Marxists argue that the economy is the most important social force shaping human society. Every society is organized around a specific economic system. From this perspective, a particular type of economy shapes a specific sexual culture (Seidman). Capitalism only works through the hard disciplined labor of individuals that are expected to work like machines, all the while stripping them of their individuality. In a market economy, therefore, a repressed personality type is prominent. This kind of person is performance- and success oriented and exercises tight internal controls over emotions and sensual desires. To this type of person, sexual impulses and desires are potentially disruptive of discipline; sexuality needs to be rigidly controlled. …show more content…
He argued that sexuality is socially learned. Society teaches us how to feel & why we must feel a certain way because of our specific sex. Society also appropriates sexual behaviors. Sexual scripts tell us where, when, and with whom (based on age, race, or class) we are supposed to have sex, and what it means when we do (Seidman). Sexual scripting suggests the importance of meanings and symbols in human sexuality. Sexual feeling does not simply happen from within the body but needs meanings and symbols which provide cues and clues to enable sexualities to develop. Social construction is important to sexual script because sexual scripts can come from how a child is raised through the beliefs of social construction. Sociologist Ken Plummer further developed a labeling perspective (Seidman). In Sexual Stigma, he argued that individuals are not born homosexual but learn to be homosexual. An individual may feel desire for or attraction to people of the same sex, but he or she must learn that these feelings are sexual and that they indicate a homosexual identity. People learn this in the course of interacting with both the straight and gay worlds. For some apparent reason, hearing things likes homosexual slurs is enough to land you in a homosexual dimension and have you doomed because that’s enough to make homosexuality normative. A scholar known as Johnathan Ned Katz produced two pioneering books Gay American History and the Gay/Lesbian Almanac. In which he documents the different interpretations of homosexuality. He found that between colonial times and the 1970s, the meaning of homosexuality changed from a behavior (sodomy) to a type of gender deviance (invert) to an abnormal personality (the homosexual) and finally to an affirmative social identity (gay/lesbian). Romantic Friendship is a phrase coined by Smith-Rosenberg who made a compelling argument that in Victorian time- women formed bonds with other women
Though same-sex relationships have been a prominent aspect of many cultures almost since the beginning of time, there has historically been a significant taboo surrounding the phenomenon in the Western world. "From the Fourteenth Century on, Western Europe was gripped by a rabid and obsessive negative preoccupation with homosexuality as the most horrible of sins" (Boswell 262). The majority of people did not understand or accept the idea, and consequentially did not have an appropriate way of talking about it. Over the years, as various cultures identified and even implemented practices currently associated with homosexuality, there arose a need for common terminology. Until the eighteenth century, it was referred to through the practices and stereotypes for which its participants were known, and not for the orientation, itself. "Sodomites and Fops" were two common ways of referring to homosexuals, and for the majority of the eighteenth century, homosexuality as we currently know it was undefined.
Homosexuality has existed since the beginning of recorded human history and yet, attitudes towards gay and lesbian individuals vary extensively. Some societies tolerate them; others openly welcome and encourage them; and most blatantly condemn them (Bates, 46). Throughout our country’s history, homosexuals have been misunderstood and discriminated against, leading many to acquire an irrational fear of gays and lesbians. Known as homophobia, this fear has prompted heterosexual individuals with a feeling a superiority and authority when using the word “homosexual” interchangeably with the words pervert, faggot, sodomite, and so on. Homophobes typically perceive homosexuality as a threat to society. Nonetheless, the Gay Rights Movement has achieved impressive progress since 1973 when the American Psychological Association (APA) eradi...
To be honest, when I had my first encounter with homophobia, I didn’t really understand this hatred. I watched a movie called The Laramie Project. It tells the true story of Matthew Shepard. You may have heard of him. Matthew Shepard was an innocent gay student who was tortured and left to die tied to a fence because of his sexual orientation. I couldn’t comprehend it because until then I had never been exposed to gay culture and therefore I didn’t consider homosexuality a weakness. The thing is, I saw homosexuality as a fact, I didn’t question it, I didn’t attribute certain features or qualities to it. And I still don’t. For me it is merely a part of people’s personal lives. You can imagine how shocked I was when I found out that there were people who thought that the sexual preferences of others affected them. But I wanted to understand, because there must have been some explanation behind this behaviour. So I started reading.
This brings up Greta Christina’s article, “Are We Having Sex Now or What?” (Christina 2014) the author questions what really counts as sex as her sexual partners sexes changed. Friend A thought similarly to her, thinking that just penile-vaginal sex counted as the “real thing.” Although Friend A didn’t have female partners to have this ideology, she didn’t regard as other forms of sex, such as oral, orgasm inducing and electronic sex as sex. This delves into the common theme and into the thesis of how the idea of sex is individual as well as structural in the inkling that society and cultural norms, starting from the inner mechanisms of say one’s family and then branching out as to how others perceive these norms is how the ideology of sexuality is born. As a straight CIS woman of Hispanic decent, Friend A understood how others perceived her but also had a perception of herself because she doesn’t have to think about other forms of sex since she is content in just one form. It’s a blissful unawareness of
Key Ideas. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.brenau.edu:2040/login?url=https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.brenau.edu:2040/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=110299. In this chapter of Sexuality written by Jeffrey Weeks, the author goes through and talks about sexuality and all aspects of it. From where it originated to how it’s a social construct or even what defines whether an action is sexual or not, most of that stuff is in there.
Most societies view homosexuality as something that is morally wrong. Individuals view sexual relations between like genders as sick. For many years homosexuality has existed, so why Homophobia is related to gender socialization still exists? As a human they see things they cannot understand as wrong in society. Homophobia issues in society are the discussions when subjects like religion and morals are talked about. There are numerous agents of gender socialization in society like family, religion, school, and media. The media is the most pervasive correspondence medium depicts highly stereotyped roles for men and women. Religion is strong emphasis on gender differences with explicit affirmation of the authority of men over women. Family they
Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.
In the article “An Anthropological Look at Human Sexuality” the authors, Patrick Gray and Linda Wolfe speak about how societies look at human sexuality. The core concept of anthology is the idea of culture, the systems of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors people acquire as a member of society. The authors give an in depth analysis on how human sexuality is looked at in all different situations.
What makes a homophobic slur is the negative history behind it and what they mean present day. We will work our way down the list but let’s start with the number one homophobic slur in my book. Faggot. This word has a lot of negativity and strong history behind it. The word faggot used to mean a pile or bundle of sticks to the British back in the Feudalism era. The word fag/faggot may have also been used to describe types of hazing that would be done to boys in British boarding schools but none the less, this word has a horrible past behind it. But, as time went on and more gay and LGBT people started to become more comfortable with themselves and came out to people they knew and came out to the world, that’s when the word was put to use as a slur. The term fag and or faggot was used back then to mostly belittle and demean gay men but it was also
Sexual scripts are expectations of a female or male engaging in a heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian or gay male relationship with regards to sexual performance. The customary male scripts are perceived as initiators of sexual encounters expecting to be assertive, confident, and knowledgeable of sexual curricular activities. The male is required to become familiar with their partner’s body and coax their sexual intimacy. A male’s ultimatum of the sexual script is to achieve erotic gratification, build his self-esteem and reputation. Traditionally, female scripts are passive and are views with love as oppose to passion. Female’s wait patiently and complying with a men’s initiation of sexual activity. Laura Carpenter, a sociologist, explains women are more worried about the negative consequences from their first experience of intercourse. Certain women may feel comfortable to sexually engage with their partners, but hesitate to communicate their sexual needs.
In reality, gender is not based on one’s genetic make-up or their reproductive organs. Expanding on this, an individual does not have any control over their assigned gender, but everyone has a gender identity, which is one’s internal sense of being male or female. From a sociocultural perspective, gender roles have the greatest influence on gender as a social construction. Gender roles are the attitudes, behaviors, rights, and responsibilities that particular cultural groups associate with each sex. In regards to gender, the social construction theory acknowledges the connection the topic has with power and meaning, and states that social interaction, or “language” controls how these things are portrayed to individuals. Similarly, sexuality is socially constructed in a sense that, one’s sexual orientation depends on what they are taught to be “socially acceptable”. For example, a person who is raised by homophobic parents would most likely be taught that every aspect of homosexuality is wrong, and therefore they would be influenced to be heterosexual. While many would like to believe that people are born with their sexual orientation, that is far from the truth. All in all, when looking at the big picture, it is clear that race, gender,
Sexuality is a fundamental part of our self-discovery, involving much more than just being genetically or anatomically male and female and it is not defined solely by one 's sexual acts (Ministry of Education 1989, p.79 cited in Gourlay, P 1995). The notion that sexuality is fixed and innate disregards the social aspects that impact ones’ sexualities. Gagnon and Simon (1973) further commented that sexuality is a feature of social
From birth, one's sexuality is shaped by society. Cultures institute behaviors that are to be seen as the societal norms, which work to constantly reinforce societal expectations of how genders should act in relation to one another. Although some may argue that one's sexuality is an innate characteristic resulting from genetic makeup, there is a large amount of evidence pointing to its social construction instead. Through the power differences between males and females, established gender roles, and drastic economic shifts, society establishes sexuality and reinforces the behaviors that are expected of its citizens.
Sexual orientation describes patterns of sexual and romantic attraction towards someone else. Normally one pole attracts the other, but in this case, it does not work like that. There is little information on why a person’s sexual orientation might be deviated from what is normal. Research shows that this problem may be due to the role of genes, the environment, hormones, the way a family raised the kids, or because of the brain itself. According to Sigmund Freud, all human beings are bisexual, but they become heterosexual or homosexual because of the experiences they live with their parents and other people. Psychologists and psychiatrists have a negative attitude towards homosexuality. However, there are no norms, or empirical evidence supporting the idea that attraction towards the same sex is a form of mental illness or a psychopathology. Homosexuality is a matter of choice rather than an abnormality due to brain dysfunction (APA, 1975; 1987).
In today’s society things are being expressed and experienced at younger ages, than ever before in our time. Children and teenagers are discovering their sexuality at very early ages. Sexuality is the discovering of who you are and what makes you different from everybody else.