What’s love (not) got to do with it - Pairing sexuality-and relationship research with citizen science - ACSC2020 14-16 September 2020

Aug 25, 2026

The paper argues that citizen science can be a powerful instrument for sexuality research, yet relationship and sexuality have remained largely absent from participative research agendas. It connects the value of inclusive, collaborative science with legal and social frameworks of non-discrimination in Europe, highlighting gaps in commonly used categories. Focusing on consensual non-monogamous relationships, it distinguishes them from related concepts like infidelity, cruising, open relationships, polyamory, and relationship anarchy, and motivates citizen-science approaches to capture these experiences responsibly.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction: Relationship(s) and sexuality off the so-called “norm”

Citizen science as an inclusive research process

EU non-discrimination framework and its gaps

Finding the blind spot: Consensual non-monogamy as the odd one out

Defining consensual non-monogamous relationships

Distinguishing from infidelity, cruising, open relationships, polyamory, and relationship anarchy

What’s love (not) got to do with it. How to pair sexuality-and relationship research with citizen science . Stefan F. Ossmann Department of Social and Economic History University of Vienna E-mail: [stefan.ossmann@univie.ac.at](stefan.ossmann@univie.ac.at) Citizen Science is a powerful tool in many aspects, with the potential to change the world to the better. Some research topics are trendy or appear regularly, others are hard to find. And one aspect seems to be missing completely in this participative research approach: Relationship and sexuality. The following paper draws on the potential of citizen science in regards to sexuality research in general, and the long-omitted field of consensual non-monogamous relationships. Austrian Citizen Science Conference 2020-ACSC2020 14-16 September 2020 Vienna-Austria ã Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). [https://pos.sissa.it/](https://pos.sissa.it/) PoS(AC SC2020)003 What’s love (not) got to do with it. Stefan F. Ossmann 1. Introduction: Relationship(s) and sexuality off the so-called “norm” Those readers who are clear that the title of the paper is based on the great song by Tina Turner from 1984 are right– and those who are not clear how emotions and sex can be linked with citizen science, and why this is of importance to society, are very welcome to continue reading: “We want people no longer to see science no longer as an elite program, but as a process that affects all our lives (…). We (…) understand citizen science as a collaborative process through which new insights can be gained.”(Heigl & Dörfler, 2020) . This quote of the self-image of citizen science recognizes not only that science affects “us” all, it also shows that “us” is not the academic elite only – and if one wants to spin the idea further, the “us” can be quite colourful.“Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.”(European Union, 2000) is written in the Article 21 of the Charta of fundamental rights of the European Union-and is legally binding for member states since 2009. If we shine a spotlight on the last aspect, the article tells us that lesbian, bisexual and gay persons have, due to their sexual orientation, equal rights to heterosexual persons. In this fundamental EU legislation, no explicit references on gender identity, gender expression or sexual characteristics are included – which is the case in EU secondary law on non-discrimination, which explicitly refers to the term trans identity (Van den Brink & Dunne, 2018, p. 8) . A resolution on the rights of intersex people was adopted by the European Parliament in February 2019 – and this is where the anti-discrimination by legal bodies ends. While a current acronym as for example used by the organizers for the Toronto Pride Week in 2019, LGBTTIQQ2SA,1 claims to be much more inclusive, it still does not include everyone that does not consider themselves part of the heteronormative mainstream. It lacks the A for asexuality for example, and it does not include what the World Health Organization (WHO), in its latest ICD catalogue,2 calls paraphilic disorders, so for example people who practice intimate acts that fall into the BDSM acronym. 2. Finding the blind spot: Consensual non-monogamy as the odd one out Also missing is a group that, individually, might or might not be the target of anti-discrimination laws, but which clearly is when considered as a group of more than two people: individuals in multiple, stable, permanent, consensual, non-monogamous relationships where intimate acts are 1 The abbreviation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender, Intersex, Qu

FAQs

What is consensual non-monogamy, and how is it distinguished from similar concepts?

The paper frames consensual non-monogamy as stable, permanent, consensual relationships involving more than two people, with intimate acts practiced by agreement. It contrasts this with cheating/infidelity, cruising, and other relationship forms such as open relationships, polyamory, and relationship anarchy based on consent and emotional/relationship structures.

Aug 25, 2026

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