Transcript document

Chapter 8
Sexuality
Sex: A Biological Issue
• Sex refers to the biological distinctions
between females and males
– Primary sex characteristics refer to
differences in genitalia
– Secondary sex characteristics refer to the
physically distinctive characteristics that
occur as we mature
– The term “sex” also refers to sexual
activity, including intercourse
Sex: A Cultural Issue
• Sociologists point out that sexual activity is
also guided by human culture
• Cultural norms define who can have sex with
whom
– age
– marital status
– sex of partners
– sexual activity
Sexual Attitudes in the United
States
• How people think about sex – as well as
sexual practices themselves – have changed
over the course of this nation’s history
• During the colonial era, the European settlers’
lack of effective birth control methods
resulted in most communities holding strict
norms that treated sexuality simply as a
matter of reproduction
Sexual Attitudes in the United
States
• Landmarks in the nation’s changing view of
sexuality include:
– Advances in technology giving people
control over reproduction
– Post WW II research of Alfred Kinsey that
concluded that Americans were not as
conventional about sex as many had
believed
Sexual Attitudes in the United
States
– The “sexual revolution” that embraced a
culture of freedom following the
introduction of the birth control pill in 1960
– The feminist movement’s challenge of
men’s power that took a stand against a
number of practices associated with sex,
including pornography, rape, and incest
Sexual Orientation
• Sexual orientation refers to an individual’s
romantic, emotional, and sexual attraction to
another person
• Sexual orientation can include partners of the
same sex (homosexuality), the other sex
(heterosexuality), either sex (bisexuality), or
neither sex (asexuality)
What Gives Us a Sexual
Orientation?
• Cultural Factors
– Sexual orientation has much to do with
one’s society
– Once definitions of heterosexual and
homosexual became accepted, people with
homosexual experiences were set apart
What Gives Us a Sexual
Orientation?
• Biological Factors
– Sexual orientation appears to be fixed at
birth
– Both genes and hormones play a part in
determining sexual orientation
Is Homosexuality a Problem?
• Prior to the 1970s, homosexuality was widely
regarded as wrong
• This created a hostile atmosphere that
resulted in most lesbians and gay men
staying “in the closet”
• In 1973, the American Psychiatric
Association declared that it no longer
considered homosexuality to be a mental
disorder
• Recently, public attitudes have become more
accepting of homosexuality
• However, mixed public attitudes have
produced conflicting policies on sexual activity
The Gay Rights Movement
• Originated in a few large cities in the mid
1950s.
• The “Stonewall Riot” on June 27, 1969 was a
defining moment in the growth of the
movement
• Soon after, the term “homophobia” was used
to demonstrate that the problem was people
who would not accept others simply because
of their sexual orientation
Pornography
• Pornography refers to words or images that
cause sexual arousal
• “Soft-core” pornography shows or
describes nudity and suggests sexual
activity
• “Hard-core” pornography contains
explicit descriptions or images of sexual
acts
• The real issue: At what point does sexual
material run afoul of the law and become
obscenity?
Is Pornography a Social Problem?
• Conservatives treat sex as a moral issue
– pornography is a social problem because it
undermines morality
• Liberals are divided over whether
pornography is a social problem
– Some liberals contend that what people
choose to read or view is their own
business
– Others object to pornography as
demeaning to women
Pornography and Violence
• In 1985, the U.S. Attorney General’s
Commission on Pornography was formed to
investigate how people react to sexual
materials
– It concluded that while exposure to
pornography causes sexual arousal and
increases sexual activity, it does not cause
violent behavior
– It warned that viewing pornography
containing violence makes people more
accepting of violent acts
Sexual Harassment
• Sexual harassment refers to comments,
gestures, or physical contact of a sexual
nature that are deliberate, repeated, and
unwelcome
– The rise of the women’s movement in the
1960s was primarily responsible for the
definition of such behavior as a social
problem
– In 1976, a federal court declared that
sexual harassment amounted to illegal
sexual discrimination (Williams v. Saxbe)
Sexual Harassment
• The Equal Employment Opportunities
Commission (EEOC) identifies two types of
sexual harassment –
– quid pro quo (one thing for another)
– subtle forms of behavior not intended to
be harassing
Prostitution
• Prostitution is the selling of sexual services
• Prostitution, as well as soliciting the services
of a prostitute, is against the law everywhere
in the United States, except in parts of
Nevada
• In global perspective, prostitution is most
common in low-income nations
Prostitution
• Prostitutes are a diverse category, with better
or worse working conditions depending on
their physical attractiveness, age, and level of
education
• Although prostitution is against the law
almost everywhere in the United States, law
enforcement is selective
Prostitution
• Worldwide, “sex tourism” is on the rise, with
the fastest increases in Africa and Eastern
Europe.
• In the areas where “sex tourism” occurs, as
many as 100 million children live on the
streets and sell sex to survive
Teenage Pregnancy
• In the US, more than 1 million teenage girls
become pregnant each year
– About 1/2 decide to keep their babies and
1/2 have abortions
– Recently, the pregnancy rate for girls in
their early teens has been rising
– Teenage girls at highest risk for pregnancy
are from poor families
Teenage Pregnancy
• The costs of teenage pregnancy.
– For men and women both young and poor,
parenthood can be financially devastating
– The babies are effected the most
• Infants born to teens have lower birth
rates and a higher risk of physical and
developmental problems
• Most have no fathers and grow up at
high risk of becoming single parents
themselves
Teenage Pregnancy
• A possible solution to the problem of teenage
pregnancy is sex education in schools
• Programs of sex education explain to young
people
– how their bodies grow and change
– how reproduction occurs
– how to avoid pregnancy by using birth
control or abstaining form sex altogether
Abortion
• Abortion is perhaps the most divisive issue
involving sexuality in the United States today
• In 1997, 1.2 million abortions were performed
in the US, which is one for every three live
births
Abortion
• In the U.S., from the colonial era until the
mid-19th century, early-term abortion was
legal
• By the early decades of the 20th century,
laws banning abortion had been enacted in
every state
• In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down
all laws that banned abortion (Roe v. Wade)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• There are more than fifty kinds of sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs)
• Rates of infection for most STDs - including
gonorrhea, syphilis, and genital herpes began to rise during the sexual revolution of
the 1960s
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• The most serious of all STDs is Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
– In the U.S., the recent trend in AIDS
deaths is downward.
– Officials recorded 16,273 deaths in 1999
and 440,000 deaths since 1981
– In some regions of the world, AIDS is fast
becoming a medical catastrophe
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• While HIV is infectious, it is not contagious
• Specific behavior that puts people at risk for
HIV infection include anal sex, sharing
needles when using drugs, and any drug use
(including alcohol) because it impairs one’s
judgment)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• The US government was slow to respond to
the AIDS crisis
• Once the epidemic spread into the
heterosexual population, officials gave the
problem serious attention
Structural-Functional Analysis:
Controlling Sexuality
• A structural-functional perspective on
sexuality emphasizes the importance of
cultural norms guiding sexuality
– societies observe incest taboos
– traditional norms favor legitimate offspring
Symbolic-Interaction Analysis:
Defining Sexuality
• Highlights the variable meanings people
attach to sexuality
– people socially construct sexuality just as
they create the rest of the reality they
experience
Social-Conflict Analysis: Sex and
Power
• The social-conflict paradigm highlights social
inequality
– sexuality involves inequality between
women and men and between
homosexuals and heterosexuals
• Social-conflict theory also criticizes U.S.
culture’s heterosexual bias
Conservatives: The Value of
Traditional Morality
• Conservatives support conventional norms
that claim sexuality belongs within the
traditional bonds of marriage
– premarital sex and extramarital sex are
social problems
– they condemn prostitution and
pornography because they violate
traditional standards of decency and
because they threaten marriages
Conservatives: The Value of
Traditional Morality
• Conservatives oppose abortion on demand
because it gives one person the power to end
the life of another who is innocent and
helpless
• Overall, the conservative answer to sexual
social problems is strong social institutions
Liberals: Sex and Individual
Choice
• All people should have considerable choice in
how they express their sexuality
– their attitude is one of tolerance
– the limits of liberal tolerance come when
someone is threatened with harm
• Liberals support making abortion available to
all – and leaving the decision on any
individual case up to the woman involved
Radicals: Going to the Root of
the Problem
• A common element in all of the issues cited in
this chapter is social inequality
– these social problems come about because
one category of people has power over
another