Chapter Summary for Chapter 14
There is enormous diversity in sexual practices and identities which shows that sexual behaviour is mostly learned, not innate. All societies have sexual norms and prohibitions, but these vary widely. Human sexuality is symbolic and imbued with social, cultural and personal meaning.
Christianity has shaped Western attitudes to sexuality, but the nineteenth century saw the medicalization of sexuality, transforming ‘sinful’ practices into ‘unhealthy’ ones. The Victorian era was dominated by a sexual double standard which accepted that men could use prostitutes or keep mistresses, while ‘respectable’ women should ‘save themselves’ for marriage and their husbands. In the developed countries, the last forty years have seen enormous changes in attitudes towards sex and sexual mores, marriage and divorce, same-sex relationships, abortion and adult pornography.
Sexual orientation derives from a complex interplay of biological, psychological, social and cultural factors. The most common sexual orientation in all societies is heterosexuality though homosexuality also exists alongside. There are also many minority sexual tastes and inclinations.
Plummer (1975) distinguished four types of male homosexuality in modern Western culture: casual homosexuality, situated homosexuality, personalized homosexuality and homosexuality as a way of life. Only the latter involved being openly homosexual, in contact with a community of others associated with a ‘gay’ lifestyle. Lesbianism has received less attention. Lesbianism may be simply a sexual preference but has also been associated with some feminist groups seeking to establish female solidarity and a woman-centred culture and life-style. The gay and lesbian rights movement developed in the 1960s. Many rights have been achieved in Western societies, but globally the situation is variable with homosexuality still illegal in some countries.
Gagnon and Simon (1973) used interactionist ideas to look at ways in which sex is negotiated through ‘personal scripts’, ‘interactive scripts’ and ‘historical-cultural’ scripts from the wider culture which shape expectations and roles. Queer theory has developed from the meeting of social constructionism, postmodernism and gay and lesbian studies. It makes evident the heterosexual assumptions underpinning much contemporary thinking.
Kinsey’s studies in 1940s and ’50s USA showed a large gap between public expectations of sexual experience and actual practices. In the late 1980s, Rubin found that sexual activity started at a younger age than previously and young people engaged in as wide a range of practices as mature adults. The sexual double standard still operated, but in a less extreme form and women now expected sexual pleasure and satisfaction from relationships. Wouters’s (2004) study of historical documents showed a movement towards more informal codes of behaviour allowing a wider range of sexual behaviour and courtship today than in the past.
Prostitution is usually seen today as one form of sex work: the provision of sexual services in a financial exchange between consenting adults. But the growth of the global sex industry is largely the result of sex tourism and human trafficking, and is based on exploitation and enormous disparities of wealth and power.
Sociologists draw a distinction between sex – anatomical and physiological differences – and gender – psychological, social and cultural differences between females and males. Gender socialization is the process by which humans learn behaviour considered gender appropriate in society. Procreative technologies such as contraception, abortion, genetic engineering and the medicalization of childbirth shape the lives of women, but also have wider repercussions for social relationships.
Feminist academics made ‘gender’ central to sociology, focusing on the position of women in society, though masculinity has also become an area of study in the context of gender relations. R. W. Connell identifies three aspects of society which interact to form a ‘gender order’: labour, power and personal/sexual relationships. There are different versions of masculinities and femininities, the most powerful of which is hegemonic masculinity. Gender relations are hierarchically organized, but they are not fixed and are remade through social practices and subject to challenge. Connell argues that globalization processes are now bringing about a global gender order.
Functionalist approaches to gender relations tended to reproduce uncritically the ‘natural differences’ approach. Feminism has generated a richer body of theory analysing the position of women in society. Liberal feminism proposes a fundamental equality between women and men which can be achieved by transforming social attitudes and practices to remove unfair discrimination.
Socialist feminism builds upon the Marxist analysis of capitalism. Capitalism intensifies male domination; capitalist production depends upon the unpaid domestic labour of women and requires a growing demand for the consumption of its goods, which can be aimed at women as ‘homemakers’. Radical feminism focuses on analysing patriarchy; the system of domination of men over women. Radical feminism emphasizes women’s role in biological reproduction, male violence against women and the sexual objectification of women.
Black feminism argues that other feminist approaches have failed to recognize the differences between women, especially those structured by ethnicity and imperialism. Most feminisms take a white, Western, middle-class experience and generalize from it, but this is misleading and inappropriate. Postmodern feminism challenges the idea of a universal category of ‘woman’ which can be the basis for feminist political action. Multiplicities of individuals and groups are differently positioned and have very different experiences.
Walby identifies two forms of patriarchy: private, which takes place in the household, and public, which works to exclude women from wealth and power in the workplace and public life. Over the twentieth century, the balance has shifted towards the latter.
Globally, there remain many examples of violence against women, inequality and discrimination against women, and violations of the human rights of girl children. In the global context, these processes are also linked to inequalities between societies and nations.
