Gender and Sexuality
Nelson explores gender and sexuality in many places in The Argonauts, but often revisits these two concepts in terms of individual respect. Nelson questions the need for labels while recognizing that labels can be incredibly important for some people in the self-exploration of their gender and sexuality. Nelson encourages the reader to listen and to treat everyone according to how they describe themselves, without overlaying any alternative agenda or sense of how terms or pronouns should or should not be used.
Nelson often explores these concepts through self-reflection, reflecting on her journey with sexuality and her partner's gender transition. All in all, Nelson encourages the reader to embrace fluidity, rather than stasis, in relation to both conceptions of gender and sexuality.
Stepparenting
Another recurring theme in The Argonauts is Nelson's relationship with her stepson, and step-parenting more generally. Nelson analyzes how popular culture often shuns stepparents and emphasizes their mistakes, making it difficult for her to come to terms with her relationship with Dodge's son. She comments on her own relationship with her stepfather, and how she strives to love her stepson while also giving him the space to understand his own relationship in their non-conventional and non-conformist family unit.
Motherhood and Sexuality are not mutually exclusive
Nelson discusses sexuality at length in her book, sometimes detailing her own personal experiences and sometimes analyzing sexual acts from a more theoretical lens. While discussing pregnancy, Nelson also brings into question the sexuality involved in raising a child, and in motherhood more broadly. She strives to maintain her sexuality while also remaining conscious of the hormonal changes being wrought by and in her own body due to the pregnancy, and explores these feelings via Freud, Winnicott, and several other psychologists and authors.
Family
The Argonauts, put in one way, is a story of a family. Nelson takes great care to detail each of her family members: her son Iggy, her partner Harry, and her unnamed stepson. She details her ever-changing relationship with each of them, relating her challenges and victories with motherhood and partnership. The Argonauts challenges traditional notions of what "family" really means in the eyes of popular culture and society at large. Conformity and stasis do not click with Nelson. In many ways, family means a coming together of hearts, an opening up of minds, and a never-ceasing outpouring of love.
