Two centuries of sex: A history of sexuality in Europe
Lecture and seminar notes
,Lecture 1: Too much of a good thing; contemporary anxieties over sex
Exploring 200 years of sexuality through the issue of the enormous importance sexuality has in
the modern Western world. This is reflected in the omnipresence of sexuality in society. We are
looking at the history of this omnipresence of sexuality. Our culture is aware of this
omnipresence, seen in the language of reflexivity that we have to talk about this omnipresence.
- E.g., the term sexualization, usually used critically and with concern, refers to this
omnipresence of sexualization.
- The issue of sexualization is often used in regard to certain groups, such as children and
women.
Why is sexuality so omnipresent in our (Western) world?
1. It is strongly connected to happiness/wellbeing/pleasure, to the things we want most for
ourselves and that we think that we can get. We rarely imagine a good/happy life without
sexuality, so it is a crucial element of happiness.
2. Our sexual desires are strongly tied to our identities, who we are.
3. It is connected to modernity, especially free/liberated/unrestricted sexuality. Sexuality
has become a symbol of progress, a good and liberated society.
The omnipresence of sexuality in wider society often contrasts with what sexuality is in our
individual lives. In our lives, sexuality tends to be less important than it is in society at large.
Many of us (in)voluntarily don’t have sex, or have bad sex. We rarely ask ourselves if it has to
be as important as it is in our society; why it is so important. That is why this question is central
to this course.
The importance of sexuality in our cultures has often come with doubts and anxieties
surrounding sexuality, which can also be seen in the present. For example, concerns connected
to disease, power, children, objectification, etc.
At the moment, there are two central elements to current anxieties surrounding sex:
1. What are the limits to the presence/importance/liberation of sexuality? Questions around
limits.
2. What should be the basis for a shared conceptualization of sexual morality?
a. Currently, the dominant sexual morality of the Western world rests on the idea of
autonomy. Still, this is also being questioned.
The related historical question becomes as such: what anxieties have accompanied the rise to
prominence of sexuality? There are historical periods in which there’s a rise in anxieties
surrounding sexuality: ‘sex panics’.
- Modern examples are of the AIDS crisis, sexual availability on the internet, concerns
around sex and (abuse of) power.
Lastly, in what historically specific ways have these concerns and anxieties surrounding
sexuality been expressed?
, Nymphomania versus sex addiction
Nymphomania were always women, sex addicts mostly conceived of as men. Causes of
nymphomania were strongly focussed on the body, while sex addiction is thought to be caused
by society/childhood experiences/something mental, which then affects bodies (brains). Often
the nymphomania was blamed, because she is immoral and does not have enough willpower to
overcome their problems. Sex addicts are more seen as victims, but at the same time they are
responsible to try and overcome their addiction. While sex addiction is seemingly neutral, it has
moral connotations as well: that there’s something like too much sex, that sex in general is
something bad, that it should be relationally oriented.
Weeks situates the rise of this notion of sex addiction in a context in which sexual morality
changed dramatically, namely that autonomy became the central guide to sexuality. Everything
is okay, as long as you and your partner want it. Many different varieties of sex which were
previously thought of as immoral are now moral. However, sexual behaviors that are not based
on autonomy such as addiction are now problematic. In this sense, sex addiction can be seen
as something invented by the rise of autonomy as the dominant moral code underlying sexuality.
Seminar 1: The invention of sex addiction
There’s a close link between the notion of autonomy and the rise of sex addiction: the very idea
of autonomy needs a contrast, an other, to exist, which is addiction. Autonomy has moral power
through the existence of sex addiction. The wider moral message/story of the notion of sex
addiction is of a warning, of how important autonomy is because this is what happens when you
lose it. Implicitly, it also critiques the notion of autonomy as there seems to be a limit to the
autonomy people can handle before it becomes pathological.
Irving: interested in how sex addiction exists socially. First, that people recognise themselves
as sex addicts, that people recognise each other as sex addicts (so groups/communities begin
to form). Professionals/the medical world is also interested in it, developing diagnostic methods,
interventions, institutions that add to the social existence of sex addiction. The group increases
in scope.
- Regardless of whether sex addiction exists medically, it definitely exists socially.
- Social constructionist approach to sex addiction; it is made within society.
- The fact that it exists socially encourages us to look for traces of the social world within
sex addiction, like assumptions surrounding sexuality.
Social existence of sex addiction
Self-help groups are an example of the social existence of sex addiction. One of the things they
provide is a self-diagnostic tool to assess whether you’re a sex addict.
The notion of sex addiction comes with a morality that is very different, far more restrictive, from
the wider social morality of autonomy.
When people identify as a sex addict, what does it do/mean for them?
