A Critical Counterargument to the "Clown" Role in Same-Sex Intimate Relationships: Reconsidering Pathologization and Relational Complexity

This counterargument challenges the core propositions of the study The "Clown" Role in Same-Sex Intimate Relationships: A Dyadic Exploration of Relational Dynamics and Intervention Efficacy. It critiques the potential over-pathologization of adaptive coping behaviors in sexual minority intimate relationships, questions the generalizability of a binary "dominant-clown" relational framework, and reconsiders the sociocultural contextualization of so-called "maladaptive" interactions. By centering sexual minority relational agency, intersectional stressors, and the fluidity of intimate power dynamics, this paper argues for a more nuanced, non-clinical framing of humor-based coping and relational flexibility, while also identifying limitations in the original study’s sampling and intervention design that risk oversimplifying the complexity of same-sex intimate bonds.