7.3.5: Gender and Sexuality
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The body is the place where ascribed sex, achieved gender, and constructed sexuality come together. Sexual behaviors and attitude vary from culture to culture. While examining sex as a social fact, whether or not we are actually born with a sexual nature, sociologists acknowledge it’s social factors organizing our thoughts, behaviors, values, and acts pertaining to sex. Sexuality has become such a significant part of our social lives that it has actually come to be interpreted as identity . Today, many people take for granted that sexuality is, like gender, an identity. Individuals don’t just identify ourselves, but we identify others in terms of sexuality as well. And it doesn’t stop there! We have become preoccupied with our own and others’ identities because many of us view our own sexuality as a core of our identity. And we’re still not done! We often associate and even interchange our gender identities with our sexual identities, making it even more confusing for those trying to understand the human potential in categorical terms rather than in fluid terms.
Sexuality, like gender, is fluid. To try to categorize a human potential like sexuality is like trying to categorize human potentials like happiness. Could you imagine if we grouped people and their potentials by color of their skin? Oh, wait! We do that too! We create the categories because we’re comfortable with the categories, but it’s the categories themselves that allow for stratification and inequality between the categories.
Our sexuality will take on different forms and degrees of significance over the life course. Furthermore, men and women do not experience sexuality or even sexual behaviors the same way. Women are often challenged with two major themes pertaining to sexuality: 1) the double standard, and 2) the double- bind.
Double Standard
American contemporary society still dictates that females and males are held to difference (and unequal) standards pertaining to sexual practice. According to the sexual double standard, “boys and men are rewarded and praised for heterosexual sexual contacts, whereas girls and women are derogated and stigmatized for similar behaviors.” 124
Try something for a moment. Take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the center of the page, creating two columns. Label the first column “men” and the second column “women.” Then in 20 seconds write down every word, label, or slang term used to describe males with multiple sexual partners in the “men’s” column. Then go to the women’s column, and give yourself 20 seconds to do the same. What do you see? Nearly every person who tries this exercise will have several more terms in women’s column, and not in a positive way. He’s a stud, but she’s a slut, right? And this is not to imply you think this way, after all you didn’t create those terms. But it shows our ability to mimic, translate, or at least identify the interpretations of the larger collective.
The relevance of this double standard for sexual development and gender inequality has prompted substantial research on the topic along with the publication of several popular books with titles such as Slut! 125 and Fast Girls 126 . Aside from the sociological implications of the sexual double standard, the slut/stud problem has always been my favorite because I can’t understand how so many people have bought into this. And for so long! Why is a woman “a slut” or "dirty," because she has sex? Does a penis have some bizarre dirty-making power that I'm unaware of? Every time a woman has sex with a man, has his penis dirtied her more? And what is a slut? I mean, literally, what is a slut? I know what the dictionary says (yes, it’s in Webster’s Dictionary):
Slut:
- a slovenly woman
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- a promiscuous woman; especially : prostitute
- a saucy girl : minx
But, really, what s a slut? Do we have a quantifiable amount of people with whom the harlot must have intercourse? No. Do we have a comprehensive list of sexual behaviors a woman must engage in before being labeled a slut? No. Does a woman even need to have sex before becoming vulnerable to being labeled a slut? No. But we use this word constantly to degrade and shame women about their sexual behaviors and their selves. And let’s be clear on a few other points:
- this is not a “man-on-woman” crime, overwhelmingly women are more likely to use the word slut than men when referring to a female;
- the word slut is typically reserved for heterosexual behaviors, (and this ideology still evades my comprehension) females engaging in sexual behaviors with other females are less likely to be labeled a slut.
Maybe lesbian sex isn’t “real”? Or maybe because there was no dirty penis to dirty her up? I mean, think about it, if women engaging in homosexual behaviors are somehow less dirty than women engaging heterosexual behaviors, then that leaves the penis as the variable causing the dirtiness. Who knows, the point is we need to start questioning these labels and acknowledge the harm they cause, not only to the recipients, but to our collective understanding of gender and sexuality.
And the word slut isn’t just harmful to our reputations or interpretations of others’ reputations. How many times has a woman’s claim of having been raped been dismissed because she’s a slut? How often are women or girls afraid to obtain birth control for fear of being called a slut? How often are women who are victims of domestic violence are called a slut or whore by their partner? How often are women expected to recount their sexual history in rape, assault, or harassment cases?
Like activists such as Jean Kilbourne and Jackson Katz have proclaimed, it’s okay to stand up for women, whether you are male, female, both, or neither. And it’s okay to speak out against the double-standard imposed on women.
Double Bind
A double bind is a situation in which a person is confronted with two irreconcilable demands or a choice between two undesirable courses of action . “Women have long since been categorized as either virgins or whores, but for the first time we are expected to embody both at the same time.” 127 Turn on the TV or open a magazine, and you’ll see endless images of women using their sexuality to sell something.
Sandwiches, drinks, cars, clothes, whatever. There has been a standard set for how women should present themselves as being sexually desirable and mature. However, with this whole double-standard thing still looming, women are still expected to be sexually reserved in order to maintain purity. So, women are then faced with the challenge of being sexually available and experienced while maintaining purity. Sound impossible? Because it is. But, it is a reality for women today.
The contradictory narratives of the double bind make an impossible situation for females in the United States. If having sex is bad and not having sex is bad, then women are in a lose-lose position. And men, of course, are not exempt from this inequity. Men are often shamed for not having sex (or enough of it) while others may shame the women they are having intercourse with—at least for those engaging in heterosexual activities.
If we can undo our thinking of intercourse as the social jackpot (as often shown in popular culture) and start considering other methods of expressing sexuality, we could see a healthy attitudinal shift toward sex pervading the culture: one that doesn't hurt both men and women in its antiquated rigidity.
Autonomous Sexuality
In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States saw its “sexual revolution.” This “revolution” was in part due to the introduction and mass availability of contraception. A woman “on the pill” could be sexually active with a man without the same fears of unplanned pregnancy as in the past. Many feminists argue the “sexual revolution” was less a victory for women because it was still on men’s terms. 128 129 However, today we are seeing a bit of a progressive shift. There has been an increasing discussion on women’s sexual preferences, desires, and needs. One example in popular culture is women’s magazines that have allowed for a very public forum for celebrities like Beyoncé and Britney Spears to reveal their sexuality in public. And if you were an adult in 2008, then you probably remember just how much of her sexuality Spears shared with her audience.
So what is sexually empowering for women? To answer this question, women would need to experience sexuality in a world where they don’t feel shamed or dirtied by sexual behaviors, where they are not worries about how they look, and where they can be sexually active without fear of unplanned pregnancy or transmitted STDs. Women would need information and education of what “safe” sex really is, accessible contraception, open and honest communication with sexual partners, stronger policies regarding sexual offenses, and the ability to critique and even reject the feminine ideal represented in popular culture.
For many young people, sex has become a “rite of passage,” thrusting them from adolescence to adulthood and into a role ready for a “mature relationship.” However, many young people (many people in general, really) don’t define sex the same way. For example, many teens don’t consider oral sex to be “sex.” Further, we have systematically deprived our young people of comprehensive education about sex and sexuality. For schools to qualify for federal funding, a program must teach “abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated health problems” and that a “mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity.” 130 About 35% of U.S. sex education programs teach abstinence only, about 51% teach abstinence as the preferred option, and about 14% teach abstinence as one option in broader curriculum for sex education. 131
So, we are essentially creating the perfect storm for high rates of unplanned pregnancy, high rates of STD transmission, and anxiety about sexuality. We are provided—not just providing but saturating—our youth with images of sexuality: how good it looks, how desirable it will make us, how enjoyable and exciting it is, and how we should look when we’re experiencing a sexual act. However, we’re simultaneously depriving our young people of access to adequate education on the topic of sexuality. This relates to sexual agency: With little formal education and popular culture dictating what sexuality should be, can sexuality be empowering for women?
Most sociologists agree that, yes, sexuality can be empowering for women, but there are some requisites that need to be met. First, women would need to be able to dismantle their thinking that their worth is based on the ability to abide by the constructed double standard or double bind. For now, men (at least heterosexual men) are the social beneficiaries of the double standard, wherein men are not judged so harshly for sexual activity, rather they are often celebrated and encouraged to engage in sexual activity. Second, women (and men) can challenge the Western ideal for marriage being a prerequisite for “the right way” to be sexually active. Third, being in an egalitarian relationship, wherein partners are intentionally and regularly maintaining equity in a relationship, is empowering for both partners. Egalitarian relationships tend to be better at providing romance and respect between partners over longer periods of time.
Much like the majority of socially normative behaviors, our sexual behaviors are constantly under scrutiny. As social actors, we are subject to a range of potential sanctions, both positive and negative, in response to our sexual behaviors. These sanctions, or the fear of such sanctions, are what stand in the way of real social change. Our social construction of sexuality and the inequalities bred from such construction, will not change without some serious social education and confrontation of current ignorant ideas surrounding sexual creed.
Perhaps the most effective approach to begin to reach these goals should target our educational institutions in an attempt to change sexually exclusive culture narratives. Allowing inclusive sex education in public schools (including curriculum focusing on the difference between sexual drive, desire, behaviors, and including positive role models for diversity in sexuality) will help “normalize” currently stigmatized sexual behaviors and people practicing those behaviors. Comprehensive sex education should include physical, psychological, and social aspects of sexuality, not simply focusing on disease and pregnancy prevention.
By implementing improved sex education in our schools, we will likely discover that the social and personal benefits of acceptable sex education outweigh the costs of lack of education. In American culture, we also generally agree that stigmatization and inflicting harm to others is unacceptable. A serious lack of formal sex education only allows these problems to flourish in our culture narrative.
Sex education does not necessarily require teaching certain values relating to particular sexual behaviors or current constructions of them. However, sex education should move beyond teaching anatomy, reproduction, and disease or pregnancy prevention 132 and also include discussions pertaining to gender role socialization, interpersonal behavior, stigmatization, and acceptance.
By not creating such a shift, we risk the permission to accept and value ourselves, as a collective people, for our diverse human experiences in contrast to an ability to mimic antiquated methods of discrimination through heteronormativity and patriarchal ideals that are creating a degrading effect.
124
Derek A. Kreager, Jeremy Staff. June 2009. Social Pychology Quarterly. Volume: 72 issue: 2, page(s): 143-164
125
Tanenbaum Leora. Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation. New York: Seven Stories Press; 1999.
126
White Emily. Fast Girls: Teenage Tribes and the Myth of the Slut. New York: Scribner; 2002.
127
Kilbourne, J. 2012. Killing Us Softly 4.
128
Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. 2005.
Our bodies ourselves: A new edition a new era
. New York: Simon and Schuster.
129
Rose, T. 2003. Longing to tell: Black women talk about sexuality and intimacy. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
130
Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, “Guidance Regarding Curriculum Content (Required for CBAE grantees as of FY 2006.),” January 2006.
131
Alan Guttmacher Institute. 2004. Sex education: Needs, programs and policies. New York and Washington D.C.: Alan Guttmacher Insitution.
132
Haffner, D.W. (1992). Foreword: Sexuality education in policy and practice. In J. T. Sears (Ed.), Sexuality and the
curriculum: The politics and practices of sexuality education (pp. vi-viii). New York: Teachers College Press.