Sexuality
and Society
Diversity
of patterns of sexual behavior around the world, throughout history. Big changes in US in last century.
Sexuality
is ubiquitous in contemporary society.
Permeates all areas of social life.
Still many taboos, but not nearly as many as before; other societies.
In
general, modern society involves loosening of sexual restrictions: tied to
various structural and cultural changes.
I. Understanding Sexuality.
A. Sex refers to the
biological distinction between females and males.
B. Sex
and the body.
1. Primary
sex characteristics refer to the organs used for reproduction, namely, the
genitals. Secondary sex characteristics are bodily differences, apart from
the genitals, that distinguish biologically mature females and males.
3. In
rare cares, a hormone imbalance before birth produces intersexual people, human beings with some combination of female
and male characteristics.
4. Transsexuals are people who feel they are one sex even though biologically they are the other.
Some people who feel this way go through gender reasssignment surgery.
2.
Sex is not the same thing as gender.
Gender is an element of culture, defining what male and female imply in
that culture.
C. Like
all dimensions of human behavior,
sexuality is also very much a cultural issue.
1. Almost any sexual practice shows considerable variation from one society to another.
a. “Missionary position”
b. Social construction of modesty: what do women cover?
c. “When a kiss is just a kiss.”
Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty.
Various cultures have very different patterns of kissing, some tied to
sexuality, some not. Example of symbolic
nature of activity expressing cultural identity.
3. One
cultural universal is the incest taboo,
a norm forbidding sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives. Functionalist argument, both biological and
social (integration into larger society).
II.
Sexual Attitudes in the
A. Alfred Kinsey set the stage for
the sexual revolution by
publishing a study of sexuality in the
1a. Began in 1920s with
urbanization, automobile, changing role of women.
1b. Sexual
revolution: severs sexuality and sexual pleasure from procreation. Undermines previous Puritan attitude toward
sexuality.
a. Importance of Freud
b. Must you be sexually
active to be a “fulfilled” human being? Suspicions
of celibacy. Castrati “40-year-old
virgin”
1c. Both structural and cultural
components
1. The sexual revolution came of age in the late 1960s when youth culture dominated public life and a new freedom about sexuality prevailed.
2. The introduction of “the pill” in 1960 both prevented
pregnancy and made sex more convenient.
B. The sexual
counterrevolution began
in 1980 as a conservative call for a return to “family values” by which sexual
freedom was to be replaced by sexual responsibility.
1)
Culture seen as anti-family, decadent.
a)
KGOY: Kids get older younger: Why? Role
of media
2) Cultural cleavage: not just generational. Urban/rural.
3) Reaction to excesses of 1960s: “don’t do as I did.”
C. Although general public
attitudes remain divided on premarital
sex, this behavior is broadly accepted among young people.
E. The
frequency of sexual activity varies widely in the
F. Extramarital sex is widely
condemned. But extramarital sexual activity is more common than people say it should be.
G. Evolution away from the Double
Standard.
1) P. 198: big change in
behavior, attitudes.
Two or more partners
by age 20
Born 1933-1942:
M:56% W:16%
Born 1953-1962: M:
62% W:48%
How do we explain this change: structure or culture?
“Greater openness about
sexuality develops as societies become richer and opportunities for women
increase.”
Saudi women.
III. Sexual Orientation.
A. Sexual orientation refers to a person’s romantic and emotional attachment to another persons.
1. The
norm in all societies is heterosexuality,
meaning sexual attraction to someone of the other sex.
2. Homosexuality is sexual
attraction to someone of the same sex.
3. Bisexuality
refers
to sexual attraction to people of both sexes.
4. Asexuality
means
no sexual attraction to people of either sex.
Sexual orientation is not same as sexual
behavior. Marriage separate from issue
of sexual orientation. Connected to
romantic view of love and marriage.
“Gay” social identity a very recent and rare
development. Sexual orientation as
master status.
Historically, most societies have tolerated
homosexuality to some extent.
Categories not clear cut, product of society. Greeks.
Prison.
B. What gives us a sexual orientation? Nature or nurture? Highly politicized issue
1. Sexual
orientation: a product of society.
Homosexuality only recently becomes basis for social
identity
Like all else, argument is that human sexual
expression is socially constructed
2. Sexual
orientation: a product of biology.
Other side: like left-handedness. Can be suppressed, but is genetically rooted
in brain structure. Lots of evidence for
this.
3. Critical
review. Sexual orientation is most likely derived from both society and
biology.
Note: typical
ideological lines reversed here.
C. How
many gay people? In light of the Kinsey studies, many social scientists
estimate that 10 percent of the population are gay, but how one operationalizes
“homosexuality” makes a difference in the results. p. 194
2014: Homosexual activity
in lifetime: M: 6.2 F: 17.4
Bisexual identity: M: 2.0 F: 5.5
Homosexual identity: 1.9 male, 1.3 female
D. The gay rights movement.
1. In
recent decades, the public attitude toward homosexuality has been moving toward
greater acceptance due to the gay rights movement that arose in the middle of
the twentieth century.
Followed civil rights, women’s rights movements.
of the closet.
Rapid
change in attitudes.
2. The gay rights movement also
began using the term homophobia to
describe the dread of close personal interaction with people thought to be gay,
lesbian, or bisexual. Transformation of
psychological attitude.
3. Gay marriage, civil unions, Proposition 8
IV. Sexual Issues and Controversies.
A. Teen pregnancy.
1. Surveys indicate that while 1 million
2. Shotgun marriage becomes single mom,
B. Pornography.
1. Pornography refers to sexually explicit
material that causes sexual arousal.
2. Pornography is popular in the
Internet has broken down barriers.
3. Traditionally, people have criticized pornography on moral
grounds.
4. Other critics see pornography as a cause of violence against
women.
5. Pressure to restrict pornography is building from a coalition
of conservatives (who oppose it on moral grounds) and progressives (who condemn
it for political reasons).
C. Prostitution.
1. Prostitution is the selling of sexual
services.
2. In general, prostitution is widespread in societies of the
world where women have low standing in relation to men. Also negatively correlated with frequency of
premarital intercourse.
3. Prostitutes fall into different categories, from call girls
to street walkers.
D. Prostitution is against the law almost
everywhere in the
E. Sexual violence: rape and date rape.
1. Rape is actually an expression of power.
2. Date rape refers to forcible sexual violence against women by
men they know.
F. P. 200 Hooking up: When Sex is Only Sex: The Campus Culture of “Hooking Up”: About three-fourths of women in a recent national survey point to a new campus pattern–the culture of “hooking up,” referring to when a man and a woman get together for a physical encounter and expect nothing further.
Reversal of double standard means new double standard: misogynism.
V. Theoretical Analysis of
Sexuality.
A. Structural-functional analysis.
1. The need to regulate sexuality. From a biological perspective, sex allows our species to reproduce. But culture and social institutions regulate with whom and when people reproduce.
2. Latent functions: the case of prostitution. According to
Kingsley Davis, prostitution is widespread because of its latent functions.
3. Critical review. This approach ignores the great diversity of
sexual ideas and practices found within every society. Moreover, sexual
patterns change over time, just as they differ around the world.
B. Symbolic-interaction analysis.
1. The social construction of sexuality. Almost all social
patterns involving sexuality have seen considerable change over the course of
the twentieth century.
2. Global comparisons. The broader our view, the more variation
we see in the meanings people attach to sexuality.
3. Critical review. The strength of the symbolic-interaction
paradigm lies in revealing the constructed character of familiar social
patterns. One limitation to this approach is that not everything is so
variable.
C. Social-conflict analysis.
1. Sexuality: reflecting social inequality. We might wonder if
so many women would be involved in prostitution at all if they had economic
opportunities equal to those of men.
2. Sexuality: creating sexual inequality. Defining women in
sexual terms amounts to devaluing them from full human beings into objects of
men’s interest and attention.
3. Queer theory refers to a growing body of
knowledge that challenges an allegedly heterosexual bias in sociology. Heterosexism
is the view stigmatizing anyone who is not heterosexual as “queer.”
4. Critical review. Applying the social-conflict paradigm shows
how sexuality is both a cause and effect of inequality. But this approach
overlooks the fact that sexuality is not a power issue for everyone. And this
paradigm ignores the progress our society has made toward eliminating injustice. Abortion, the deliberate termination
of a pregnancy, is perhaps the most divisive sexuality issue of all.