Chapter 9 SOC

Question 1

What is social about sexuality

Answer 1

we learn what is deemed socially appropriate and inappropriate through our interactions with others and our culture. The meanings of our desires, sexual acts, and sexual expressions have social approval which are disavowed, all are socially organized.

Question 2

Sexuality includes (finish

Answer 2

Sexual orientation: an individual’s sexual and emotional attraction to a person of a particular sex

Sexual identity: A broad term that can include our masculinity, our femininity, our knowledge of our bodies and our sexual histories, and our sexual preferences

Question 3

Five types of Sexual Identities

Answer 3

Homosexuality, heterosexuality, bisexuality, pansexuality, and asexuality

Question 4

Homophobia

Answer 4

an irrational fear or hatred of homosexuals that can lead to discrimination, harassment, and violence against them

Question 5

The emergence of Homosexual identities: Industrial revolution

Answer 5

Lesbian and gay identities are a product of the social changes that occurred during the industrial revolution and later in the early part of the 20th century

Question 6

The emergence of homosexual identities: Wage labour (finish)

Answer 6

-the family was no longer needed as a self-sufficient house-hold economy and instead became primarily responsible for emotional satisfaction separate from “the public world of work and production”

-By helping to separate sexuality from procreation capitalism created the conditions that allowed some women and men to arrange private lives around their erotic
¬ (not done)

Question 7

Gay liberation movement:

Answer 7

As a result of these changes, it become possible for lesbians and gay men to establish gay communities and later a sexual identity-based politic through the gay liberation movement
-culminated into the legalization of gay marriages in Canada and other countries

Question 8

Heterosexuality (finish)

Answer 8

• Attracted to and/or engage in sexual activities with members of the opposite sex
• As a social construct, heterosexuality is reinforced through Michael Foucault termed surveillance: We police our own and other’s sexualities, granting to some approval while disparaging others. (Ex, when you call others fag)
• Many Feminist Sociologists argue that sexuality and gender are inextricably linked. Those who assume a heterosexual identity are often understood as having a normal gender identity

Question 9

Bisexuality

Answer 9

• Being attracted to both men and women and lined to non-monogamous relationships
• May shift between heterosexual and homosexual relationships over their lives
• Challenges the notion that heterosexuality and homosexuality are mutually exclusive and oppositional categories
• The gendered view of bisexuality- Lesbians see it as problematic; the assumption that bisexual men “are actually homosexual but also homophobic”

Question 10

Pansexuality

Answer 10

¬ Refers to romantic and sexual desire for people regardless of their gender identity or biological sex
¬ Distinction from bisexuality in that it includes attraction to transsexuals and transgendered individuals
¬ Problematizes such categories as bisexual, heterosexual, and homosexuals

Question 11

Asexuality

Answer 11

¬ The absence of sexual feelings, desire or association
¬ Asexuality is different from abstinence
¬ It is understood as a conscious cultural rejection of sexual identities
¬ It challenges essentialist assumptions about the naturalness of heterosexuality

Question 12

Sexual relationships

Answer 12

Monogamy, polygyny, polyandry, and polygamy

-Polygamy is the broad term, polyandry and polygyny are subsets

Question 13

Monagamy

Answer 13

Coupling of two people, excluding the intimate involvement of others

Question 14

Polygyny

Answer 14

refers to the coupling of one man and more than one woman

Question 15

Polyandry

Answer 15

is the practice of one women being linked to more than one man

Question 16

Polygamy

Answer 16

¬ refers to either a man or a woman being married to more than one partner of the opposite sex

Question 17

Serial monogamy

Answer 17

A relationship pattern that has one monogamous relationship following another
-This occurs when individuals do not have any overriding economic, legal or moral reasons (including children dependents) to stay together in a single life-long monogamous relationship

Question 18

Non-monogamy

Answer 18

• Sexual interactions with more than one person during a given period, or any sexual relationships involving more than two people
• Non-monogamous relationships vary according to the number of partners, arrangements, legal status, gender and sexuality

Question 19

Polyamory

Answer 19

• Involves mutually acknowledged, emotional, sexual or romantic connections with multiple partners
• Emphasizes long term, emotionally intimate relationships that transcend sexual intimacy
• Polyamorous individuals have one or two primary partners and any number of secondary or tertiary partners
• It is marked by honesty and consensus
• Based on long-term committed relationships
• Some pursue group marriages also known as multilateral marriage.

Question 20

The sexual double standard

Answer 20

¬ The normalization of heterosexuality influences our adoption of a gender that is “appropriate” for our sex.
¬ Sexual double standard=those with many sexual relations experience gendered consequences; Men heralded as studs while women are marked as sluts
¬ The gender double standard divides men and women into two opposing groups: active and passive

Question 21

Construction of femininity

Answer 21

¬ In dominant constructions of feminity, women are positioned as being subordinate to men’s sexual desire with limited agency
¬ Women are categorized as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ girls; Madonnas and whores
¬ Sexual double standard: is used when identical behaviours or sitatuons are evaluated, treated or measured by different criteria

Question 22

Use of the term promiscuous

Answer 22

¬ Promiscuous is a derogatory term used to describe anyone who is assumed to have had sex with an unreasonable number of sexual partners
¬ Promiscuity discourses are a means of subjecting women to a disciplinary regime of morality
¬ Calling women promiscuous is a means of regulating her sexuality and encouraging them to remain firmly located within the binaries of the sexual double standard

Question 23

The racialized double standard

Answer 23

¬ The effects of European and American slavery and colonialism cause the sexual double standard to be affected by race
¬ White women constructed as asexual, beautiful, and chaste and biologically superior to black women
¬ Black women were perceived to biologically inferior to white women and likened to promiscuous animals. Enslaved women were beaten and killed if they did not submit to white men’s advances.

Question 24

Essentialist Theories and their 4 basic assumptions (finish)

Answer 24

Sex is pre-social, pre-determined by biology

4 Basic Assumptions”

1. Sexuality is basic human drive or force that exists prior to social life
2. Sexuality is determined by the biological or psychological make-up of human beings
3. Sexuality resides or exists within the human body
4. Sexuality functions throughout our lives essentially as a property of the individual

Question 25

Functionalism (finish)

Answer 25

¬ Interested in how sexuality is functional to the smooth running of society ¬ Prostitution actually help to keep families together ¬ Argues that if the husband’s sexual needs are not met and wants fulfillment. So prostitutes provide an avenue for the husband to satisfy sexual desires that the wife might not be able to

Question 26

Conflict Theory

Answer 26

¬ Interested in how various aspects linked to our sexualities become commodified ¬ Capitalist consumerism shapes contemporary sexualities as new products and services to meet increasing range of sexual desires

Question 27

Symbolic interactioanism

Answer 27

¬ Interested in the social meanings that a society attributes to sexuality, including sexual behaviour ¬ Sexual scripts: cultural expectations about appropriate sexuality and sexual acts that are learned through social interaction ¬ These sexual scripts are flexible, in that, different situations and context require different behaviours and attitudes (ex, masturbation, while common it is not acceptable in public spaces)

Question 28

Post-structuralist Theory

Answer 28

¬ Sexual behaviour and sexual identity are products of discourses ¬ Domination discourses in society shapes our behaviour and attitudes thereby regulate what is considered normal sexuality ¬ Foucault: we learn to be sexual beings, we are not born sexual beings.

Question 29

Feminist post-structuralist

Answer 29

¬ Feminist post-structuralist discuss how sexuality has been shaped by patriarchy ¬ Sexuality is fashioned and refashioned through discourse ¬ Judith Butler argues that sexualities are created and lived through their performance, hence dismissed the Essentialist perspective ¬ For Butler, we have multiple identities we perform, in the same way there is no one true sexuality. Our sexual identity is merely one performance among many possible performances. ¬ According to Butler gender is constitutional through what she refers to as heterosexual matrix which is a hierarchical matrix that ranks masculinity above femininity, and heterosexuality over homosexuality ¬ Heterosexuality operates as the norm though which our genders, bodies, and desires are defined.

Question 30

Queer Theory (finish)

Answer 30

¬ Challenges heterosexism which is the belief that heterosexuality is naturally superior to all other sexual identities ¬ Seeks to deconstruct and dissolve normalizing discourses used to control and constrain people’s sexuality ¬ By exposing how identity is constructed as binary (either/or) constructions of gender and identities-Male/Female, Masculine/Feminine, and heterosexual/homosexual, they propose that there needs to be a range. Some people can't fit into one category or the other

Question 31

Sexual Health

Answer 31

The avoidance of sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies and the fostering of health relationship

Question 32

STIs

Answer 32

¬ Transmitted from one person to another during unprotected sex. This can be oral, anal, or vaginal sex. o Most common among youth and young adults. ¬ Racism, economic inequality, sexism, homophobia and transphobia intersect to shape individual risk for STIs.

Question 33

STIs: economic inequality

Answer 33

poverty limits peoples ability to buy condoms and access health education

Question 34

STis: racism

Answer 34

due to racism and subtle methods of exclusion, minority women are likely to encounter difficulties when trying to access social services.

Question 35

Gender is a risk factor for contracting HIV/AIDS

Answer 35

¬ Male to female transmission of HIV is more likely than female to male transmission- 80% of women worldwide are infected through heterosexual contract ¬ Women are both biologically and socially susceptible to HIV infection than men ¬ Women’s infection linked to dominant construction of active masculinity and passive femininity

Question 36

What affects safer sex practices

Answer 36

Gender power imbalance o Women find it difficult to negotiate safer sex because they are expected to be sexually passive o Suggesting condom use implies women are sexually experiences, assertive, and promiscuous