Construction As A Social Process Flashcards
What is the conceptual approach to sexuality?
Constructivist
Sex positive
Inclusive of genders & sexualities
Emphasis on consent
Critical of shaming practices
Affirming diverse choices, practices & cultures etc…
Critical assessment of sexuality, oppression and
freedom
Open discussion of sexuality, sexual identities & practices
In the constructivist approach sexual concepts, beliefs and categories undergo a “__________ _______”
These are created by society and become “________ ________”
Construction process; social constructs
What was the 15th century religious scholars view on conception?
Known as the ultimate authority on sexual knowledge
Assumed that only God could create life
They believed tiny humans were hidden inside sperm waiting to be transferred & incubated inside a women
What was the 17th century scientists view on contraception?
.
What was the 19th century scientists view on contraception?
Empirically revealed “the truth” - Micheal Foucault
Using more powerful microscopes
Theorized that reproduction involved strong feisty sperm thrusting/penetrating their way into a passive egg to fertilize it
Doctors have adopted some of the attributes of a new priesthood
How does the constructivist approach view sperm?
The sperm and the theory are constructed
Only called sperm b/c humans have ”constructed” it as such
We cannot escape our social/historical/cultural contest to be ”purely objective”
Scientific knowledge builds on early knowledge and is constructed on the foundations of that knowledge in a “_______ ________”
Social context
Requires human activity through cultural, social & historical beliefs
Ex) social practices, histories and cultures
What does the dominant view include in the contructivist approach?
- Apriori
- Discovery
- Human centric
The constructivist approach also includes what kind of thought?
Discourse-system of thought that constructs its subject matter
Ways of knowing and being
More than words
What is sexual discourse?
How sex/sexualities are discussed, portrayed, described, understand & framed
Both language and action
Empirical research, observation etc…
May be difficult to identify a source = popular culture
What are 3 key points in the constructivist approach?
- Objects, events and concepts are real = have an impact
- Challenges essentialism (assuming that one’s “true” sex is rooted in biology — like chromosomes or genitalia, absolute biologically based categories of male & female)
- Critiques, challenges and expands categories
What are “sexual scripts”?
19th century new truth claim
Anthropomorphizing sperm and egg as if they were men and women in a conventional heterosexual relationship
What is “deconstruction”?
Process of analyzing & revealing the hidden assumptions, judgements & values that underlie social arrangements and intellectual ideas
One of the main challenges to understanding constructivism is what?
Is the myth that if something is socially constructed then it is not actually real
What is a social constructionist view on sexuality?
Society has created the belief that there is something called sexual orientation
There are are a relatively small # of categories into which all people are supposed to fit
Social structures & norms influence how people place themselves w/in this sexual categorization system
What is an essentialist or ‘naturalist’ view of sexuality?
Claim that sexual identities are something that one is ”born with”
Biological or hard-wired and is not a choice
There is a supposed inner truth or essence…
‘that in all sexological matters there must be a single, basic uniform pattern ordained by nature itself’
Why is there “no need” to draw a distinction between what is constructed and what is real?
That something — indeed anything — is real b/c it is constructed
Both fictions & facts are a result of human production
What is ‘sexology’?
Since the late 19th century
This is the scientific endorsement of of the broad tradition known as sexology
The ‘science of desire’
What did Freud ‘confess to’ in terms of sexuality?
He confessed to the difficulty of agreeing ‘any generally recognized criterion of the sexual nature of a process
What is the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ surrounding sexuality?
Difficult to escape the naturalistic fallacy that the key to our sex lies somewhere in the recess of ‘Nature’, and that sexual science provides the best means of access to it, tidying up the world by sweeping messy things into neat pigeonholes
What are some main points of Weeks argument against essentialism?
- The meanings to ‘sex’ and ‘sexuality’ are socially organized
- Wants to develop a critical, non-essentialist historically rooted study of gender and the erotic
- Other cultures and subcultures are a mirror to our own transitoriness
- Sexuality is largely social, also embodied/intertwined w/ gender
What are some of the emergence forms of sexual agency?
What challenging questions does this ask?
Second-wave feminism, the ‘lesbian’, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, querying’ and other radical sexual movement
Has asked challenging questions about sexual autonomy, consent and reproductive rights, desires and pleasure
