1.2: What is Human Sexuality?
Human Sexuality as an academic field studies the ways in which humans express themselves as sexual beings. This epistemology is interdisciplinary in nature, utilizing biology, medical research, sociology and psychology. The science of human sexuality approaches understanding as multilayered. Pulling from these varying disciplines, the field is able to look at sexuality from multiple lenses. While there are many approaches to the study, its foundation lies in the heteronormative white male perspective using a default sexual script that normalizes certain types of sexuality and practices and pathologizes others. As exclusionary as its roots are, there is an ongoing demand from scholars in the field and much has been written about the need to be more expansive. Understanding Human Sexuality in its totality demands a wider lens. Whether it was biology or medical research, or any of the other disciplines that fall under the wide umbrella of an interdisciplinary approach to Human Sexuality, there is a tendency towards an explanation of human sexuality in terms of a false binary that informs the creation of knowledge in the field which is often scientifically inaccurate. Repercussions of this result in varying levels of invalidation of lived experiences of students in the field, to highly abusive practices in research and medicine. Historically, the field of Human Sexuality in the United States has been chronically underfunded due to the puritanical roots inherent in the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) foundation. In particular, the study of female or non-binary bodied persons and research findings, stated conclusions of “normal” sexual behavior, and best practices about sexuality have often been determined with a white, misogynistic, heteronormative lens. This is of concern for those who seek to advance the field because any default sexual script inevitably alienates some people and potentially have unwanted or un-consensual sexual experiences.
For this text we will be examining sexuality from an intersectional lens that can be loosely termed biopsychosocial in that it systematically considers biological, psychological, and social factors and their complex interactions. We will observe biological aspects of our bodies and minds and see how that interacts with how we experience our bodies and others we relate to sexually, and put in all in context with culture. All of this will then be related to our specific ascribed or achieved aspects of selves that make us who we are. The resulting objective of looking at sexuality in this fashion is to remove specific sexual scripts or normalize certain things and pathologize others. “Sexuality is a multidimensional, biopsychosocial, intersectional, fluid, ever-changing set of reinforcing/resisting stories which enable and/or block the flow of embodied feelings like desire and shame” (Barker & Scheele, 2021 p. 132). For our purposes this text seeks to move the reader away from shame and towards pleasure.
I don’t know when I first knew that I would want to climb her but once I started, I couldn’t stop.
Running across the top of her foot I leapt up her leg and started the ascent. The muscles of her strong calf offered support as I made my way around her knee and up the inside of her thigh. Her skin became softer, easier to grip. I rested on the fleshy ledge on the inside of her hip joint.
Excitement building, I squeezed my head, shoulders, torso, and finally legs and feet through the folds between her legs. It was so dark, but I didn’t care. I knew where I was going. I’d been there before. I wiggled my way along her smooth softness until I arrived. Full of grief and deep appreciation, I laid where I had first found form. The walls of nurturing, feeding, keeping me sage were there. I never wanted to leave. We were together then. Same body. Same blood. No separation. I sobbed remembering the completeness. Knowing I could not stay. To see her face meant letting go of our oneness. My belly button ached. I wanted to go higher.
Scaling internal organs, I got lost in the twists and turns of her guts. The path was curvy. The pain of transformation meant discarding the rest.
Arriving in the stomach, with its crude methods of caring deeply, loving completely, I felt perseverance. She takes it all in, breaks it down with the truth of being. She knows the answers to the hardest questions.
Down in her lungs I felt the power of her breath and the fire of her heart. Huge. Bathing muscles in clean, compassionate blood. I screamed.
The vibration of my shrillness carried me up her throat and onto her tongue. I laughed at her gorgeous teeth and pulled on her succulent lips as I crawled over her nose. Kissing her eyelids and rubbing her brow, I finally came to rest in the intoxicating smell of her hair. The precious gift of being held washed over me.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll climb up inside myself and admire the view? But I won’t scream at the hugeness of my heart. I’ll gaze in the awe of a passionate path, vast beauty and the honor of being seen.
-Heidi McBride, April 1998.