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Lecture 5. Gender Intimacies: Gendered Sexuality. I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them. ~Jay McInerney. Do you think sex means different things to men and women in relationship? Why?
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Lecture 5 Gender Intimacies: Gendered Sexuality
I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them. ~Jay McInerney • Do you think sex means different things to men and women in relationship? Why? • What are the roles that are expected of men in relationships? Women?
Gendered Sexuality • Sexual ideology supports the idea that men and women have naturally different: • sexual desires – sexual urges and sexual pleasure. • sexual roles – in the private and public realm • and sexual practices – appropriate sexuality • Femininity and sexuality • passive, emotional/irrational, monogamous, vaginal, penetrated • Masculinity and sexuality • aggressive/assertive, unemotional/rational, multiple partners, penal, penetrate
Constructing Heterosexuality • Historical, political, and cultural factors have shaped the way we understand sexuality • Idea of sexual identity emerged in late 1800’s • Modernization and Industrialization affected ideas of sexuality • Heteronormativity: culture where heterosexuality is accepted as the “normal” mode of sexual expression • Gender and sexuality are linked through the nuclear family ideal
Gender and Learning Sexuality • Men and women are socialized to think differently about sexuality and relationships • Men and women experience different paths to sexual orientation • How are gays and lesbians affected by the sexual ideology? • Gay men associate sexual identity with erotic experiences • Lesbians associate identity with relationships
Language and Sexual Politics • Sexual Politics: the exercise of power through sexuality • How does language control our behavior? • “Slut” and “Fag” • Structures adolescent sexuality • Sexual Double-Standard • Slut – Stud Dichotomy
Developing our Gendered Sexuality • According to Freud, Children’s sexual pleasure derives from the same erotoenic zone – penis or penis equivalent (clitoris) • “With the change to femininity the clitoris should wholly hand over its sensitivity, and at the same time importance, to the vagina…[however] the man has only to continue the activity that he previously carried out”
“Female Hysteria” • 25% of women were diagnosed with hysteria • Over 75 possible symptoms • Nervousness, insomnia, or a "tendency to cause trouble" • Women went to the doctor for “pelvic stimulation” until the home vibrator emerged • 1902 electric vibrator was for sale in home catalogs like Sears
Masturbation: Creating Hysteria Today • In 1994 the surgeon general under the Clinton administration was fired for saying that a safe alternative to sexual intercourse & a way to stay safe against HIV is ….masturbation • Joycelyn Elders: "masturbation is something that is a part of human sexuality, and is a part of something that perhaps should be taught."