Social Construction of Sexual Deviance Flashcards
Society makes rigid, often needless, distinctions regarding sexual identity. In turn,
many people become sexual deviants, either publicly or privately
Perhaps because sex generally produces
strong feelings, people want to regulate sexual behaviour more than other actions.
Sexual deviance
rule-breaking and unexpected behaviour associated with sexuality
Sexual scripts
Patterned constellations of language and action, convention and expectation
- Learn how to “do sexuality” based on sexual scripts we have developed
- Asks the questions “what does sexuality represent?”
According to Gagnon and Simon, sexual scripts operate on 3 levels:
- Cultural scenarios
- Interpersonal relations
- Intrapsychic
According to Gagnon & Simon, sexual deviance can be broken down along three main dimensions:
- Incidence or frequency
- Level of invoked sanctions
- Existence of a specialized social structure that arises to support this type of sexual activity
Sexuality is socially constructed
Perceptions, meanings, and social control of sexuality vary across cultures and over time
e.g., ancient Athens -> emphasis on the needs and desires of aristocratic males
Indigenous Sexual Cultures: Colonizing Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
Diverse Indigenous sexual cultures
Many recognize spectrums of sex and gender
Colonial discourses of racial degeneracy and sexual pathology were intertwined
Controlling gender and sexuality was central to settler colonialism
Indigenous women were especially targeted by social control efforts
North America: The Evolution of Meanings of Sexuality
Reproduction within marriage -> Intimacy within marriage -> Personal fulfillment
Reproduction within marriage
- Regulation by church, court, family, community
- Social control measures vary based on socioeconomic status, race, and gender
- Slavery was intertwined with control of slaves’ sexuality
- Sexual culture intertwined with social changes (industrialization, religious shifts, pursuit of happiness)
- Social control by women, physicians, social reformers, the culture industry
- Influence of socioeconomic status and racial ideologies
Personal Fulfillment
- Continued criminalization of some acts
- Growth of the culture industry
- Sexuality within mainstream media
- Expansion of the sex industry
Double standard and romantic love
Sexuality and responses to sexuality are almost always gendered, rooted in ideas about what roles men and women should occupy.
- Arbitrary distinctions result in a double standard that defines ideas of sexuality around the world
Criteria for determining sexual deviance today
Consent, nature of the partner, nature of the act
Consent
Debates over consent are multifaceted
- Sexual assault
- Date rape drugs
- Age of consent laws
- Youth view consent as spectrum, not a binary
Nature of the Sexual Partner
C.J.S -> incest, beastiality
Formal controls -> workplaces
Informal controls -> professor and graduate student relationships
Evolving views of same-sex relationships, now more widely accepted, but stigmatization has continued:
- Purging gays and lesbians from public service
- Experiences of LGBTQ2IA+ individuals today
- Refusals of service laws in many states in the US in response to the legalization of same-sex marriage
Areas of Sexual Deviance
- Heteronormativity
- Marriage and martial infidelity (sex and sexual behaviours)
- Prostitution
- Human trafficking
- Sexual violence
Heteronormativity
Society imposes standard of heteronormativity by judging aspects of social life upon the view that ‘normal’ sexual activities are heterosexual
Kinsey’s Sexual Behaviours in the Human Male:
- Argued that human sexuality has goals other than reproduction - most especially pleasure
- Sexuality on a continuum
People who identify as LGBTQ+ become targets for social stigma, rejection, and violence
Hates crimes based on sexual orientation have decreased as of 2015, but these hates are more likely to be violent (~80%) compared to religion or race (~50%)
- LGBTQ+ people are much more likely to be harmed than cause harm (which is usually none)
- Multiple and intersecting oppressions
LGBTQ+ People and Public Opinion
Homophobia: dislike or prejudice against LGBTQ+ people
Age, region, socioeconomics impact opinions on same-sex marriage
Active social media users are more likely to support same-sex marriage
Heterosexual Hegemony
- Key term in social constructionist literature
- Refers to practices that define heterosexuality as “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviance”
Heteronormativity
Assumption that heterosexual relationships are normal and only between cisgender people
The best single predictor of anti-homosexual sentiment is belief in sex-role rigidity
Sex-role rigidity is the belief that sexes have traditionally-defined sex roles, often exists alongside strict homosociality and authoritarian personalities
- Sex-role confusion may explain why men are more homophobic than women, why gay men are more disliked than lesbians, and why effeminate gay men are less threatening than ‘macho’ gay men
Values of Deviant Communities
- support system
- change public discourse and gain rights
- or for incels as a way of using others to justify themselves and gain power
Deviant communities can come together to form a movement, usually online. Almost always see:
The emergence of leader(s) and leadership
These communities come together to fend off:
isolation and gain a sense of belonging, overcome stigma and individual aspect of stigma
What are ways to better understand deviance?
- Increase sexual experience
- Increase interaction
- Class and education
- Place of residence
Homosexual Communities and Cultures
Canadian culture does not totally of homosexual behaviour, as it betrays traditional cultural normas that are rooted in child-bearing
- For a long time, homosexuality was considered a form of paraphilia or sexual deviance
- Homosexuals have developed a subcultural world as a response to continued disapproval from the general public
Functional Theories: sexual deviations play a valuable role in society
- Test boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour, helps promote social cohesion in society
- Provides sexual outlets for fantasies, thereby preventing other socially disruptive activities (i.e divorce or martial infidelity)
- Deviants can be members of a separate social grouping and have little movement between family and deviant group
Symbolic Interactionist Theories
Sexual deviants are different because we have repressed, labelled, and stigmatized them as such
- Sexual normas and values change over time for a variety of reasons, mostly by means of social and sexual interaction between individuals
- As more people come to know and accept varieties in the sexual behaviour of others, they come to admit acceptability and normality
Critical Theories
People with greater power have greater power in labelling certain activities or preferences as deviant
- Dominant groups can also determine what will be legal or illegal
Many types of sexual deviance relate to social inequality and the exercise of power
- Prostitution reflects issues of both gender inequality and poverty
- Women who enter prostitution are mostly exploited by male pimps for the benefit of male clients
Critical Theories: Feminist Approaches
Sexual behaviour generally expresses or indicates the inequalities in the roles of men and women
- Condemn a sexually actice teenage girl, but praise sexually active teenage boy
- Many people regard issues like teenage sex and unmarried pregnancy and births as stemming from the behaviour of the female involved
