Crossamory

Crossamory (from Latin crux 'cross' and amor 'love') refers to romantic relationship structures, styles, and dynamics that are characterized by reversals and inversions of traditional heteronormative gender roles within heterosexual relationships. Crossamorous role reversal can be a constituent aspect of various relationship stages from dating and courtship to partnership and/or marriage. In its challenges to "normative assumptions [about] intimacy" and relational gender roles, crossamory constitutes a form of relationship diversity.

Traditional gender roles and heteronormative concepts of masculine and feminine have established circumscribed gendered conventions in romantic relationships; men are expected to be dominant, active initiators and leaders who function as pursuers, providers, protectors, and procreative functionaries in relation to women who, historically, have been expected to be passive and pursued during courtship before becoming submissive mates, caretakers, homemakers, and mothers, but within crossamory and crossamorous relationships, these functions and roles are uncoupled from gender and, to a significant degree (bracketing pregnancy in cishet couples), reversed.

The desired preference for and practice of crossamory, the reversal of gendered relational roles within heterosexual relationships, may be considered a fundamental aspect of personal relational identity and/or a defining characteristic of specific relationships and relational dynamics. Some partnered individuals exchange roles for situational or circumstantial reasons, while others consider crossamorous role reversal an intrinsic part of their personal temperament and relational identity and an essential component of their affective, romantic, and/or intimate relationships; these individuals may identify as crossamorous or as crossamorists.