Thematic analysis informed by feminist
and queer theory highlights stone identity as a coherent erotic and gendered framework rather than an absence of desire or intimacy. Participants describe stone sexuality through agency, boundary sovereignty, gendered embodiment, and relational attunement,
while navigating cultural assumptions about reciprocity, fairness, and sexual norms. Extending scholarship on butch–femme cultures and queer erotics, the findings demonstrate that stone has moved beyond butch–femme dynamics while remaining a meaningful contemporary
identity category, challenging dominant sexual norms and contributing to broader debates on consent, embodiment, and erotic diversity.
Biographical note:
Róisín Ryan-Flood is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for
Intimate and Sexual Citizenship (CISC) at the University of Essex. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, kinship, digital intimacies and feminist epistemology. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including
Lesbian Motherhood: Gender, Sexuality and Citizenship (2009), Queering Methodology (2022),
Difficult Conversations: A Feminist Dialogue (2023), Consent: Gender, Power and Subjectivity (2023),
Queering Desire: Lesbians, Gender and Subjectivity (2024) and Stories, Imaginations and Sociology (2026). She is also co-editor of the
journal Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society. Her current writing and research projects explore queer relationality, assisted reproduction and digital intimacy.