Lecture 17 - sexualuty,practices,preferences and identities Flashcards
How do societal norms and values shape perceptions and reactions to sexual deviance?
What did psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing contribute to the understanding of sexuality?
He authored Psychopathia sexualis, defining terms like ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’.
Define ‘heterosexuality’.
Erotic feelings towards the opposite sex.
Define ‘homosexuality’.
Erotic feelings towards the same sex.
What is ‘psycho-sexual hermaphroditism’?
Impulses towards both sexes.
What shift occurred regarding sexuality in modern medicine?
- Sexuality moved from sin and crime to health and illness.
- Detaching sexuality from procreation
The invention of heterosexuality
- Satisfaction of bipolar sexual desire crucially contributed to emotional satisfaction and partnership
- Hetero-Homosexual division.
- Heterosexuality - master sex. This is the definition and everything else falls underneath.
- Other forms of sexuality: deviations
What was the societal impact of the baby boom after WWII?
Desire to procreate confined to marriage with two sexes.
* In the early 20th century there were wars, falling birth rates and rising divorce rates.
* Wars threathen to wipe out population so we need procreation.
* Hetero-oppositeness of sexes and stress on gender differences
* Sexuality - erotic pleasure
What does ‘hegemonic masculinity’ refer to?
The dominant form of masculinity that legitimizes men’s superior position in society.
* Institutionalizes the common idea that women and men are different and unequal
*
List characteristics of hegemonic masculinity.
There is a specific way to be a man based on the idea that the genders are unequal - they are the breadwinners and are in the public sphere.
* Physical prowess
* Competitiveness
* Dominance
* Aggressiveness
* Career-oriented
* Suppressing emotions
What is ‘hegemonic femininity’?
Characteristics that reinforce women’s subordination and uphold traditional gender roles.
* Women are gated to the domestic sphere rather than the public sphere.
* Upholding traditional gender roles and expectations, contributes to the maintenance of a patriarchal social structure where men hold more power and privilege than women.
List examples of hegemonic femininity.
- Prioritizing domestic tasks
- Being nurturing
- Conforming to beauty standards
What is ‘heteronormativity’?
- Traditional gender order
- The assumption and enforcement of compulsory heterosexuality.
- Social norms and institutions reflect and reinforce gender order.
What does ‘heterosexual hegemony’ entail?
Cultural emphasis on traditional gender roles post-WWII.
* The cult of domesticity
* Feminist started looking into the fact that before WWII women were participating more in the academic sphere and going more into academia and labour markets (because men were gone and at war)
* Women=home, motherhood, childcare (strong emphasis on the gender role of women, closing of the opportunity for women to do work…which they could before)
* Men=fatherhood and wagework
1930s - FBI wars on sex criminals
- Conflation of pedophilia with homosexuality through mass media
- People arrested and institutionalized for homosexuality
1950s - Lavender scare
- National fear of soviet attack
- Being a homosexual is tied to being part of soviet attack - easily used by russian spies. Moral feableness - more system is corrupt already. If you are hiding the gact you are homosexual, this can be used against you by russian to get you to do things for them
- People losing jobs and being arrested because of being homosexual
What was the American Psychiatric Association’s stance on homosexuality in 1952?
Listed it as a ‘sociopathic personality disturbance’ in the DSM-I.
* Homosexuality was the most significant agent that divided the world into good and evil
What was Alfred Kinsey’s view?
Kinsey: Is there a place for “normal” and “abnormal” in scientific vocabulary?
* No
* Society: Normal sex=majority sex
* Its science!
* It is a spectrum, we dont actually have binaries
* People don’t retain the idea of a spectrum
* His information is twisted, misuse of Kinsey’s reports in the 60s
Same sex attraction as mental illness
- Freud: universal human bisexuality — everybody had within them a mix of masculinity and femininity (we are all born bisexual and then we turn heterosexual)
- In 1940s American psychiatrists started claiming that they could cure homosexuality by modern medical institutions.
- Rejected the ideas of earlier sexologists who argued that homosexuality was innate.
- Homosexuality was a symptom of a deeper pathology, one that could be treated and cured.
“The diagnosis” for homosexuality
- The “diagnosis”
- Gays and lesbians were viewed as mentally ill deviants
- Not to punished by to be cured
- Forced hospitalization into mental institutions (some were voluntary hospitalization)
- Hormone replacements,
- Castrations,
- Sex organ transplants,
- Bodily cauterization
- Lobotomies - Common treatments prescribed by doctors to chemically and psychologically alter thebody part/system that was hypothesized to be the cause of homosexuality
- Between 1936 and 1951 approximately 18,600o were documented to have undergone lobotomy
What did Freud theorize about sexual orientation?
He proposed universal human bisexuality.
What was the treatment approach for homosexuality in the 1940s?
Claimed it could be cured by modern medical institutions.
What were some common treatments for homosexuality in the mid-20th century?
- Hormone replacements
- Castrations
- Lobotomies
How did they cure mental illness?
- Conversion therapies (soft form of regiment)
- Exercise regiments to promote masculinity in male patients
- Rest and relaxation designed to further sexual equilibrium
- Extensive contact with sex workers and arranged marriages to promote relationships with opposite-sex partners
- Controlled masturbation designed to force clients to find individuals of the opposite sex arousing.
What is ‘aversion therapy’?
A method using negative stimuli to unlearn behaviors.
* Electroshock therapy,
* Harsh chemicals,
* Deprivation of basic human needs (water, food, sleep)
* Threats of beatings
* Based on B.F. Skinner’s ‘Operant Conditioning, a subject responds negatively to punishments and will unlearn behaviors, as long as the punishment is continuously present
Sexual Attraction: Nature vs Nurture?
- Sexual and gender identities are innate
- Biologically based understanding of gender and sexuality became central to LGBTQ+ advocacy.
- 1950S: activists sought out mental health experts to combat the pathologizing of homosexuality
- Interest-group model of rights advocacy
- Rise of biogenetic and bio-based psychological research
- Rise of debate about nature vs nurture
- LGBTQ think it is how they are born, it is nature, cannot change how they are.
- Scientifically prove that scientific reasoning for homosexuallity making it innate
What is the significance of the ‘Born this way’ movement?
Advocates for the innate nature of sexual orientation.
* Mattachine society and Daughters of Bilitis
* Struggle for civil rights
* LGBTQ+ Social organizations
* Psychiatrists
* Scientists
* Struggle for CIVIL RIGHTS based on the principle of nondiscrimination
Same sex attraction as mental illness
- Homosexuality is removed form DSM5 in 1973
- 1993:
- Dean Hamer and his team at the National Cancer Institute
- A region on the X chromosome, called Xq28, might contain a section that influences male sexual orientation - goes into the news, a lot of stakes in this
What was the outcome of the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges?
Legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Laws
- Repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy
- in 2010, allowing LGBTQ+ individuals to serve openly in the military
How many americans believed in “born this way” movement
- Discourse: Gallop Poll 20218: 50% of Americans believe someone “born this way”
Questioning “Born this way”
● Biological studies: Sexual orientation is a complex trait influenced by multiple genetic and environmental factors, rather than a single gene → cannot say its biological Social norms and culture shape our sexual preferences
● Feminist and Queer thinkers: Previous studies were on males, they were all made on men which does not work for female. (Female sexuality is fluid)
● Talking about sexuality and gender will change kids sexual identity
Define ‘moral panic’ as described by Erik Goode.
A condition or group is defined as a threat to societal values and interest.
* The nature of this condition/group/person/ is presented in a stereotypical fashion by the mass media
- Who is creating these labels? who has the social power to do this? Why do some labels stay and why do some change?
* Variety of moral entrepreneurs (experts, social movements, reformers, religious groups) that will pronounce their diagnoses and solutions to the problem
-They will not all have the same power
* Disproportional reaction relative to the threat posed by the deviants (bigger reaction than the actual panic deserved by the event - usually pretty benign due to mass media)
* Volatile - gets out of hand
* Extreme hostility
What are folk devils?
- Bearers of deviance that are targets of stereotypes, exaggerations and hostility.
- The emotional fury and hectic activity created around the folk devil enables defending (or destroying) a specific cultural representation held by specific groups of society.
What role does media play in moral panics?
Produces exaggerated images of folk devils.
* Production of ‘processed or coded images’ of folk devils
* Exaggeration and distortion of the events
* Inevitability of growth of the problem if measures are not taken
* What is newsworthy?
- Crime, violence, and other forms of deviance.
- Social situation involving children is always important, creates havoc
What is the political reaction to moral panics?
Legislation that reacts to societal fears surrounding deviance.
* Legislation that is a reaction to moral panic that is occurring surrounding children and sexuality.
* Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through Grade 3,
* State legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities in K–12 and higher education.
* ex. South Carolina’s H 4605 would have forbidden public K–12 teachers from “subject[ing]” students to “controversial and age-inappropriate topics” such as “gender identity or lifestyles
* Increase in bills and laws
* Increase in severity of Punishment
What is the framing of issues surrounding transgender people?
Merging moral questioning with social fears about pedophilia.
* Social anxieties about transgender people
* Framing of the issue: “grooming”—a term typically used in the context of child sexual abuse.
* Moral questioning about transgender people is merging with social fears about pedophilia
* Very strong emotional reaction
- Strong social anxiety about sexuality
- New form of folk devil that is dangerous to children and in this situation any solution is appropriate.
What is the rise of social organizations in response to moral panic?
Groups advocating against perceived societal wrongs.
The rise of social organizations at the forefront of fighting against what is wrong in society?
- Alliance defending freedom, moms of liberty
- New bills are put in place
- Florida bill - specific talk about gender not allowed anymore
- More and more legistlations, becomes more common → legislative reaction to the moral panic
