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Sexual bodies and behaviors

In document Hanbook of New Sexual Studies (Page 99-102)

Most people think of certain body parts as either sexual or not. We think of penises and breasts as sexual, for example, but probably think of feet as not sexual. Most of the time, we think that sexual body parts are sexual for natural or biological reasons. But in this part of the book we will be exploring the way that body parts become sexual through a variety of social forces. What counts as sex depends on how the body is defined or viewed.

You might say that in all societies there is a hierarchy of sexual bodies and behaviors.

In America, this hierarchy has two important features. First, the penis is widely considered to be the most important sexual body part. The penis has been socially constructed to be the “actor” in the sex act. The erect penis is associated with virility, power, and masculinity. The body of the heterosexual, white, young, able-bodied male, poised and ready with his erection, is at the top of the social hierarchy of bodies in our society. Second, heterosexual coitus (the penetration of the vagina with the penis) is thought to be the most normal and natural sexual behavior. Everything from the education about sex we receive in high school to the way medical authorities talk about sex tells us that there is a natural “fit” between the penis and vagina.

Body parts other than the penis, and sexual behaviors other than heterosexual coitus, are socially judged to be less natural, less normal, and less sexual. The vagina, for example, is thought of as a sexual organ, but a passive, receptive one – with nowhere near the sense of virility and power of the penis. Anal sex violates the social norm that tells us that heterosexual coitus is the only natural way to have sex. In doing so, it has been constructed as dirty, unclean, and unnatural. Even heterosexual activities other than coitus are thought of as less important or sexual. Foreplay, for example, is constructed as something one does on the way to coitus, but not as a sexual end in itself.

So, in America, heterosexual men and their bodies are at the top. But not all heterosexual men. Some heterosexual men very definitely do not come to be thought of as sexual, much less virile, powerful, and masculine. Asian men, for example, have long been constructed in popular culture as effeminate, slight, and dainty – far less sexual and far less powerful compared to their white American, hypermasculine counterparts. Older men and men who have lost their ability to achieve an erection are constructed by the medical community and culture at large as having a “dysfunction.” The medical community has created a “Viagra culture” to restore to these men what our society deems most important: the erection. So even heterosexual men can have their bodies marginalized and constructed as asexual by social authorities.

The hierarchy of bodies and behaviors we will talk about in this part is always open to challenge. Anal sex was once almost uniformly only associated with gay men and moral pollution, but has increasingly become an act that some heterosexuals participate in, too.

Gay pornography that features anal sex sometimes challenges the idea that the penetrator or “top” is the most powerful partner in the sex act. Women, too, have challenged the idea that they are simply passive participants in the sex act. Not long ago, the vagina was considered the primary female sexual body part. But the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s challenged this notion, and women have increasingly come to understand the clitoris as central to sexual behavior and pleasure. Feminists also encouraged women to “be responsible for your own orgasm,” in order to challenge the notion that men do sexual things and women passively participate.

Sometimes the way we challenge the hierarchy of sexual bodies and behaviors ends up reaffirming the dominant norms. Many Asian men and gay men resist the depiction of themselves as effeminate and slight by going to the gym, “beefing up,” in order to better fit into the dominant American mold of what a man should look like. But other times, challenges to this hierarchy appear where you might least expect them. The very Viagra culture that reaffirms the notion that the erection is all-important has also opened a door for older women to talk about their sex lives. Older women have long been thought of as asexual, and “dried up.” But the cultural buzz surrounding Viagra has made possible new discussions about sex among the elderly, and especially the sexuality of older women.

So, taken together, these essays do what a sociology of sexuality should do: they show us how certain body parts have become sexual through a variety of interesting social processes. What is considered a sexual body part changes over time. What is considered a legitimate sexual act is not related to nature as much as to social forces. As you’ll learn, even something as seemingly simple as an orgasm changes over time and is experienced in remarkably different ways in different cultures.

Handbook of the new sexuality studies 86

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In document Hanbook of New Sexual Studies (Page 99-102)