Chapter 5 Flashcards
What determines what is considered deviant and normal sexuality in society?
Social processes.
Social processes determine who is socially typer as deviant through the processes of…
Description, evaluation, and prescription.
Description of Sexuality
Placed in a category because of their sexuality.
Evaluation of Sexuality
Judged on the basis of the category into which they have been placed.
Prescription of Sexuality
Made subject to particular measures of regulation of social control.
In the contemporary sociology of sexuality, the ___ perspective predominates.
Constructionist.
Since the constructionist perspective predominates on sexuality, the ___ and ___ theoretical perspectives are the lenses throughout which sexuality is more often studied.
Interactionist, critical.
Critical perspetives analyze the ways that power influences people’s understandings and attributions of meaning, emphasizing…
Foucault’s power-reflexive work.
Elite Discourse
The knowledge about sexuality that is conveyed by those in authority and that subsequently comes to be perceived as truth.
True or false? Sexual behaviour and sexual identity are one and the same.
False, someone can engage in a sexual behaviour without being a certain sexual identity.
How do Foucauldian sociologists study sexuality?
Analyze the ways that scientific, political, legal, religious, and media discourses of sexuality shape the ways audience members can imagine organizing their lives.
How was sexuality treated in ancient Athens?
Aristocratic males were permitted marital sex for the purpose of producing male heirs, as well as sexual relationships with other women, slaves, foreigners, and aristocratic adolescent boys for the purpose of pleasure. However, sexual relations between two persons occupying the same social class was not acceptable.
In Aboriginal culture, sexuality was taboo and not brought up often. True or false?
False, it was considered to be inextricably interwoven with all other aspects of social life.
What four components did the Aboriginals believe life consisted of, and therefore sexuality consisted of?
Physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.
Nadleeh
In some Aboriginal cultures, masculine female-bodied, or feminine male-bodied members of the community.
Berdache
A derogatory term used by European explorers to refer to biological males who assumed female roles in some Aboriginal cultures.
Describe the European attitude at the time of colonization concerning sexuality:
It was for the purpose of reproduction, and even the notions of pleasure was frowned upon. Sexuality was sinful, requiring careful and stringent control.
The Aboriginal women with whom early European settlers formed relationships were called ___.
Les femmes du pays.
Why is the missionary position named as such?
Aboriginal women were taught by church fathers what the “right” way to have sexual intercourse was.
Les Femmes Du Pays
Country wives, or Aboriginal women who formed intimate relationships with male European fur traders and settlers.
Why is the missionary position named as such?
Aboriginal women were taught by church fathers what the “right” way to have sexual intercourse was.
Describe how sexuality was primarily associated with reproduction within a powerful structure of kinship:
Slaves were expected to be continually sexually available for male members of the owner’s family. Slave owners determined who was permitted to mate with whom. Chose “studs” to impregnate them.
Who regulated sexuality and said that it had to be in the context of emotional intimacy in marriage?
The Christian church.
Why would a young couple with a premarital pregnancy respect the young woman’s father’s directive?
Because the kinship system was considered a legitimate regulator of sexuality and reproduction.
In the 18th Century in the U.S., deviating individuals were more often seen as having made an error in judgement. It was the ___ that was deviant, not the ___.
Behaviour, individual.
How did socioeconomic class affect punishments for sexual deviance?
Those with more resources often received less severe punishments.
How did gender affect punishments for sexual deviance?
- Men, who owned property, were more likely to be fined, while women, who did not own property, were more likely to be physically punished.
- Women were also more likely than men to be punished for things like adultery.
How did racial hierarchies affect the punishments for sexual deviance?
Black men convicted of raping white women (but not black women) were castrated. White men were not castrated, and it was rare that they could be considered to “rape” a black woman.
How did the way sexuality was perceived change in the late 18th Century and throughout the 19th Century?
- Urbanization and wage labour progressed rapidly, creating anonymous lives distanced from family members and community surveillance.
- Religious shifts transferred responsibility of salvation onto the individual instead of the church and state.
- Economically based and arranged marriages declined in favour of “love” marriages.
How did the way sexuality was perceived change in the late 18th Century and throughout the 19th Century?
- Urbanization and wage labour progressed rapidly, creating anonymous lives distanced from family members and community surveillance.
- Religious shifts transferred responsibility of salvation onto the individual instead of the church and state.
- Economically based and arranged marriages declined in favour of “love” marriages.
What marked the shift of viewing sexuality as inherently bad to inherently good?
The Enlightenment and the view of nature (and sexuality) as “good.”
The Enlightenment led to the shift from sexuality as ___ to ___.
Reproductive, emotional intimacy.
How did women increase their role in regulating sexuality?
Through their efforts and reducing pregnancy rates.
Why would women have many babies in the past?
The high infant mortality rate meant that they had to have a lot of babies to ensure that a sufficient number of them survived into childhood to contribute to the maintenance of the family.
Which social agents gained more power as the role of the church, state, and community declined?
Women, the medical profession, social reformers, and culture industries.
Why did women begin to regulate sexuality in the 19th Century?
Infant mortality rates declined, but perinatal and postnatal mortality rates for women did not.
How did women regulate sexuality in the 19th Century?
Abstaining from sex with their husbands for extended periods of time and by using contraception.
True or false? The medical profession was growing in size, knowledge, and legitimized power during the 18th Century.
False, this was in the 19th Century.
How did the medical profession come to have a more encompassing role in the regulation of sexuality?
By “scientifically” defining sexual deviance.
