Lectures Youth & Sexuality
Lecture 1: Youth, sexuality and 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/constructs of masculinity and femininity and connected
processes and effects
Sexuality→ 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
- 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→ 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
- More positively formulated as 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 more narrow: sti/hiv, unplanned pregnancies,
sexual violence, sexual function and satisfaction.
Why is sexuality an important issue?
- Sexuality is related to the highest happiness and deepest sorrow
- Entwined with gender roles and women’s social position. Norms about sexuality keep
girls from school and in the kitchen
- Important health issue: high costs somatic/mental health care
- Important education issue, policing and jurisdiction issue
- Population, ecological relevance
- Human rights, sexual justice, civilization
- Global health, burden of disease
Why is sexuality important to adolescents/development
,Sexuality does function as a lever to adolescent development (Erikson)
- Independence from parents, first experiences in the area of sexuality
- Development of personal morality
- Identity development
- Development of the capacity for meaningful intimate relationships
- Crucial in finding the balance between autonomy and connectedness
- Adolescents intimate relationships are a training ground for relations in adulthood
- Sexuality does function as a crowbar to development of identity, morality and
intimacy
Historical overview
Social regulation (legal restrictions, marriage, which partners you are permitted to choose,
whether or not you may use contraception) of sexuality
- Is of all times, degree of moral restriction varies
- Affects women primarily and non-heterosexuals
- A variety of explanations: protection of patriarchal power. fear of chaos & anarchy
when letting women free and wanting to prevent this. Evolutionary perspective:
paternal uncertainty: women’s sexuality is being regulated bc otherwise we wouldn’t
be able to know for sure who is the father of their offspring. Historical perspective:
gradual shift towards social exclusion and objectification of women, independency on
men. Increasing male dominance.
- Tightening of rules during 19th century (Victorian era)
- Children and youth seen as a-sexual
- Codes less strict in the first half of the 20th century
Scientific developments first half 20st century
- From religious-moral to medical-psychiatric
- German psychiatrists layed foundation sexology
o Von kraft-ebing, Hirschfeld, freud, reich→ supporters of sexual freedom and
tolerance
- Ww2 ends first florescence abruptly
- After ww2 the leading role was taken by the americans
o Kinsey, money, masters & Johnson
John Money was the first to use the concept of gender (social/cultural perspective): ‘all the
non-genital and non-erotic activities that are defined by the conventions of society to apply
to males or to females. 50/60s: Used in clinical work with transgenders.
70s: feminist antithesis to biological determinism
From modern to postmodern perspectives
- Gender as individual attribute (identity, attitudes, investment)
- Later, gender as social norm (roles, stereotypes, double standard
, - Gender as process ‘doing gender’= the continuous, daily enactment of gender roles
and the sexual double standard
Sixties and seventies
- Many taboos disappeared
- Second feminist wave, the contraceptive pill, sexual revolution
- Discovery of human sexual response cycle (Masters & Johnson)→ desire, excitement,
plateau, orgasm, resolution
- Emergence social-constructionist perspectives stressing the social aspects of sexuality
- 1974: homosexuality was deleted from the DSM
- Growing attention for sexual violence
- Sexology still mainly focused on adults
Eighties and nineties
- increasing migration, vn conventions, strengthening human rights perspectives;
women became to be seen as having reproductive rights themselves
- 1981: discovery of HIV
- Increasing medicalization of sexuality and its criticisms. Selling sickness to earn
money with sexuality. Viagra was launched and was a goldmine.
- Nature-nurture debates intensify
- Adoption concept ‘sexual health’. SRHR on the rise
- Hesitantly, young people are acknowledged as sexual beings
Sexual rights
- Fundamentally, sexual rights are human rights
- Sexual rights comprise reproductive rights
- Refer to
o Freedoms from discrimination & stigma, coercion & violence
o Freedoms to
▪ A satisfying sex life
▪ Adequate information and education
▪ Supplies, medicine, health care, abortion care
▪ Self determination of reproduction, timing and number of children
Recent era
- Far reaching globalization
- As world population reached 7 billion, 43% of the world population was under 25
years of age. Increased importance of young people
- Technologization, mediatization, commercialization of the world. Sexual
developments are intertwined with these developments. Has become more
supported by media and technologies and commerce
- Sexual risks are central to research on young people’s sexuality
- Moral panics about young people and sexuality; all generations have always worried
about (the sexual lives of) young people.
, o Related to rise of new media
o Supposedly harmful sexualization
o Fear of downfall ‘childhood innocence’
o Felt need to protect adolescent girl in particular
Are children sexually innocent?
After freud, attention for children’s sexual feelings relegated to the background
- Convictions that children are asexual, innocent and vulnerable but there is evidence
of their sexual interest, excitement and desire
- Uneasiness, rejection, negative reactions from parents and others
- Framing children as sexual innocents makes them vulnerable
o Deprives them of necessary knowledge and skills
o Innocence is eroticized and stimulating the pedophile look
Ambivalence and controversy around female sexuality
Madonna-whore dichotomy: good versus bad women. Distinction between good and bad
women on the basis of their sexuality and sexual behavior, which isn’t the case with men.
The sexual double standard and heteronormativity
- Male/female sexuality fundamentally 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
Radical feminism Liberal feminism
Heterosex = repressive of women Heterosex = normative, guided by culture
Heterosexuality as an instrument in the Heterosexuality is an outcome of a social
repression of women process
Womens as victims Womens as agentic in their own rights
Sex is dangerous and risky for women Sexual pleasure is silenced
Fundamental sex differences Diversity and overlap among men and
women
Protection of women is crucial Emancipation is crucial
Laws and regulations Prevention and education
‘sex negatives’ ‘sex positives’
Masculinity in crisis?
- More debate on masculinity, related to the changing position of women in society.
