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 marriage her bridegroom would want to feel assured that she had never belonged to another man. As a wife, because her sexual fidelity would ensure that her husbands’ property would not be passed down to the children of another man.
Culture and tradition made men the dominant one. The concept of woman as the sexual property of men was reinforced in Europe in the period before the Reformation by interpretations of the bible, which merged ‘asceticism with holiness, and which associated sexuality, even within marriage, largely with procreation’ (Siann, G. 1994). After the Reformation attitudes towards sex became less censorious in that it was accepted that, for men at any rate, celibacy was a demanding condition. Marriage however, continued to be seen as the appropriate location for controlling and containing sexual feelings, which continued to be seen as demeaning to both sexes. It was, however only in the middle of the eighteenth century with the growth of romanticism and its emphasis on freedom and individuality, that sexuality began to be associated with love and emotional fulfilment (Rich, 1980). As the nineteenth century advanced, however, the influence of romanticism wanted to be replaced as a dominant ethos by the repressiveness of the post-romantic movement and in Britain and in America by what is termed the Victorian era (Rich, 1980).
The Victorian era has been characterised by unequal distribution of power. It was a time of extremely puritanical to all over manifestations of sexuality, especially towards women of the middle classes. During this time a network of brothels and bordells catered for the sexual desires of upper and middle-class men. Child prostitutes of both sexes were not uncommon and the boundary between the protected, if repressed, lives of economically privileged children and the exploited was marked and seldom, if ever crossed (Rich, 1980).
The repression of overt sexuality both reflected and reinforced an ideology of sexual relations that reflected earlier pre-romantic themes (Butler, 1990). Pamphlets, child rearing manuals, articles on health and hygiene all promoted the virtues of self-control, continence and chasity. Sexual intercourse was only approved of in the context of marriage and mainly for reproduction; anything that was seen as opposite had been condemned. It was clear, once married, women were expected to endure sexual relations passively and desire and pleasure were to be avoided (Griffin, 2000). Masturbation had been heavily censored and was associated with the threat of madness and mental degeneracy. People were treated and many surgeries were undertaken to treat the sexually perverse individuals.
At the turn of the century this form of control begun to lose force. Many writers began to explore different passionate and erotic love. Also many women moved into professions like medicine and many jobs that had previously been regarded as suited to men. It began to be generally accepted that women like men, had sexual impulses, which were neither unnatural nor unhealthy (Kitzinger and Wilkinson, 1993). Havelock Ellis is seen as a pioneering investigator who had carried out large-scale documentation on sexuality. Ellis published six volumes on sexuality between 1897 and 1920 drawing both on biological studies and western and non-western data in which he emphasised that sexuality was natural, healthy and variable. Open discussion of sexuality only really started to take place during the 20th century.
Sexuality raises a lot of discussion within the state. Sexual activity between individual is seen as a private matter and its difficuilt to understand the state intervention. How can sexual activity lead to social harm? Many people think there is an easy answer to this since, ‘nature’ seems to give us a clue; that any sexual behaviour that is natural and normal should be left to prosper, while the state has the right to regulate any sexual behaviour that is unnatural, perverted, or deviant. Sexuality is not only seen as a private matter, which is negotiated with adults, but also a public matter. This raises a lot of concern and many arguments are seen within the work of Foucault. Foucault (1985) makes the observation that there is a great deal of public discussion of sexuality these days. It is not that we are more liberated and more open to express out views. This much public talk just shows how sexuality is a political issue. Sexuality introduces different social control of children, family and so on. These links become more visible when there is a public outcry about sexual behaviour and this allows us to get close to the notion of a ‘moral panic’ in the ways which public or social concern get articulated together (Foucault, 1985).
Another way in which we can get to see the publics’ importance of sexuality is through political movements in recent years stressing the right to particular sexual identities for example Gay Liberation. Sexual identity here becomes an important source, affecting all sorts of other issues such as equality of opportunity in job markets, the right to get married or adopt children and so on. The public given notions of what is the norm and what is deviant and this ultimately gives stress to the importance is sexuality and the state and why there is so much intervention.
There is a major discussion to whether or not sexuality is either natural or social. Similarly, attitudes towards the acceptance of the rights of sexual minorities are often by whether one sees these activities as natural or unnatural. Sexual activists of various kinds seem to disagree among themselves, as some want to justify their activities on the grounds that they have not chosen their particular sexuality but that they reflect their nature. Others begin their political action by denying that heterosexual activity between consenting adults is natural, while other forms are unnatural.
Plummer’s (1993) account begins by denying that there is anything natural about human sexuality. For him, the defining characteristic of human sexuality is that it is steeped in cultural matters. It is seen to involve the emotions, sentiments, memory and fantasy. He argues this point in a particularly impressive manner. For Plummer, any activity can be sexualised, and for that matter, any matter can be de-sexualised. To look at one of his own examples, a young man looking at a football match on television might be seen to be engaged in anything but sexual activity, but Plummer points out that the young man might be fantasising about having sex with the players. Sexuality is a particularly flexible kind of script, and there is not objective definition available irrespective of the meanings, which the participants attach to their action.
Plummer (1993) with this analysis looks to denaturalise heterosexual activity and opens the path to the liberation of other sexual minorities. Heterosexuals have always used arguments form nature to justify their position, but they are seen to be dominant only because they have been able to mobilise power to represent their tastes as natural and normal.
Homosexuality has become a large issue in our lives today. This is seen through Gay Rights activists who have been making their voices heard; this has attracted the attention of the population to ensure people are recognising their cause. According to Ruse (1988) homosexuality is same-gender sex. It is seen to have troubled and terrified the pre-Christian times and inspired the western mind and culture. Sexual orientation, if not heterosexual and if it is made overt has many horrible consequences until recently such an orientation could not only lead to stigmatisation and social rejection but also imprisonment and sometimes persecution. The practice of homosexuality has been reported in almost all cultures (Shepherd, 1987 in Caplan, 1987). The term ‘homosexual’ is a relatively recent term and was only coined in 1869 and did not come into usage until the 1880’s and 1890’s (Weeks, 1987). This is because, although individuals might have formed same-sexual relation and been persecuted for it, the concept of a homosexual ‘identity’ in the way we are aware of it now did not exist. Many churches are seen to have accepted homosexuality but many still do not accept homosexuals, saying it is unnatural and not what god intended of man. The term, homosexual, is now usually taken to refer not only to a male who is attracted to members of his sex, but also to one who identifies with other males who feel the same way. It is used in this way to include women who are erotically attracted to their own sex and who identify with other women who do so, but this is not so common with women who are lesbians.
During the 1970’s and 1980’s controversial writers such as Adrienne Rich (1980) began to consider that women’s subordination under men, and the necessity for men to preserve the institution of heterosexuality was very important. ‘Compulsory heterosexuality’ became the foundation for the subsequent separatist movement. This was based on the premise that if heterosexuality was an institution that exists to perpetuate the subordination of women, then it must be avoided at all costs. It followed onto the argument that heterosexual women were ‘collaborating with the enemy’ and concluding to the point that they cannot be called feminists, as they themselves were helping to safe guard men’s position as an oppressor.
One of the main features of female heterosexuality is that it constitutes the oppression of women. Heterosexual intercourse is seen nothing more than the ‘eroticisation of women’s subordination’ (Rich, 1980). Bell Hooks distinctively argues that sexual contact of women and men is rape. Violence is perpetuated through pornography that pushes women into a role of masochism and outlines norms, which are considered acceptable from men in heterosexual intercourse.
Rich (1980) argues that rape should not only be seen as a form of violence, but also be seen as a natural part of heterosexuality, as something that is made normal by men’s oppression of women. Such theorists ultimately argue that heterosexuality should cease to exist.
It has been suggested that theorists such as Rich, Wilkinson and Kitzinger show more signs of man hating rather than of rational theoretical belief. Sheila Jeffreys (1990) suggests that the majority of men are incapable of ‘political integrity and working against their own interests’ and the most sensible thing for women to do would be to embrace ‘feminism as the theory and lesbianism in practice’.
It is claimed that people can be naturally homosexual. It is thought that homosexuals possess different mechanisms, brain structure or genotype. These biological explanations may not be unrelated as genes do lay the blueprint out for hormones, which in turn influence the body structure. At one stage in history it was thought that homosexuals were hormonally different. This theory was abandoned when hormone assays became available and accurate measurements could be made (Saunders and Pickering, 1997). It was then thought that the brain structure was the cause. In 1984 evidence was found for a sexually dimorphic hypothalamic nucleus. However this did not give a link between size and sexual orientation though, so more research was needed. LeVay, (1991) studied the brains of 41 deceased males, 19 of who were homosexuals. He found that a specific portion of the hypothalamus was consistency smaller in homosexuals that in heterosexuals. This suggests that there was a distinct physiological component to sexual orientation. This confirmed his belief that ‘biology is destiny’.
Heterosexuality has been seen to be largely untheorised with both feminism and psychology. Heterosexuality is seen to disappear into the background (Wilkinson and Kitzinger 1993). Jeffereys (1990) Heterosexual desire is defined as a sexual desire that eroticises power different (Choi and Nicolson, 1994). Heterosexuality is seen to subordinate women. We are seen to live and grow up in a heterosexual world. Sexual intercourse ends up as a ‘physical and symbolic representation of male domination and female submission (Choi and Nicolson, 1994:20). During heterosexual sex men are seen to act their social power. According to many feminists, heterosexuality is seen to be dangerous and degrading for women. There are many heterosexual feminists who enjoy having sex with men; this is seen as the case as it is assumed to be a natural thing (Kitzinger and Wilkinson, 1993).
Heterosexuality came about during the sexological discourse in the 1980’s, which had classified sexual behaviours. It was an invention and many argued that it should be renamed. Sexuality was seen as a product of culture, which lay to understanding the self. Halperin (1990) found that sex served to position people according to their socio-political location and sex among heterosexuals was an act performed by a social superior on a social inferior. Heterosexuality and homosexuality emerged contemporaneously and in opposition to one another (Wilkinson and Kitzinger (1993). During the 1920’s women had started to challenge men’s power and therefore not seen as real women. Wilkinson and Kitzinger (1993) found that men organised their lives without any sentiments and disregarded homosexuality. Heterosexualitites was a discourse of a hegemonic heterosexuality. It had depended on homosexuality to give the opposite meaning and it usually bought out the clearness of homophobia, which sees homosexuality as not normal. When we look at bisexuality we get to see other problems, as it doesn’t really go with the ideas which heterosexuality brings out. Freud is seen to be born with bisexual per-dispositions. The term is used to describe individuals of either sex who feel erotic attachments to members of both sexes.
Many researchers maintain that there is no such thing as a ‘true’ bisexual, who have confused identities (Unger and Crawford, 1992). Some members of the lesbian and homosexual communities also advance this contention and within these communities bisexuality is often an extremely contentious issue. The problem that bisexuals faced was that they were not heterosexuals and not seen to behave appropriately, they were not bound up with gender acts, such as wearing a dress by a man. People who regard themselves as being bisexual are now able to writer and talk frankly and more openly about it. Now novels and biographies deal far less secretively with the issues and can be seen, for example in the recent biography of the writer Daphne du Maurier which explores her emotional and sexual relationships with both sexes (Foster, 1993).
The causes of heterosexuality focuses on the causes of homosexuality (Adam, 1998). It is deeply embedded into our accounts of social life and world we inhabit, little attention has been given to theorise heterosexuality. There was a lot of discourse about ‘doing’ heterosexuality: and little about ‘being’ heterosexual. Since 2nd wave feminism in the 1980’s there has been a lot of interrigation of heterosexuality it’s found that heterosexuality structures everyday life without regard for other sexual identities. Butler (1990) argues that heterosexuality is sustained through repeated performance. It is the natural expression of gender. It is part of everyday enteracting life.
Sexuality has many different ideas and themes it goes on further to talk about queer theory which is associated with the radical gay politics of Act Up, Outrage, and other groups which embraced “queer” as an identity label that pointed to a separatist, non-assimilationist politics. The influential work of Judith Butler (1990) particularly Gender Trouble, with its now broadly overused concept of “performative” sexuality and gender identity, seeks to reject stable categories altogether. While thoroughly disruptive of mainstream “truth regimes” of sexuality, it also challenges standard gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, and transgender politics. In Butler's conception, these terms are rendered meaningless when stripped of the institutional means that support them.
Sex and sexuality are linked to so many of the profoundest aspects of our lives. It includes a lot more from anatomy, physiology, self, pleasure, desire, fantasy, identity, morality and culture. Some points argue less obviously which is linked to history, language and power. Sexuality will continue to be questioned and people will go on further to ask why we have become to understand sex and sexuality in this way.
Bibliography
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of identity. Routledge
Caplan, P., (1987) The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London: Tavistock
Choi, P and Nicolson, P. (1994) Female Sexuality: Psychology, Biology and Social Context. Harvester Wheatsheaf
Foster, M., (1992) Daphne du Maurier, London: Chatto and Windus
Foucault, M. (1979) The history of sexuality, vol 1: An introduction. Penguin
Foucault, M (1985) The uses of pleasure: The history of sexuality, vol 2. Penguin
Freud, S., (1955) The Psychogenesis of a case of homosexuality in a woman. London: Penguin
Jeffreys, S., (1990) Anticlimax: A feminist perspective on the sexual revolution. The women’s press
Kitzinger, C and Wilkinson, S. (ed) (1993) Heterosexuality. Sage
LeVay, S., (1993) The Sexual Britain. London: MIT Press
Plummer, K. (ed) (1993) Modern Homosexualities: Fragments of lesbian and gay experiences. Routledge
Rich, A (1980) Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian existence in Jackson, J and Scott, S ed. (1996) Feminism and sexuality: A reader. Edinburgh University Press.
Ruse, M., (1988) Homosexuality: A philosophical enquiry. Oxford: Blackwell
Siann, G. (1994) Gender, sex and sexuality: Contemporary psychological perspectives. Taylor and Francis
Weeks, J., (1985) Sexuality and its discontents. Routledge
Williams, J. E., (eds) (1987) The psychology of women: Behaviour in a Biosocial Context. London: Norton
Journal Articles
Adam, B. (1998) Theorising Homophobia Sexualities Vol. 1 No 4
Griffin, C., (2000) Absences that matter: Constructions of sexuality in studies of young women’s friendships, feminism and Psychology Vol. 10(2): 227-245