Sexualities. Identities, Behaviors and Society

Posted on January 29, 2006
Filed Under Sexuality, Social Issues, Women's Issues

Sexualities. Identities, Behaviors and Society. Edited by Michael S. Kimmel and Rebecca F. Plante, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 487 pp. $44.95.

This collection of 47 essays and journal articles is designed to be a textbook for undergraduate sociology and women’s studies classes. To this end, it is highly successful. In addition, it is also engaging reading for the scholar who is interested in an analysis of contemporary philosophical and sociological values and beliefs about sexuality.

The text is divided into four parts. Part 1 includes historical pieces by Freud, von Krafft-Ebbing, Havelock Ellis, Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson. These set the stage for the tentative and revolutionary first steps to make the study of sexuality a science. It also includes contemporary explorations of the nature of sexuality. Examples are Katz’ questioning the use of the terms “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” as inventions that arbitrarily divide sexual behaviors and Tiefer’s feminist criticism of Masters and Johnson’s model of the human sexual response cycle as ignoring the complexities of female sexuality.

Part 2 includes pieces on childhood and adolescent sexual development, including all sexual orientations. Another section covers the relationship and dissonance between sexual identity and behavior and the third section focuses on same-sex sexualities. Part 3 covers a wide range of sexual activities. These include pieces on SM behavior, faking orgasm, vibrator use by women, prostitution and the psychology of sex workers, violent pornography, and internet pornography. Part 4 focuses on the nature of rape and perceptions of the probability of being raped. Also in this section are works on sexuality education. These include the issues of abstinence-based “no sex” education, an evaluation of sexuality education videos, and HIV/AIDS education.

These inquiries are based on the concept that behavior, values, and beliefs are socially constructed. People learn how to think about sex and how to behave sexually from their social environment. Therefore, in a diverse society, there is a wide range of sexual behavior. But there is a constant within this diversity, and that is inequality of gender. The feminist selections in this text scrutinize the effects of different rules for women and men regarding sexual behavior. The examination of the behaviors of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people explores the individual responses to breaking the social expectation of the heterosexual imperative.

It is impossible in this review to give full attention to all the articles in this text. The following selection is based on this reviewer’s interest and on those pieces that counter conventional beliefs about sexuality.

In “The Five Sexes,” Anne Fausto-Sterling discusses the history of the treatment of hermaphrodites and intersexuals. Both of these groups are people who are born with ambiguous genitals (4% of the population). They “… literally embody both sexes, [and] challenge traditional beliefs about sexual difference: they possess the irritating ability to live sometimes as one sex and sometimes the other and they raise the specter of homosexuality” (p. 43). Today surgeons routinely perform plastic surgery on intersexed infants to make their genitals conform to the appearance of one sex. Fausto-Sterling envisions a change in this practice that would eliminate the surgery and would encourage intersexuals to live authentic lives intact in their unique sexual status.

Suzanne Kessler picks up this issue again in “Creating Good-looking Genitals in the Service of Gender.” Kessler has interviewed intersexuals to understand their psychology, and she reviews the relevant articles from medical journals. About 90% of intersexed infants are assigned to be female. This means that the majority of these babies are female, and they are having their clitorises partially amputated in order to make them appear less “masculine.” This often results in loss of clitoral sensation. But medical assessments of success rely on the creation of a vagina that functions adequately for intercourse.

Barrie Thorn and Zella Luria authored “Sexuality and Gender in Children’s Daily Worlds.” This observational and interview study examined how gender rules develop in elementary schools. They conclude that “From an early age the ’sexual’ is prescriptively heterosexual male homophobic…. In their separate gender groups, girls and boys learn different patterns of bonding–boys sharing the arousal of group rule-breaking; girls emphasizing the construction of intimacy and themes of romance” (p. 84).

Connie Chan studied Asian-American teens and found that this culture silences sexuality more than the mainstream American culture. Sexuality in itself is not perceived as immoral, but whatever is done is not discussed. Yet, these teens live in a sexualized American culture. They are caught within two worlds, and many of them exhibit signs of depression as they struggle to express their desires and to conform to the Asian cultural demands.

In “Dating and Romantic Relationships among Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youths,” Rita Savin-Williams describes the conflicts these youths experience in homophobic school settings. Faced with a heterosexual imperative, they are often silent and confused about their romantic and sexual feelings. As they come to terms with their gay identities, they are still faced with the near-impossibility of finding another teen to date. The socialization that occurs during a dating relationship is not available to most gay teens until after high school.

These studies about youth take on more significance when placed in the context of sex education as discussed by Judith Levine in “No-sex Education: From ‘Chastity’ to ‘Abstinence’” and by Richard Parker in “Sexuality, Culture, and Power in HIV/AIDs Research.” Levine’s piece is a sharp critique of the failure of sex educators to combat the regressive laws that now mandate that all sex education in the schools (including university health clinics) be “abstinence based.” This is a revival of the sex education of the 1950s that urged adolescents to stay virginal until married. Levine does an extensive literature review and concludes that this policy is ineffective. Further, the focus on abstinence from intercourse assumes a heterosexual orientation and serves to create another homophobic setting within the schools.

Parker’s literature review captures the changes in education world-wide–AIDS education. The first educational programs focused on individual psychology and emphasized teaching people how to negotiate safe sex. One problem with this method was that there is an unequal power relationship between most partners (including gay couples and/or teenage couples.) Therefore, the least powerful partner cannot enforce the use of condoms effectively. Now this epidemic is the one affecting primarily impoverished Women of Color, and these women do not have the resources to insist on the use of condoms. Therefore AIDS education has moved toward changing behaviors within cultural, not individual, settings. In short, patriarchal institutions must be changed and replaced with egalitarian ones.

The most strongly feminist pieces involve examinations of female sexuality and the female body, and of sexuality as a commodity that is purchased or used by men. These include the topics of faking orgasm, how men negotiate pseudo-relationships in strip clubs, why men ask prostitutes for fellatio, how prostitutes dissociate the self from the acts of prostitution. White men’s racism and sexism in the global prostitution industry, sexual violence in pornography, an analysis of the function of sexual materials on the internet, and attitudes of actors in the pornographic industry. In addition, pieces on sexual violence include one on women’s fear of being raped and one on a man’s first hand account of his own victimization in a stranger rape experience by a man.

The objectification and colonization of women’s bodies is unified in a powerful piece titled “Sexual Terrorism” by Carole S. Sheffield. She defines sexual terrorism as “a system by which males frighten and, by frightening, control and dominate females” (p. 410). She further defines the components of terrorism as including ideology, propaganda, indiscriminateness of violence, and voluntary compliance. She documents the forms of violence against women that meet her criteria: rape, spousal abuse, child abuse, and sexual harassment. She emphasizes the cultural acceptance of these events with statistics that show that these crimes cross class boundaries, are less likely to be reported than other crimes, and are the crimes that have the lowest conviction rates. Finally, these are crimes for which blaming the victim is pervasive. She concludes that this violence and fear is socially functional. Without them the domination of women could not continue.

This text documents how patriarchal values inform all types of sexual behavior and attitudes. The enforcement of gender roles, the creation of women’s bodies as commodities, the silencing of discussion of personal sexual experiences, sexual violence, and homophobia create an impression of a widely repressive sexual milieu. It is, therefore, not surprising that Americans, especially women, struggle with creating a self-defined and autonomous sexual persona.

Joanne Marrow

California State University, Sacramento