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Sexuality:  Discussion Points from Chapter 8: (This chapter combines a wide variety of issues surrounding; changing sexual mores; sexual orientation; pornography; sexual harassment; prostitution; teenage pregnancy; abortion; and sexually transmitted diseases)

 

 

 

1.   The distinction between “sex” and “gender”—Sex is biologically determined while gender is socially determined.  Biologically, there can be but two sexes (excluding hermaphrodites) socially, there can be many genders; (Example; the “nadle” of the Navajo).  What is meant by the term, “gendered social order”? (This term is similar to what the text describes as gender stratification).

     a.     Primary vs. Secondary sex characteristics

     b.     The term, “sex” refers also to sexual activity

     c.     The text also refers to “sex” as being a “cultural issue” (p. 192).  This is not the same as gender.  What is meant here is that societies vary in whom they allow to be sexual partners.  Different cultures have different ideas about who may marry, when they can marry, and how many partners they may marry.  Society also sets forth norms about what kinds of sexual intercourse is permissible.  (Remember the example of Virginia’s law against fornication in the section on crime?)

 

2.     Trends:  Puritans preached that sex should be for reasons of procreation only.  Massive rural-to-urban migration in the U.S. in 1920s led to more sexual freedom.  Sexual revolution of the 1960s, fueled in part by advances in birth control technology, especially the pill.

3.     The sexual revolution also was related to the gay rights movement and to a rise in the feminist movement.  (Conservative “backlash” referred to as “family values”).

4.     Sexual Orientation.  Hetero-; homo-; bi-; and asexuality.

     a.     Some forms of discrimination by sexual orientation are legally banned (job or housing); while other forms are legally approved (military discharges of openly gay men and women; marriage prohibitions in 49 states; etc.).

     b.     Estimates of the extent of homosexuality in the U.S. vary—While 9.1 percent of men and 4.3 percent of women have claimed some homosexual activity, a much smaller percentage (2.8% of men and 1.4% of women claim to be exclusively homosexual or bisexual).  In general, about 5 percent of the U.S. population may be exclusively homosexual.

     c.     Explanations of sexual orientation—nature vs. nurture.  A number of strong arguments have been made for biological causes of homosexuality (Macionis, p. 196).  Social causes (socialization; cultural definition) have also been offered.  Foucault notes that until the 19th century, little attention was paid to homosexual behavior.  “Socially constructed categories” of hetero- and homosexuality did not exist.  Historically, some cultures have accepted homosexual behavior as “normal.”  Macionis mentions the Chuckhee Eskimos of Siberia as one example (p. 196). 

          1.     These two explanations have different consequences.  If biology is the prime factor, then society should not discriminate against homosexuals any more than it should women, racial minorities, and the like.  If primary causes are social, then some groups may advocate social engineering to change the structure of society to eliminate homosexuality.  (However, today with modern genetic engineering, these groups may advocate eliminating homosexuality through biological technology).

     d.     Changing public attitudes.  Protests by gays led the American Psychiatric Association to redefine homosexuality from a “mental disorder” to an alternative life style in 1973.  The number of people who think that homosexuality is “wrong” has declined in the last 20 years from 75 percent to 57 percent and a majority of adults believe that gay people should have the same basic civil rights as straights.  The term, “homophobia” is defined in Macionis as “an aversion or hostility to people thought to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual” (p. 198).

          1.     Vermont (the first state in the U.S. to abolish slavery in 1777); established legally recognized civil unions for same sex couples in July, 2000. 

          2.     Massachusetts;  The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled (4-to-3 decision) in November, 2003 that the state must recognize marriages between same sex couples.  (Civil unions are not the same as marriage and therefore are discriminatory because they create “second class citizens”).  This ruling cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and the only way to change it is to change the state’s constitution—a process that will take at least three years.

          3.     Countries that recognize gay marriage with full legal marriage rights: Canada, Holland, and Belgium;  Countries that recognize gay marriage with limited legal rights: Denmark, Norway, Sweden.

     e.     In 1996 the U.S. Congress passed the “Defense of Family Act” defining a family as a “married unit of one man and one woman.”  Furthermore, this act allows states the right to determine which kinds marriages, celebrated in other states, they will or will not recognize.  (We’ll address varying definitions of family in another section)

5.     Pornography: “One person’s pornography is an other person’s art.”  How does society define what is pornographic and what is not?  Is there agreement that pornography is a social problem?  With the exception of child pornography, there is not.  Conservatives and liberals come at this subject from different perspectives.  Conservatives see it as a moral issue—Pornography weakens society’s moral values.  Liberals see it as a free speech issue, but are concerned about how pornography turns women into objects and undermines their power in society.  Some studies indicate that there is a relationship between exposure to pornography and sexual violence against women and children.  But, this claim has been disputed by other research.  Overall, popular opinion polls indicate that half of the general public believes that there is a relationship between exposure to pornography and rape. 

6.     Sexual Harassment:  (unwanted comments, gestures, of physical contact of a sexual nature) (p. 200): 

     a.     Two types:  “quid pro quo” and “unwanted comments, gestures, of physical contact of a sexual nature”

     b.     85% consists of men harassing women

7.     Prostitution (Sex Work):  Prostitution is common in the U.S. (But only a minority of  Americans- 39% approve of it, even if health risks were minimized).

     a.     Illegal in the U.S. except for rural parts of Nevada.

     b.     Numbers:  Most prostitutes are women; but at least 10 percent are men.  (About 66% of those arrested for prostitution are women; 33% are men (but this includes both male prostitutes and male clients of prostitutes—male and female).

     c.     Types:  Call Girls; prostitutes (in brothels; escort services; massage parlors); and street walkers.

     d.     Terminology;  The term, “prostitute” is pejorative.  “Sex worker” has been suggested as an alternative by organizations like COYOTE. 

     e.     Child prostitution:  Globally, there may be as many as 100 million children using the sex trade to survive on a day-to-day basis. 

8.     Teenage pregnancy in the U.S.:  A serious social problem in the U.S. costing the nation as much as $35 billion dollars annually.

9.     Abortion:  There is a tremendous controversy over this topic in U.S. society, today.  From colonial times until the mid 1800s early-term abortion was legal.  But the AMA after it was founded in 1847 worked to make it illegal—largely to put midwives and traditional healers out of business (Macionis, 206).  By the 1920s, all states had laws outlawing abortion.  U.S. Supreme court decision (Roe vs. Wade) made it legal again in 1973.

     a.     Note how the two sides of this issue refer to themselves—appealing to basic American values:  Pro-Life; Pro-Choice.  (You won’t hear them refer to themselves as pro and anti abortion).

     b.     Is there any possibility that the opposing sides in this debate will ever find common ground?

10.     STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases).  Certainly gonorrhea, syphilis, and herpes are serious concerns, but not major health problems.  The first two are treatable.  Herpes is incurable, but less serious than gonorrhea and syphilis.  Except, that herpes can be transmitted to an infant during vaginal delivery and it can cause death to the infant.

     a.     The major concern under the heading of STDs is AIDS.  Aids is incurable, and if it goes untreated, it is fatal.

          1.     In the U.S. there have been almost 900,000 cases, since it was discovered in 1981.  Over 500,000 of these cases have been fatalities.  There were over 26,000 new cases of AIDS in the U.S. in 2002, and in that same year, over 16,000 people died of the disease.  That’s over five times the number of fatalities in the attack on the World Trade Center.

          2.     World-wide the situation is worse: (We’ll return to this in the section on health).

               a.     Despite current concerns over bio-terrorism and biological weapons of mass destruction, AIDS is the most serious global health threat, world-wide.  World Health Organization data from November, 2000 indicate that over 5 million new cases of AIDS were reported in the year 2000.  World wide, over 36 million people were afflicted by November, 2000, which surpassed even the worst predictions for the spread of this dreaded disease (NY Times, 11-28-2000).  The number of cases were 50 percent higher than experts predicted a decade ago.  Over the past two decades, AIDS has killed approximately 22 million people world-wide.

                                       b.     Africa has been worst-hit, with approximately 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa being infected with AIDS.  Infection rates are lower today, but only because so many people have the disease.  In some countries one-third of all adults are infected!  The WHO report also states that as a result of AIDS, South Africa—the strongest economy in the region—will experience a shrinking population by 2015 and that one-third of its skilled and un-skilled work force will be HIV positive by 2005. Today, according to one authority, 6,000 people die of AIDS every day—(almost the equivalent of two World Trade Center Attacks).

 

                 c.     Today AIDS is growing most rapidly in Eastern Europe:  As quoted from the U.N. World Health Organization web site < http://www.who.int/home-page/>, “The number of HIV infections in Eastern Europe is rising faster than anywhere else in the world according to a joint UNAIDS/WHO report.”

11.     Theoretical Analysis: Functionalism; Symbolic Interactionism; Conflict Theory; Queer Theory; Politics and Sexuality

 

 

 

 

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