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Lecture 1 IntroductionSeks (‘sekse’), seks (‘seks’), gender…
- Sex/seks = short for sexuality, often narrowly understood as: activities towards sexual
arousal.
- Sex/sekse = set of biological characteristics defining human beings as male or female
- Gender = social-cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity, and connected processes
and effects.
…and sexuality (WHO definition 2006) = a central aspect of being human throughout life, that
encompasses sex, gender identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy and
reproduction.
- Sexuality is experienced and expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes,
values, behaviors, practices, roles and relationships.
- While sexuality can include all of these dimensions, not all of them are always experienced or
expressed.
- Sexuality is influenced by the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic,
political, cultural, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors.
Sexual health (WHO, 2006) = a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation
to sexuality.
- It is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity.
- Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual
relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences,
free of coercion, discrimination and violence.
- For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be
respected, protected and fulfilled.
- ‘Outcomes’ mostly studied are much narrower: STIs/HIV; unplanned pregnancies; sexual
violence; sexual function and satisfaction.
Sexuality: an important issue
- Highest happiness and deepest sorrow
- Entwined with gender roles and women’s social position
- Important health issue; high costs SHC (somatic) and MHC (mental)
- Likewise for education, policing and jurisdiction
- Interwoven with other important issues: population, ecological relevance, human rights,
‘sexual justice’, civilization, global health, burden of disease.
Sexuality is a lever in adolescent development (Eriksen)
- Independence from parents
- Development of personal morality and identity development
- Development of the capacity for meaningful intimate relationships
- Crucial in finding the balance between autonomy and connectedness
- Adolescent intimate relationships a training ground for adulthood
- Sexuality functions as a crowbar to development of identity and intimacy
A SHORT HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The social regulation of sexuality
- Is of all times; degree of moral restriction varies
- Affects women and non-heterosexuals primarily
, - A variety of explanations: protection patriarchal power, fear of chaos & anarchy;
evolutionary perspective; historical perspective; pure misogyny
- Tightening of rules during 19th century; Victorian era (huge industrialization, big emphasis on
masculinity and difference of gender roles)
- Children and youth seen as a-sexual
- Codes less strict first half 20th century
Scientific developments first half 20st century
- From religious-moral to medical-psychiatric
- German psychiatrists laid foundation sexology: von Kraft-Ebing, Hirschfield, Freud, Reich
- WW2 ends first florescence abruptly
- After WW2 leading role for Americans: Kinsey, Money, Masters & Johnson
- Simone de Beauvoir La Deuxième Sexe (1949): ‘On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.’
Gender: evolution of a concept
- John Money (1953): ‘all the non-genital and non-erotic activities that are defined by the
conventions of society to apply to males or to females’
- 50s and 60s USA: used in clinical work with transgenders
- 70s: feminist antithesis to biological determinism
- From modern to postmodern perspectives: gender as individual attribute, gender as social
norm, gender as process: ‘doing gender’ = the continuous, daily enactment of gender roles
and the sexual double standard
The 60s and 70s
- Many taboos disappear: 2nd feminist wave, the contraceptive pill, sexual revolution
- ‘Discovery’ Human Sexual Response Cycle (HSRC): 1996 (Masters & Johnson Human sexual
response): 4 stages in sexual response
- Emergence social-constructionist perspectives: stressing social perspectives of sexuality
- 1974: homosexuality deleted from DSM (of mental disorders)
- Growing attention for sexual violence
- Sexology still mainly focused on adults
The 80s and 90s
- Increasing migration, VN conventions, strengthening Human Rights perspectives (women
became seen as having reproductive rights themselves)
- 1981 discovery HIV
- Increasing medicalization (1998 Viagra) and its criticisms
- Nature-nurture debates intensify
- Adoption concept ‘sexual health’; ‘SRHR’ on the rise
- Hesitantly, young people are acknowledged as sexual beings…
Sexual rights
- Sexual rights are human rights (WHO, IPPF, WAS)
- Sexual rights comprise reproductive rights
- Refer to: ‘freedoms from negative things’ (discrimination & stigma, coercion & violence) and
‘freedoms to positive things’ (a satisfying sex life, adequate information and education,
supplies, medicine, health care (aw abortion care), self determination irt sexual partners,
sexual orientation, relationships and living arrangements, reproduction (timing and number
of children))
, Era 2.0
- Far-reaching globalization: as world population reached 7 billion; 43% under 25 years of age,
technologization, mediatization, commercialization.
- Sexual risks central to research on young people’s sexuality
- Moral panics about young people and sexuality: related to rise of ‘new’ media, supposedly
harmful sexualization, fear of downfall ‘childhood innocence’, felt need to protect adolescent
girl in particular.
Are children sexually innocent?
- After Freud, attention for children’s sexual feelings relegated to the background, increasing
on the feeling of protecting children
- Convictions that children are a-sexual, innocent and vulnerable, but evidence of their sexual
interest, excitement and desire
- Uneasiness, rejection, negative reactions from parents and others
- Framing children as sexual innocents makes them vulnerable!: deprives them of necessary
knowledge and skills, innocence is eroticized.
Ambivalence and controversy around female sexuality
- Madonna-whore dichotomy: good vs. bad women on the basis of their sexual behavior, that
is not the case when it comes to men
- The sexual double standard (the norms that evaluate women’s sexuality different from
men’s) and ‘heteronormativity’ (the whole system of norms and practices that shapes
sexuality in a normative direction)
m/f fundamentality different + complementary
sex = male urge, prerequisite for masculinity
female sexuality = modest, passive vulnerable; sexy but not sexual; sex damages
reputation
- Hefty debates: sexual violence, sexualization-objectification (pornography, prostitution),
victim-agent binary. Radical versus liberal feminist perspectives.
Feminist sex wars: radical feminism liberal feminism
- Heterosexuality = repressive normative (guided by culture)
Instrument outcome
- Women as victims women as agentic
- Sex is dangerous and risky sexual pleasure is silenced
- Fundamental sex differences diversity and overlap
- Protection is crucial emancipation is crucial
- Laws and regulations prevention and education
- ‘SEX NEGATIVE’ ‘SEX POSITIVE’
Masculinity in crisis?
- Certainly much more debate…
- APA issues first ever guidelines for practice with men and boys
- Traditional masculinity as ‘toxic’
- Counter movements (INCELs, ‘new right’ against ‘culture marxism’)
- Masculinity paradox (Esther Perel) = on the one hand masculinity has the appearance of
strength, while on the other hand masculine strength needs to be accomplished all the time
and is therefore vulnerable.
- From ‘toxicity’ to ‘complexity’
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