Social Construction of Sexual Deviance

Question 1

Society makes rigid, often needless, distinctions regarding sexual identity. In turn,

Answer 1

many people become sexual deviants, either publicly or privately

Question 2

Perhaps because sex generally produces

Answer 2

strong feelings, people want to regulate sexual behaviour more than other actions.

Question 3

Sexual deviance

Answer 3

rule-breaking and unexpected behaviour associated with sexuality

Question 4

Sexual scripts

Answer 4

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?”

Question 5

According to Gagnon and Simon, sexual scripts operate on 3 levels:

Answer 5

• Cultural scenarios
• Interpersonal relations
• Intrapsychic

Question 6

According to Gagnon & Simon, sexual deviance can be broken down along three main dimensions:

Answer 6

1. Incidence or frequency
2. Level of invoked sanctions
3. Existence of a specialized social structure that arises to support this type of sexual activity

Question 7

Sexuality is socially constructed

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Indigenous Sexual Cultures: Colonizing Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Answer 8

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

Question 9

North America: The Evolution of Meanings of Sexuality

Answer 9

Reproduction within marriage -> Intimacy within marriage -> Personal fulfillment

Question 10

Reproduction within marriage

Answer 10

• 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

Question 11

Personal Fulfillment

Answer 11

• Continued criminalization of some acts
• Growth of the culture industry
• Sexuality within mainstream media
• Expansion of the sex industry

Question 12

Double standard and romantic love

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Criteria for determining sexual deviance today

Answer 13

Consent, nature of the partner, nature of the act

Question 14

Consent

Answer 14

Debates over consent are multifaceted

• Sexual assault
• Date rape drugs
• Age of consent laws
• Youth view consent as spectrum, not a binary

Question 15

Nature of the Sexual Partner

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Areas of Sexual Deviance

Answer 16

• Heteronormativity
• Marriage and martial infidelity (sex and sexual behaviours)
• Prostitution
• Human trafficking
• Sexual violence

Question 17

Heteronormativity

Answer 17

Society imposes standard of heteronormativity by judging aspects of social life upon the view that ‘normal’ sexual activities are heterosexual

Question 18

Kinsey’s Sexual Behaviours in the Human Male:

Answer 18

• Argued that human sexuality has goals other than reproduction - most especially pleasure
• Sexuality on a continuum

Question 19

People who identify as LGBTQ+ become targets for social stigma, rejection, and violence

Answer 19

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

Question 20

LGBTQ+ People and Public Opinion

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Heterosexual Hegemony

Answer 21

• Key term in social constructionist literature

- Refers to practices that define heterosexuality as “normal” and LGBTQ+ as “deviance”

Question 22

Heteronormativity

Answer 22

Assumption that heterosexual relationships are normal and only between cisgender people

Question 23

The best single predictor of anti-homosexual sentiment is belief in sex-role rigidity

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Values of Deviant Communities

Answer 24

• support system
• change public discourse and gain rights
• or for incels as a way of using others to justify themselves and gain power

Question 25

Deviant communities can come together to form a movement, usually online. Almost always see:

Answer 25

The emergence of leader(s) and leadership

Question 26

These communities come together to fend off:

Answer 26

isolation and gain a sense of belonging, overcome stigma and individual aspect of stigma

Question 27

What are ways to better understand deviance?

Answer 27

• Increase sexual experience
• Increase interaction
• Class and education
• Place of residence

Question 28

Homosexual Communities and Cultures

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Functional Theories: sexual deviations play a valuable role in society

Answer 29

• 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

Question 30

Symbolic Interactionist Theories

Answer 30

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

Question 31

Critical Theories

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Critical Theories: Feminist Approaches

Answer 32

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