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1SOC600 Sexualities

What is Sexuality?

Sexuality is a major theme in contemporary identity informed through the help of feminism and other major groups. The term is related to but distinct from “sex” (used to refer both to the physical distinction between men and women and sexual intercourse) and “gender” (the social and cultural distinctions between men and women). Sexuality is used to refer to “erotic desires, practices and identities” or “aspects of personal and social life which have erotic significance” (Weeks, 1985). Debates on sexuality in the recent period are marked above all by an increased awareness of this tension; between an acceptance or affirmation of diversity on the one hand and a defence of the established norms on the other. This discussion has been shaped by the continuing issue of whether sexual identity is a biological given, determined by genes or anatomy, or is completely constructed in society and culture. These alternatives define “essentialist” and “social-constructionist” positions. Fairly evidently, in viewing sexuality as given by nature and thus fixed and unalterable, an essentialist view will reinforce heterosexual norms such that an aggressive masculine sexuality is accepted as “the way things are”.  Nevertheless, essentialist arguments have been evoked by feminists who feel it necessary to argue for the autonomy and fundamental difference of women from men or by lesbian feminists who wish to mark their difference from both heterosexual men and women (Weeks, 1985).

The essentialist position argues that there are basic differences in male and female nature deriving from sex differences in biology interacting with the very early experiences of childhood. Freud placed a great emphasis on sexuality as a wellspring of human behaviour. Sexuality was mediated through an energising force he called libido. This is felt as birth and from then throughout the human life span, this energy needs to be discharged in some manner. Freud held the possibility that a contributing factor to an individual’s sexuality might be constitutional (Ruse, 1988); he regarded the Oedipal stage as most important in the determination of sexual orientation. However he believed events later in life could also influence sexuality. For example in an analysis of a girl with lesbian tendencies, he regarded the birth of a sibling when the girl was 16 as particularly leading to her rejection of men because he believed the girl saw the baby’s birth as evidence of her father’s betrayal of her, showing that he loved her mother more (Freud, 1955).

Further, gay and lesbian activists have sought to lay claim to an essentialised view of homosexuality in order to lay claim to a “natural” constituency, rather than one that gains entrance by a temporary performativity. Of central importance to critical considerations of sexuality has been the work of Michel Foucault. This has brought a historical understanding to constructions of sexuality and thus persistent social and theoretical norms. Foucault adopted a thoroughly anti- essentialist notion of sexual drives and identity and saw sexuality as being organized along the binaries of 'normal' and 'deviant' behaviours through the regulative discourses of modern societies. His belief that 'sexuality ... is a name that can be given to a historical construct' (1979: 105) encouraged in some the view that sexuality can be redefined or re-constructed.

Sexuality is conceived primarily as a ‘natural’ and individualistic phenomena but this was not viewed relevant to sociological inquiry into the social. For example, Marx discussed sexuality primarily in terms of biological procreation within the private domain of the family. Throughout the modern period sexuality has largely been located within the discipline of medicine, biology and psychology and also anthropology. The only discipline, which takes sexuality as its primary object of investigation, is ‘sexology’ which emerged in the nineteenth century with Kraft-Ebings (1886) and Havelock Ellis (1897). Sexology has however, persistently sought to locate itself with respect to medical, psychological and scientific ideas, that is closer to the disciplines presiding over ‘natural’ phenomena rather than social. Sexology was many times seen as the concept, which sought to rationalise sexuality (Foucault, 1979)

One of the most important first steps in looking at sexuality is to differentiate sexuality from gender (Caplan, 1987). There is the belief that all humans have an innate sexual urge, which propels them towards sexual activity. This belief is consistent throughout many societies although the manner in which individuals feel and are able to give expression to their sexuality varies across time. This is due to different codes of sexual activities and the way it is legitimised in many societies and not others. Nearly in all cultures sexuality and gender has been linked but this is not universal throughout as this essay will show. Historically sociology has not viewed sexuality as significant to an understanding of modernity, society and social relations. To a large degree this stems from the inheritance of modernity where sexuality is located within the realm of ‘nature’, of the body or as feminists have pointed out of ‘woman’. Sociology, itself a modern phenomena, emerged as a body of knowledge whose primary object of investigation and intellectual authority comprised the modern ‘social’ and social relations generally.                                  

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Historically there is a wide belief that women are less motivated by sexuality than men. It is argued that the belief owes far more to the unequal status of the sexes than to any scientific study of sexuality. Williams (1987) argues that the major historical influence on western ideas about sex differences in sexuality lay in the value of women to men as items of property and primarily as items of exchange. Men did not value women and they were seen and not heard. Chasity was an essential attribute to both women and girls. As a girl, because on ...

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