Kissing is not a universal right: Sexuality, law and the scales of citizenship

Equalities legislation has provided the basis for lesbian and gay-identified individuals to create new spaces of sexual inclusion in the UK. However, national rights to sexual orientation equality do not always translate into equal rights to sexual expression at the local scale. The paper demonstrates this by focusing on an instance where a display of homosexual intimacy - a same-sex kiss - was legitimately removed from a licensed premise despite the existence of legislation outlawing homophobic discrimination. This seeming contradiction demonstrates the limits of a perspective that regards citizenship as something negotiated solely at the scale of the nation-state, with those charged with maintaining public order at the local scale often appearing indifferent to nationally-secured rights. The paper accordingly warns against essentialist notions of the state, concluding that the interplay of a heterogeneous set of actors operating on different jurisdictional scales ultimately determines the limits of sexual citizenship. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.