3.1 Chapter Introduction
Chapter Overview: Let’s Talk About Sex
Sex is an intensely personal and private topic. On an interpersonal level, sex can be pleasurable and create connections between people. In public, it can also be a divisive and politically charged topic. Sex is also used as a weapon or as a means of social control. Sexuality refers to a person’s personal and interpersonal expression of sexual desire, behavior, and identity. The sociology of gender is concerned with how socially constructed norms about sex, sexuality, and sexual orientation impact individuals, interpersonal relationships, communities, and societies.
This chapter will explore socially constructed patriarchal norms about sexuality that reinforce heteronormativity and the social construction of gender as binary. In this chapter, you will also consider how LGBTQIA+ people have led an intersectional social movement that has demanded full inclusion in society and the right to fully embody their gender and sexual orientations. In so doing, they challenged the patriarchal status quo in contemporary culture. Finally, this chapter will demonstrate how patriarchal social norms contribute to sexual violence and apply a sociological model to the prevention of sexual violence.
Key Terms
This section contains a list of foundational key terms from the chapter. After reviewing them here, be on the lookout for them as you work through the rest of the book.
- affirmative consent: consent given for each sex act each time.
- coming out: a social process of recognizing and sharing sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
- cross-dressing: an archaic term to describe men who dressed as women or women who dressed as men.
- Ecological Systems Theory: a theory that describes the social world as a layered system, in which each layer is a set of social domains that impact the individual. The system moves from the smallest level of the individual to the layer of family, through growing layers until it reaches institutions, society, and even historical context.
- in the closet: people who do not know they are LGBTQIA+ or know but do not come out publicly are said to be in the closet or closeted.
- monogamy: the practice of having one intimate partner at a time.
- misogyny: hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).
- polyamory: the practice of having multiple intimate partners.
- polyandry: the practice of one woman having multiple intimate partners at the same time.
- polygamy: the practice of one man having multiple intimate partners at the same time.
- rape: non-consensual oral, anal, or vaginal penetration.
- sex workers: adults who receive money or goods in exchange for consensual sexual services or erotic performances, either regularly or occasionally (Open Society Foundations 2019).
- sexual assault: a broad category of non-consensual sexual contact that includes various forms of rape and other illegal sexual contact.
- sexual scripts: socially constructed blueprints for sexual expression, sexual orientation, sexual behaviors, and sexual desires that guide our performance of sexuality.
- sexual violence: any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, or other act directed against a person’s sexuality using coercion by any person, regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting (WHO 2022).
- sexuality: refers to a person’s personal and interpersonal expression of sexual desire, behavior, and identity.
- social problem: a social condition or pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world, or our physical world (Guerrero 2016:4).
- sodomy: an archaic legal term to describe oral or anal sex, generally between men.
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to do the following:
- Discuss sex and sexuality from a sociological perspective.
- Describe the evolution of the social movement for LGBTQIA+ rights in the U.S.
- Identify how patriarchal social norms contribute to sexual violence.
- Apply the social-ecological model to the prevention of sexual violence.
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Introduction
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Introduction” by Nora Karena is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
All Rights Reserved Content
Figure 3.1. “Ourbodiesourselves-1973” from Our Bodies, Ourselves is included under fair use.
refers to a person’s personal and interpersonal expression of sexual desire, behavior, and identity.
applies the tools of sociology to explore how gender, including sexuality, gender expression, and identity, is socially constructed, imposed, enforced, reproduced, and negotiated.
emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to other people; often used to signify the relationship between a person’s gender identity and the gender identities to which a person is most attracted (Learning for Justice 2018).
the social enforcement of heterosexuality, in which there are only two genders, that these genders are opposites, and that any sexual activity between people of the same gender is deviant or unnatural.
the meanings, attitudes, behaviors, norms, and roles that a society or culture ascribes to sexual differences (Adapted from Conerly et.al. 2021a).
an acronym that stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual, Plus a continuously expanding spectrum of gender identities and sexual orientations.
a group of people who live in a defined geographic area, who interact with one another, and who share a common culture (Conerly et al. 2021).
a group’s shared practices, values, beliefs, and norms. Culture encompasses a group’s way of life, from daily routines and everyday interactions to the most essential aspects of group members’ lives. It includes everything produced by a society, including social rules.
any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, or other act directed against a person’s sexuality using coercion by any person, regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting (WHO 2022).