eval 1 Page Number 1 Rachel Jermansky Sex Relationships and Communication COMM 1131 01 CRN 36714 Midterm Review Introduction sexuality as a social identity is a recent invention only becoming categories of sexuality in the 19th century 1800s prior to this people were not generally identified by their sexual practice one question 1 Fields of religion medicine psychiatry played a large part in defining what was considered normal and natural deviant and sinful 2 Eroticization of women s oppression in hetero relationships and the corresponding condemnation or erasure of lesbian relationships has had a profound effect on the lives of all women and men and women s and men s struggles for freedom and independence 3 There is no simple relationship between between how people identify themselves in terms of their sexuality and what they actually do in terms of sexual practice 4 Radical sexuality recognizing and honoring diverse sexualities rather than privileging a few and marginalizing the rest 1 Those who transgress the binaries of gender and sexual identities are living lives that point the way for new theoretical and embodied developments i Transgendered contest assumed biological determinates of gender as well as exposing some of the ways gender is performed in our society ii Bisexuals resist the necessity of identifying people by their sexual partners and explore the iii implications of this resistance for the negotiation of their interpersonal relationships Intersexed challenge the medical establishment s right to surgically enforce gender conformity and fight for the right of self determination iv Lovers of gender outlaws resist easy categorization by their choice of partners as they explore new ways of engaging being sexual v Social Constructionism Two Questions Social Constructionism the best way to understand the nature of social reality is by viewing it as the result of subjective social processes by which we attach meaning to objects an events creating knowledge two questions 2 knowledge is a social product and is a factor in social change 3 examines how meanings are assigned to bodies practices objects and communities associated with sexuality i includes how the science of biology is something other than a pure description of objective fact new tendon example http well blogs nytimes com 2013 11 13 a surprising discovery a new knee ligament 4 how we express sexuality is neither fixed nor universal i varies across time place and cultural group ii related to how society is structure which shapes the ways in which people have greater or lesser aces to power and resources 5 sexualities as social constructions allow us to recognize our participation in producing reproducing and challenging them i we are not passive recipients of past manners of doing sexuality we are active although ii often unconscious agents in constructing sexuality through our practices takes the view that sexualities are not natural and do not emerge from biology sexuality is not essentialist eval 2 6 sexual identities are less a direct product of anatomical differences between those born male female or intersexed than they are a cocreation of self and society i Simone de Beauvoir 1949 1989 One is not born a woman but rather becomes one p 276 ii Sexual identities are less about an innate attraction for one sex or the other than complex largely learned productions of self in concert with society Feminisms One question 1 personal is political 2 identified and challenged the patriarchal linguistic structure and language used to keep women as well as other nondominant groups in their place silenced and oppressed 3 academy lacked representations of white women and people of color 4 5 challenge of compulsory heterosexuality Rich 1980 6 critiques rejection of social science in favor or interpretive theories and research methods ethnography a 1st and 2nd wave feminism assumed all women could be seen as one group excluding women of color working class feminists Intersectionality one question 1 the intersection of social categories by which we organize our lives and how these and other social locations are not independent sites but mutually informing in producing and reproducing identity such social categories include socioeconomic class sexual identity a b race c ethnicity d e nationality f g h age i j ability disability religion body shape one question Performativity 1 How through the repeated use of verbal and nonverbal symbols associated with conventional ways of recognizing and talking about identities such as gender and sexuality we produce those identity categories 2 We are continuously engaged in enacting and citing with our words and bodies the existing norms and conventions of our surrounding social world a Doing so makes our behaviors appear real natural normal and inevitable b We perform our gender and sexual identities but not in exactly the same way others do One Question Queer Theory The articulation of sexual identities is not a relatively simple process of assigning labels to phenomena that have always been present but could not be openly recognized without names by which to define them 1 A critical view of identities acknowledges the role of history and simultaneously reinforces the importance of human agency 2 Queer a An epithet b Claimed as a proud avowal of identity expressing a range of sexualities an appropriated term eval 3 c whatever is at odds with the normal the legitimate the dominant There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers It is an identity without an essence Halperin 1995 p 62 3 A queer theoretical perspective views identities as fluid paradoxical political multiple a Push our thinking about sexuality the duality of homo hetero invite complexity of our sexualities b Heteronormativity like heterosexism refers to the beliefs and practices that privilege heterosexuals and heterosexuality i Exposes heterosexuality as a social institution that sanctions heterosexuality as the only normal natural expression of sexuality ii Heterosexuality unlike any other sexual orientation is assumed to need no explanation c Critique accused of primarily representing middle class white gay male perspective Chpt 1 History of Heterosexuality Foucault Ancient Greek Free Men and Their Desires One Question 1 Foucault projecting our heterosexual and homosexual categories on the past of Ancient Greece is dangerous 2 Projecting our terms and meaning on past societies sexual categories