Lauren Berlant asks what links “individual lives to the trajectories of the collective³Berlant, 1998, p. 283?” How do we define the scope of the collective and what is needed to ensure that we have collective futures? Do the two have anything to do with each other? And are the interests of publics and commons inextricably linked to the interests of individuals presumed to be part of any given collective? Above all, how does intimacy figure into this? In 1998, Lauren Berlant reflected on these prospects in the context of the rapid reshaping of queer, BIPOC and other urban communities resulting from a conflux of the AIDS crisis, morality-driven politics, and mass incarceration – making clear that personal and collective economies meet. Three decades later, broken sociality relating to gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, and the locations where we sustain economic and domestic stability (urban, rural, remote, etc.) persists. Thinking with the commons, Berlant prompts again to “extend the commons concept’s pedagogy of learning to live with messed up yet shared and ongoing infrastructures of experience⁴Berlant, 2016, p. 395”.
 
The scenario in the wake of the AIDS crisis left many confronted with a problem designating a ‘next of kin’ – rights that are defacto for heterosexual couples and biologically linked families (such as hospital visitation, access to a partner’s health insurance scheme, and inheritance rights). It seemed that two individuals financially tied to each other were only eligible for these benefits if the partners were gendered opposites as assigned at birth, domesticated and, ideally, biologically reproducing, which means having sex. However, Berlant and Warner were not talking about “the sex people already have clarity about, nor identities and acts, nor a wildness in need of derepression; but rather about sex as it is mediated by publics⁵Berlant and Warner, 1998, p. 547.” Their concerns were with the worlds estranged from heterosexual culture. Worlds where material practices, such as those afforded to a legally confirmed next-of-kin, are a priority via institutions of intimacy that re/confirm the social orders of property and propriety ⁶Berlant and Warner, 1998, p. 548 that make compulsory forms of Heteronormative living the only visible, viable option. It is a valid option. However, what Berlant and Warner open up are questions about whether the other viable options are known and acceptable and ask, if not, why not?
 
In asking about intimacy, they ask about links between desire and needs. For example, how does the desire for security and stability interact with sexuality and sexual cultures? What is understood on the surface is those Folx whose daily lives reflect outlier forms of gender, sexuality, and relationship practices impact the stability of a common interest and common good of what is considered normal and best to protect collective values and interests. Berlant clears a path by identifying and unsettling sexual and other privatised intimacy by identifying how they are a lynchpin of political, social, and economic stability. By doing so, questions are raised about what agency is retained for some at the expense of others, specifically for Berlant, the life lived by the heterosexual couple. This life practice, named heteronormative, is clarified in juxtaposition to the term queer. Heteronormative refers not only to orientations that privilege heterosexuality (sex between cisgender men and women) as the most coherent form of living ⁷Berlant and Warner, 1998, p. 548. Heternormative, in their terms, refers to the daily practices which confirm and sustain the privileging of heterosexual sociality, such as a life narrative structured around biologically generated family structures, stabilised by private, protected, shared-value living conditions. Queer is related to an emergent form of being that, by definition, operates contrary to what is perceived as normative and sustainable (regardless of the gender of folx involved).
 
Queerness, therefore, is identified by its resistance to the binary and identity-confirming daily practices such as the public expression of intimate desires and variations in ‘normative’ gender and relationship practices. Or, think of it this way, neither the identity nor definition of heteronormative or queer are ‘about’ which genitals are coming out with whom and where. It is about how one pursues self-development and connection, where and how these desires are met, and, most notably, whether it is perceived that these desires and needs are confirmed and stabilised economically. In the mid-2020s, what is understood as queer has dramatically shifted for some: it is possible to demonstrate a viable, stable life regardless of one’s sexuality or gender identity, as long as it involves something resembling heteronormative coupling. The questions remain about those folx whose viable lives continue to exceed this existing structure. And, for many, whether or not these lives will disrupt their stability.
 
Berlant was able to structure her investigation of public-private tensions and intimacy by responding to the circumstances of late 1990s urban centres (New York City being the most cited). Laws regulating nightlife venues, adult cinemas, sex shops and clubs, bookstores and community centres would effectively shut down the economies of entire neighbourhoods where residents and pilgrims circulated capital and built community⁸Berlant and Warner, 1998, pp. 562–563. Currently, these neighbourhoods have experienced a renaissance due partly to the influx and popularity of drag culture and the love-is-love campaigns around gay marriage. In both these examples, however, keeping the ‘quid in the village’ is inhibited because many of these communities’ performance, service industry, and retail workers cannot afford to live in them. This is not news. Furthermore, while marital status may not necessarily inhibit someone from securing a lease, a group of sharers in a gig-economic system are neither protected by law nor seen as ‘viable’ tenants due to the perceived instability of their lives.
 
Additionally, while it is the case that some queer folx do have their lives and identities confirmed by the public sphere, even those folx can feel a Space Invaders sentiment in these communities that erodes a sense of familiarity, and therefore comfort, produced while surrounded by ‘neighbours like me’. There is an implication that if we find intimate connections in/on (the) common(s), there is some resolution that will generate a more stable and equitable economy – shared access to public space and public resources is the needed platform to resolve these conflicts of interest. Thinking about Sex in Public means not only thinking about the foundations of queerness and normativity itself but also about where we gain access to self-actualisation, identity confirmation, and material practices that can meet our desires and needs. Thinking with intimacy can open conversations about identity politics, civic rights, and what it means to build a sustainable society whilst institutions from nations to corporations guide the publics in directions that may not support a common(s) good. To progress the conversation and not reduce the challenges to identity politics or fair housing, we need to confront the discomfort and instability generated when intimacy, including sex, is made apparent and confronted publically.