Gender, Sexuality & Relationships Lab

The Gender, Sexuality, & Relationships Lab is dedicated to studying how gender and sexuality are constructed within families and intimate relationships. In so doing, our research seeks to improve the wellbeing of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) adults, with careful consideration to their intersectional lived experiences. Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and a range of queer and family theories, we strive to uncover how the interpersonal, familial and contextual experiences of LGBTQ people—and/or people with diverse sexualities and genders—inform their mental health and quality of life.

We are currently embarking on study that seeks to identify the ways in which analreceptive heterosexual males (ARHMs) actualize the practice of analreceptive sex (“pegging”) in the face of pervasive sociocultural stigma against male anal pleasure. In so doing, will also intend to highlight aspects of culturally humble therapeutic practice for clinicians working with this population.

• Samuel Allen, Ph.D.
• Jen Rafacz, Ph.D (Co-Investigator)
• Taylor Gaines (Research Assistant)

• Evaluating the Construct Validity of the Family Gender Environment Scale 

• Pining for a Pegging: Analreceptive Heterosexual Men Negotiating Stigma & Masculinity 

Allen, S. H. & Leslie, L. A. (2024). ‘They’re not my daughter, and yet...they’re also not my son’: Parents negotiating their adult child’s nonbinary gender identity. Family Process. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.13058  

Kim, H. S. & Allen, S. H. (2023). A double-edged sword? Assessing a structural equation model of dual identity salience and health outcomes among Asian-American sexual minority individuals. Journal of Homosexuality, 70(2), 277-290. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2021.1945339 

Allen, S. H., Fish, J. N., McGuire, J. K., & Leslie, L. A. (2022). Beyond the (family) binary: Family environment heterogeneity among transgender adults. Journal of Marriage & Family, 84(4), 941-961. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12835 

Allen, S. H. (2022). Queering family science: Applications of queer theory for family research & practice. In Adamsons, K., Few-Demo, A. L., Proulx, C. M., & Roy K. (Eds). Sourcebook of family theories and methodologies: A dynamic approach (3rd ed., pp. 477-483). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 

Roy, K. R. & Allen, S. H. (2022). Men, families, and the reconceptualization of masculinities. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 14(1), 28-43. https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12441 

2021-2022: The Family Institute at Northwestern University Seed Grant for “Pining for a Pegging: Analreceptive Heterosexual Men Negotiating Stigma & Masculinity.” PIs: Samuel H. Allen, Ph.D., & Jennifer Rafacz, Ph.D.