Online reviews of book: "Sex and the eighteenth-century man: Massachusetts and the history of sexuality in America" by Thomas A Foster,

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Book description:
"... most would assume that masculinity is the stuff of politics, commerce, or hard physical labor. But Thomas Foster turns this conventional portrait on its head. Vividly using court records, newspapers, sermons, and private papers from Massachusetts, he shows that sex—understood as a mix of behaviors, desires, and identities associated with eroticism—was a crucial component of the colonial understanding of the qualities considered befitting for a man.

Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man begins by examining how men, as heads of households, ultimately held responsibility for sex within marriage and the sexual behaviors of dependents and household members.

Starkly challenging current views, the book details early understandings of sexual orientation and a surprising number of stereotypes until now believed to originate a century later, including those of the black rapist and the unmanly sodomite—figures that underscore norms of white male heterosexuality.
Editorial review:
This compelling study of 18th-century male gender mores and sexuality is filled with engrossing historical details, demonstrating that 18th-century American ideas about masculinity were complexly tied to religion, economics and the body. For example, a 1746 newspaper article proposed a tax on single people, since they "promise no help to the future generation"; American colonists understood male effeminacy to be as much a sign of wasteful consumption as sexual deviance;

Amazon.com

"In this thoroughly researched and well-crafted book, Tom Foster shows convincingly that American notions of sexuality and manliness have long been linked in complex ways. He has uncovered a history that we need to know—a history that exposes the roots of many contemporary attitudes toward masculinity."—Mary Beth Norton, author of Founding Mothers & Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society

"Thomas Foster's intriguing book reveals what sex meant to eighteenth-century men. He argues persuasively that all matters concerning sexuality, including premarital fornication, marital sex, infidelity, same-sex intimacy, desire, impotency, sexual violence, and interracial sex, were linked to ideals of masculinity. Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man shows impressive range."—Elizabeth Reis, author of Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England

Oxford Journal of American History

1. Lisa Wilson

Connecticut College New London, Connecticut

Thomas A. Foster argues that sexuality and manhood were inextricably linked in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Diaries and family letters rarely elucidate that aspect of men's lives, but court records and newspapers offer some stories that are fascinating, if hard to interpret. Foster uses those sources to explore what men thought about their own sexuality as well as about the sexual lives of other men.

Oppressed and Oppressors? The Systematic Mistreatment of Men.

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Article from: Sociology | August 1, 2001 | New, Caroline | Copyright Sociology (Hide copyright information) Copyright

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ABSTRACT This paper argues for a structural definition of oppression as systematic mistreatment. Using the work of Connell and other theorists, I discuss the implications of the proposed definition for the oppression of women and suggest that men, too, are systematically mistreated and therefore oppressed in modern societies. This structural concept of men's oppression is compared with the idea developed in the men's movement of the 1970s that men are oppressed by sex roles, and with more recent discourses of masculinity. I argue that men may have conflicting interests in relation to the gender order. While men are frequently the agents of the oppression of women, and in many senses benefit from it, their interests in the gender order are not pregiven but constructed by and within it. Since in many ways men's human needs and capacities are not met within the gender orders of modern societies, they also have a latent 'emancipatory interest' in their transformation.

KEYWORDS feminism, gender order, interests, masculinity, oppression, patriarchy

Oppression as 'systematic mistreatment'

Recent disputes within feminism have produced one consensus at least: that oppression is multi-dimensional. The group of women, oppressed within the gender order, includes women who are privileged on other dimensions and in an oppressor role in relation to other, relatively disadvantaged groups of women (Bradley 1996:93). Similarly men, the oppressing group, may also be oppressed in terms of class, ethnicity and so on. (According to Hartmann (1981) patriarchy is a set of hierarchical social relations between men which enables them to dominate women.) Many studies of gender at work have recognised the oppression of men as workers, and that their attempts to make work meaningful often involve ideas and practices that are oppressive to women (for example, Willis 1978; Bradley 1999). But sociologists of gender hardly ever discuss the possibility that men are oppressed on the same dimension as women, i.e. in respect of gender relations. Almost all of those who now describe men as oppressed are part of the anti-fe minist backlash, [1] who deny the oppression of women and even see women, especially feminists, as oppressors of men (for example, Farrell 1993). In contrast, I shall argue that both women and men are oppressed, but not symmetrically. While men are positioned to act as systematic agents of the oppression of women, women are not in such a relation to men. Yet unsurprisingly, given the inescapably relational character of gender, the two oppressions are complementary in their functioning - the practices of each contribute to the reproduction of the other. In particular, the very practices which construct men's capacity to oppress women and interest in doing so, work by systematically harming men.

My argument depends on a certain way of understanding oppression, which must first be introduced and defended. Although oppression is undertheorised, we can distinguish several main approaches, often implicit in the sociology of gender. Subjectivist approaches make the group's self-concept the crucial criterion for oppression, while objectivist or realist approaches focus on whether the putative oppressed group is disadvantaged or harmed. Some realist approaches I shall call zero-sum, because they emphasise benefits accruing to an oppressor group which gains as the oppressed group loses. Others, such as the one I advocate, focus instead on the institutionalised nature of oppressive social relations, so that oppression can sometimes exist without a clear or enduring oppressor group.

'Common-sense' approaches to oppression are often subjectivist, assuming that an individual or group must be the best judges of what is happening to them. In more sophisticated versions, the meanings of social practices are seen as relative to cultural context. [2] In this view, judgements that clitoridectomy, footbinding or institutional rape are harmful or oppressive can only be validly made by 'locals'. For Laclau and Mouffe, for instance, subordination is only oppression if, under the influence of some external discourse, the subordinated see it as harmful and mobilise against it (1985:154). Actors' accounts are, therefore, our only source of knowledge of whether social relations are oppressive. Such a view is attractive to feminists who suspect realist approaches of silencing women or marginalising their experience. [3] 'It is wrong to undermine a person with the claim that she does not know what she wants or feels, or that what she wants or feels is inappropriate; and you cannot know what is wanted or felt and cannot discover oppression unless you listen to people' (Seller 1988:176).

It would be hard to justify a procedure for identifying and characterising oppression that did not see experience as significant. But oppression cannot be 'read off' experience, precisely because subjectivity is socially constructed. If we make actors' accounts key to the characterisation of social relations as oppressive, what are we to make of the conflicting accounts of the subordinated? Some women believe men are oppressed, some that the gender order is natural and non-oppressive, others that women are oppressed and so on. Subjectivist and relativist approaches reduce oppression to a rhetorical category instead of a valuable concept in critical sociology. In contrast, for realist approaches, the key criterion for oppression is not whether certain social relations are perceived as harming a particular group, but whether they do harm it, either directly or by depriving it of potential contextual resources.

A common, and 'common-sense', realist idea of oppression is the zero-sum conception. Here oppression is a relationship between groups, in which the oppressor group acts in ways that harm or disadvantage the oppressed, in order to gain corresponding benefits. Examples would be the relationship between the owners of the means of production and the wage-workers they employ (as understood in Marxist political economy), or the relationship between husbands and wives as conceptualised by Delphy (1970). While admirably clear, the zero-sum conception makes it hard to characterise some groups as oppressed, although they are systematically disadvantaged. Initially assuming a zero-sum position, Abberley (1987:7) writes:

To claim that disabled people are oppressed involves arguing... that on significant dimensions disabled people can be regarded as a group whose members are in an inferior position to other members of society... that these disadvantages are dialectically related to an ideology or group of ideologies which justify and perpetuate this situation... that such disadvantages and their supporting ideologies are neither natural nor inevitable... Finally it involves the identification of some beneficiary of this state of affairs.

But the identification of an oppressor group is tricky - the entire group of non-disabled or 'TABs' (temporarily able-bodied) can be seen as beneficiaries when considered as taxpayers, but become losers when considered as family members, potential carers and likely future members of the group of disabled people. Abberley later concludes that the main beneficiary of the oppression of disabled people is 'the present social order, or, more accurately, capitalism in a particular historical and national form' (1987:16).

Like Abberley, I do not believe we need to identify a clear-cut agent/beneficiary to speak of oppression. Sometimes there is one, sometimes not. I propose the following structural definition, which subsumes zero-sum conceptions when they are applicable, and allows us to recognise the very different, yet related, oppressions of women and of men.

A group X is oppressed if, in certain respects, its members are systematically mistreated in comparison to non-Xs in a given social context, and if this mistreatment is justified or excused in terms of some alleged or real characteristic of the group.

The key phrase, 'systematically mistreated' implies that as a result of institutionalised social practices, Xs' human needs are not met, they are made to suffer, or their flourishing is not permitted, relative to other groups and to available knowledge and resources. While human needs are culturally mediated, some basic conditions for human well-being can be specified independent of social context (Doyal and Gough 1991:chap. 4). We recognise these as needs because undesirable consequences arise from a failure to meet them, though the severity of the price paid may range from death to discomfort. Unmet needs may result in forms of development that preclude 'flourishing', the term used by ecological feminist Cuomo (1998) in her feminist ethics. For Cuomo, knowledge of a thing's nature can give rise to knowledge of what it is for it to flourish.[4]

'In comparison to non-members' means that Xs are disadvantaged in relation to non-Xs on some particular dimension or in a specific context -- …


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Conscription as manhood initiation

Traditionally conscription has been limited to the male population, as males have been warriors. Women and handicapped males have been exempted from conscription. Many societies have traditionally considered military service as a test of manhood and a rite of passage from boyhood into manhood.68 69

References:

68 ^ Ben Shephard (2003), A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, p. 18, ISBN 9780674011199,

69 ^ Carol R. Ember; Melvin Ember (2003), Encyclopedia of sex and gender: men and women in the world's cultures, Volume 2, Springer, pp. 108-109, ISBN 9780306477706.

...

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male: by Alfred Kinsey

June 2003, Vol 93, No. 6 American Journal of Public Health 894-898
© 2003 American Public Health Association

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VOICES FROM THE PAST

Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell R. Pomeroy and Clyde E. Martin

HOMOSEXUAL OUTLET

[A] CONSIDERABLE PORTION OF THE population, perhaps the major portion of the male population, has at least some homosexual experience between adolescence and old age. In addition, about 60 per cent of the pre-adolescent boys engage in homosexual activities, and there is an additional group of adult males who avoid overt contacts but who are quite aware of their potentialities for reacting to other males.

The social significance of the homosexual is considerably emphasized by the fact that both Jewish and Christian churches have considered this aspect of human sexuality to be abnormal and immoral. Social custom and our AngloAmerican law are sometimes very severe in penalizing one who is discovered to have had homosexual relations. . . .

It is, therefore, peculiarly difficult to secure factual data concerning the nature and the extent of the homosexual in Western European or American cultures, and even more difficult to find strictly objective presentations of such data as are available. . . .

Until the extent of any type of human behavior is adequately known, it is difficult to assess its significance, either to the individuals who are involved or to society as a whole; and until the extent of the homosexual is known, it is practically impossible to understand its biologic or social origins. It is one thing if we are dealing with a type of activity that is unusual, without precedent among other animals, and restricted to peculiar types of individuals within the human population. It is another thing if the phenomenon proves to be a fundamental part, not only of human sexuality, but of mammalian patterns as a whole.

DEFINITION

For nearly a century the term homosexual in connection with human behavior has been applied to sexual relations, either overt or psychic, between individuals of the same sex. Derived from the Greek root homo rather than from the Latin word for man, the term emphasizes the sameness of the two individuals who are involved in a sexual relation. The word is, of course, patterned after and intended to represent the antithesis of the word heterosexual, which applies to a relation between individuals of different sexes. . . .

It is amazing to observe how many psychologists and psychiatrists have . . . come to believe that homosexual males and females are discretely different from persons who merely have homosexual experience, or who react sometimes to homosexual stimuli. Sometimes such an interpretation allows for only two kinds of males and two kinds of females, namely those who are heterosexual and those who are homosexual. But as subsequent data . . . will show, there is only about half of the male population whose sexual behavior is exclusively heterosexual, and there are a few percent who are exclusively homosexual. Any restriction of the term homosexuality to individuals who are exclusively so demands, logically, that the term heterosexual be applied only to those individuals who are exclusively heterosexual; and this makes no allowance for the nearly half of the population which has had sexual contacts with, or reacted psychically to, individuals of their own as well as of the opposite sex. Actually, of course, one must learn to recognize every combination of heterosexuality and homosexuality in the histories of various individuals.

It would encourage clearer thinking on these matters if persons were not characterized as heterosexual or homosexual, but as individuals who have had certain amounts of heterosexual experience and certain amounts of homosexual experience. Instead of using these terms as substantives which stand for persons, or even as adjectives to describe persons, they may better be used to describe the nature of the overt sexual relations, or of the stimuli to which an individual erotically responds.

PREVIOUS ESTIMATES OF INCIDENCE

Satisfactory incidence figures on the homosexual cannot be obtained by any technique short of a carefully planned population survey. The data should cover every segment of the total population. . . . In order to secure data that have any relation to the reality, it is imperative that the cases be derived from as careful a distribution and stratification of the sample as the public opinion polls employ, or as we have employed in the present study. . . .

INCIDENCE DATA IN PRESENT STUDY

The statistics given throughout this volume on the incidence of homosexual activity, and the statistics to be given in the present section of this chapter, are based on those persons who have had physical contacts with other males, and who were brought to orgasm as a result of such contacts. By any strict definition such contacts are homosexual, irrespective of the extent of the psychic stimulation involved, of the techniques employed, or of the relative importance of the homosexual and the heterosexual in the history of such an individual. These are not data on the number of persons who are "homosexual," but on the number of persons who have had at least some homosexual experience. . . .

In these terms (of physical contact to the point of orgasm), the data in the present study indicate that at least 37 percent of the male population has some homosexual experience between the beginning of adolescence and old age. This is more than one male in three of the persons that one may meet as he passes along a city street. Among the males who remain unmarried until the age of 35, almost exactly 50 per cent have homosexual experience between the beginning of adolescence and that age. . . . These figures are, of course, considerably higher than any which have previously been estimated. . . .

We ourselves were totally unprepared to find such incidence data when this research was originally undertaken. Over a period of several years we were repeatedly assailed with doubts as to whether we were getting a fair cross section of the total population or whether a selection of cases was biasing the results. It has been our experience, however, that each new group into which we have gone has provided substantially the same data. Whether the histories were taken in one large city or another, whether they were taken in large cities, in small towns, or in rural areas, whether they came from one college or from another, a church school or a state university or some private institution, whether they came from one part of the country or from another, the incidence data on the homosexual have been more or less the same. . . .

THE HETEROSEXUAL-HOMOSEXUAL BALANCE

Concerning patterns of sexual behavior, a great deal of the thinking done by scientists and laymen alike stems from the assumption that there are persons who are "heterosexual" and persons who are "homosexual," that these two types represent antitheses in the sexual world, and that there is only an insignificant class of "bisexuals" who occupy an intermediate position between the other groups. It is implied that every individual is innately—inherently—either heterosexual or homosexual. It is further implied that from the time of birth one is fated to be one thing or the other, and that there is little chance for one to change his pattern in the course of a lifetime.

It is quite generally believed that one’s preference for a sexual partner of one or the other sex is correlated with various physical and mental qualities, and with the total personality which makes a homosexual male or female physically, psychically, and perhaps spiritually distinct from a heterosexual individual. It is generally thought that these qualities make a homosexual person obvious and recognizable to any one who has a sufficient understanding of such matters. Even psychiatrists discuss "the homosexual personality" and many of them believe that preferences for sexual partners of a particular sex are merely secondary manifestations of something that lies much deeper in the totality of that intangible which they call the personality. . . .

The histories which have been available in the present study make it apparent that the heterosexuality or homosexuality of many individuals is not an all-or-none proposition. It is true that there are persons in the population whose histories are exclusively heterosexual, both in regard to their overt experience and in regard to their psychic reactions. And there are individuals in the population whose histories are exclusively homosexual, both in experience and in psychic reactions. But the record also shows that there is a considerable portion of the population whose members have combined, within their individual histories, both homosexual and heterosexual experience and/or psychic responses. There are some whose heterosexual experiences predominate, there are some whose homosexual experiences predominate, there are some who have had quite equal amounts of both types of experience. . . .

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex. . . .

SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS

In view of the data which we now have on the incidence and frequency of the homosexual, and in particular on its co-existence with the heterosexual in the lives of a considerable portion of the male population, it is difficult to maintain the view that psychosexual reactions between individuals of the same sex are rare and therefore abnormal or unnatural, or that they constitute within themselves evidence of neuroses or even psychoses. . . .

The very general occurrence of the homosexual in ancient Greece, and its wide occurrence today in some cultures in which such activity is not as taboo as it is in our own, suggests that the capacity of an individual to respond erotically to any sort of stimulus, whether it is provided by another person of the same or of the opposite sex, is basic in the species. That patterns of heterosexuality and patterns of homosexuality represent learned behavior which depends, to a considerable degree, upon the mores of the particular culture in which the individual is raised, is a possibility that must be thoroughly considered before there can be any acceptance of the idea that homosexuality is inherited, and that the pattern for each individual is so innately fixed that no modification of it may be expected within his lifetime. . . .

SOCIAL APPLICATIONS

. . . Social reactions to the homosexual have obviously been based on the general belief that a deviant individual is unique and as such needs special consideration. When it is recognized that the particular boy who is discovered in homosexual relations in school, the business man who is having such activity, and the institutional inmate with a homosexual record, are involved in behavior that is not fundamentally different from that had by a fourth to a third of all of the rest of the population, the activity of the single individual acquires a somewhat different social significance. . . .

The difficulty of the situation becomes still more apparent when it is realized that these generalizations concerning the incidence and frequency of homosexual activity apply in varying degrees to every social level, to persons in every occupation, and of every age in the community. The police force and court officials who attempt to enforce the sex laws, the clergymen and business men and every other group in the city which periodically calls for enforcement of the laws—particularly the laws against sexual "perversion"—have given a record of incidences and frequencies in the homosexual which are as high as those of the rest of the social level to which they belong. It is not a matter of the individual hypocrisy whichleads officials with homosexual histories to become prosecutors of the homosexual activity in the community. They themselves are the victims of the mores, and the public demand that they protect those mores. As long as there are such gaps between the traditional custom and the actual behavior of the population, such inconsistencies will continue to exist. . . .

The homosexual has been a significant part of human sexual activity ever since the dawn of history, primarily because it is an expression of capacities that are basic in the human animal.

Footnotes

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia Pa: W.B. Saunders: 1948: 610-666

Sexual Orientation: Binaries, Definitions, and Research Problems

Heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, and queer are some of words used to represent human sexual orientations. The majority of these words have been used as adjectives preceding words such as man, male, female, adolescent, student, person and so on. Their use as nouns has increased in association with the belief that homosexual individuals are more like a separate species or a distinct category in the human family. Connell (1992: 737) recognised that "[u]sing the term 'homosexuals' as a noun reified sexual object choice into a type of human being," and many others have challenged the perception of distinct entities, including Gore Vidal who has been widely quoted in this respect:

"There is no such thing as a homosexual person. There are only homosexual acts" (Martin, 1997; Bianco, 2000).

In the Foreword to The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Katz, Vidal also notes that "heterosexuality [is] a weird concept of recent origin and terrible consequences" (Vidal, 1995: vii).

To help the public better understand the concept of "sexual orientation," the American Psychological Association (APA) made available an apparently research based definition:

Sexual Orientation is an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual or affectional attraction to another person... Sexual orientation exists along a continuum that ranges from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality and includes various forms of bisexuality. Bisexual persons can experience sexual, emotional and affectional attraction to both their own sex and the opposite sex. Persons with a homosexual orientation are sometimes referred to as gay (both men and women) or as lesbian (women only). Sexual orientation is different from sexual behavior because it refers to feelings and self-concept. Persons may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors (APA, 1999).

The APA definition of sexual orientation is based on a biological sex binary that has produced the words "homosexual" for same-sex attractions, "heterosexual" for opposite sex attractions, and "bisexual" for varying degrees of attractions to either sex. As a rule, however, sexual orientation has been perceived in the traditional form of the "binary." One was to be either homosexual or heterosexual, and all individuals claiming to have a bisexual orientation were invalidated and even abused. An increasing number of professionals are challenging this perception on the basis of observations that led Glorianne Leck, for example, to conclude: "It is obvious that categories of homosexual and heterosexual create false binaries and therefore give us inadequate information and impression" (Leck, 2000: 332; Note 1). Concerning this issue, Gore Vidal noted that once "heterosexuality" was invented,

"there had to be another word to denote the opposite, and thus 'homosexuality' was invented and Katz now shows how the words got frozen into their present usage. Good term: hetero. Bad term: homo. Straight versus gay. Either one or the other; no Mr. In-Between. The division has led to endless trouble for many men and women…" (Vidal, 1995: ix)

The binary basis of sexual orientation has meant that an individual was to be either heterosexual (often meaning "normal") or homosexual (meaning "abnormal"), with bisexuality being ignored, condemned or considered a disguise because it apparently should not exist (Note 2). By the 1980s, this binary view of human sexuality was dominant as illustrated in the title of Schneider and Tremble’s paper "Gay or straight? Working with confused adolescents" (1985-6). Placing oneself in either the gay or straight categories had acceptance and non-acceptance consequences. Those who supported the binary classification system had a history of defining homosexual individuals as "mentally disordered" in accordance with diagnostic schemes of organisations such as The American Psychiatric Association and The American Psychological Association. The removal of this politically motivated "mental disorder" label occurred in 1973-4 after protests from those who perceived themselves to be defined and targeted for abuse by these organisations of mental health professionals. Many self-identified homosexual individuals did not agree with the "mental disorder" attribute, and neither did a significant number of professionals (Bayer, 1981).

Key words used in the sexual orientation definition do not have a long history (Michel Foucault, 1976) and this fact is strongly re-emphasised by Katz (1995) in The Invention of Heterosexuality and in his 2001 book Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality. The words "homosexual" and "heterosexual" were invented at the end of the 19th century and all aspects of many aspects of 'heterosexuality' were deemed abnormal until the 1930s. In the PBS Frontline documentary, "Assault on Gays in America," in a section titled "Who’s Gay? Who's Straight? Viewing Homosexuality and Heterosexuality in the Context of Culture and History, Jonathan Katz (1995) is quoted (without the original references) as follows in a subsection:

"The discourse on heterosexuality had a protracted coming out, not completed in American popular culture until the 1920s. Only slowly was heterosexuality established as a stable sign of normal sex. The association of heterosexuality with perversion continued as well into the twentieth century...

Neither had heterosexuality yet attained the status of normal. In 1901, Dorland's Medical Dictionary, published in Philadelphia, continued to define 'Heterosexuality' as 'Abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex.' Dorland's heterosexuality, a new 'appetite,' was clearly identified with an 'opposite sex' hunger. But that craving was still aberrant. Dorland's calling heterosexuality 'abnormal or perverted' is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary's first Supplement (1933), a 'misapplied' definition. But contrary to the OED, Dorland's is a perfectly legitimate understanding of heterosexuality according to a procreative norm…

The twentieth century witnessed the decreasing legitimacy of that procreative imperative, and the increasing public acceptance of a new hetero pleasure principle. Gradually, heterosexuality came to refer to a normal other-sex sensuality free of any essential tie to procreation. But only in the mid- 1960s would heteroeroticism be distinguished completely from reproduction, and male-female pleasure sex justified for itself. ...

For in 1923 Webster's defined 'heterosexuality' as a 'Med.' term meaning 'morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex.' Only in 1934 does 'heterosexuality' first appear in Webster's hefty Second Edition Unabridged defined in what is still the dominant modern mode. There, heterosexuality is finally a 'manifestation of sexual passion for one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality.' Heterosexuality had finally attained the status of norm."

Bisexuality is currently often spoken about in terms of "bisexualities," but the same is not true in recognising a spectrum of sexualities called "homosexuality" or "heterosexuality." The APA definition recognises bisexualities, but to be consistent, the words "homosexualities" (Bell and Weinberg, 1978), "heterosexualities," and "asexualities" should also be used to designate the diversity of sexualities that have existed in human cultures throughout history (Dorais, 1994: 135; Note 2). In addition, Dorais warned against potentially serious problems stemming from the present definition of "sexual orientation" and the varied operational definitions of homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual that are generally used to apparently "advance" the understanding of "sexual orientations." These definition problems pose serious challenges in the selection of study samples by researchers wanting to investigate genetic associations in homosexuality. To conduct research with the current definition problems, according to Dorais, would likely result in the production of "a bad piece of science fiction" (Dorais, 1994: 146). Others have articulated similar views (Dowsett,1998; Muscarella, 2000; Gallo and Robinson, 2000; Terry, 2000; Brookey, 2000; Wilson, 2001) and warnings have been issued to anthropologists about the great dangers of applying current "sexual orientation" perceptions when seeking to understand men in ancient Greece and Rome, and in other more contemporary cultures. The paper, "The myth of the heterosexual: anthropology and sexuality for classicists," begins with:

"This is not an article on ancient sexuality. It s an article on how to think about ancient sexuality. In particular, it is an article on the widely differing systems that cultures throughout time and the world have used to classify people and their sexual acts. Our own particular system divides people into two major classes on the basis of whether they have sex with others of the same sex or not (heterosexual versus homosexual). This is a surprisingly rare system anywhere in the world and a comparatively recent development in the west (1). The system shared by the Ancient Greeks and Romans was quite different and divided acts and people on the axis of active versus passive (2). Similar ways of categorizing sex are much more widely spread, both historically and anthropologically, but this system, too, is only one of the many patterns to be found (3)" (Parker, 2001: 313-4).

Notes: 1: "Foucault 1985, Greenberg 1988, Halperin 1990; McWhirter, Sanders, and Reinisch 1990. J Katz 1995 is especially refreshing." - 2: "For some overviews, see Housman 1931, 408 n.1 (= 1972.1180 n. 2); Dover 1973, esp. 148-49, 1978, 16, 168-70; Richlin 1992, esp. 131-39 (contra Richlin 1993, see n. 24 below), Veyne 1985, 29-30; Foucault 1985.46, 84-86, 210-11; Wiseman 1985.10-13; Halperin 1990, 1996; Winkler 1990, Parker 1996, 1997; Walters 1997; C.A. Williams 1999.18. Even Boswell: 'This 'penetration code' …was clearly not related to a dichotomy of sexual preferences, but to issues of power, dominance and submission' (1990.72)." - 3: "The overviews of the classical Arabic active/passive system by Schmitt 1995: 15-16 and Rowson 1991 are particularly useful in showing the close parallels to and interesting differences from Greek and Roman sexuality" (Parker, 2001: 314).

Holt Parker's paper ends with a piece of wisdom for all seeking to understand human sexualities cross-culturally, and historically as based on the information now available on the subject:

"Our division of hetero versus homo then, however vital to our society, to our visions of ourselves, is a parochial affair. To return to the linguistic model, if we impose our [sexual orientation] categories on another culture, we are making a crude mistake. When it come to 'talking sex,' we are at best speaking with an atrocious accent. At worst, we are speaking incomprehensible gibberish" (348)

A major problem in all sexual orientation research and genetics research in particular is related to specifics in the "definition of homosexuality" that also has been problematic in many fields of study, including psychology as noted by Madson (2001: 12-13), when teaching about the history of human sexuality as reported on by Pete Segal (2002), and for all who have been attempting to speak about same-sex sexual behaviours in South Asia (Khan, 1995, 1999, 2000, 2001). For example, in some animal research, male animals are defined to be homosexual only if they accept to be mounted by another male, this being the female behaviour required for insemination. In sheep research, however, the homosexual label has been given only to the rams seeking to mounts other rams (Terry, 2000: 179). In human research, Billings highlighted the "definition" problem in an informed evaluation of the methodological problems associated with various types of genetic research seeking to explain homosexuality in humans:

"[Although] traditionally genetics has been most successful in explaining dichotomous traits, sexual orientation is a continuous characteristic of human populations. Males and females can be defined as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual or otherwise. The range of behaviours within any two groups created for research purposes will either reflect selection (and thus not be representative), or will overlap substantially... Thus, it may be impossible to conduct research on homosexuality using genetic methods, or to genetically analyze any human characteristic, when the studied traits cannot be reliably ascertained in a large number of individuals, across a broad range of environments" (Billings, 1993: 36).

Given the highly problematic situation associated with the definition of human sexualities, as well as other problems, Billings' conclusion was prophetic and timely related to the highly publicised results of finding the elusive "gay gene" supposedly located in the X-linked DNA segment (Hamer et al., 1993). He predicted that "this site will likely be eliminated as the location for the 'gay gene' by further experimentation, conducted on different subjects, by other interested researchers" (Billings, 1993: 37). Within two years, support for his prediction was reported by Canadian researchers (Rice et al. 1995; Finn 1996) at the same time that the Hamer team published a second study apparently replicating earlier results (Hu et al., 1995). The Canadian study was finally published (Rice et al., 1999) with considerable media coverage given to the results negating the "X-linked DNA segment" hypothesis. The research carried out by McKnight and Malcolm (2000) has also challenged the results of the Hamer research group:

"At this preliminary stage we have not found support for Hamer's suggestion that a gene on the X chromosome is associated with having more gay male relatives in your immediate family, or more likely to be on your mother's side… We have found a strong effect for gross reproductive rates and given the excess of aunts in the gay sample, and in the straight sample who have a gay relative, this argues that what we are seeing is most probably a maternal line fecundity effect rather that maternal-line homosexuality effect" (p. 237).

Concurrent with the research for a gay gene, considerable attention was given to the negative implications for the postulated "gay gene" that many gay-identified males believed to exist (Chamberlain, 1999). Over the years, comments such as "I have been gay ever since I can remember" have been endlessly stated to justify "essential" thinking. Yet, I have also been French Canadian "ever since I can remember" and none of it is biological, except for having a biological system that made the acquisition of my cultural attributes possible, including the French language. By 1999, however, papers were still being published (e.g. Rahman, 1999) that emphasised the apparently considerable evidence that gay males were biologically more like females, all based on unreplicated research results, and continued reference to Hamer’s results as a good explanation for this phenomenon. No one has noted, however, that if some males are more like females biologically, would this not imply that two such males in a relationship would be genetically quite similar and therefore be more like a third sex? The implications here would be that they are not homosexual given the male-male / female-female definition of homosexuality, unless the definition was expanded to now include a shemale/shemale definition. Furthermore, given their similarity, it is also possible that such relationships may not work if the Bem (1996) theory, "Exotic becomes erotic: a developmental theory of sexual orientation," is correct. That is, we are sexually attracted to the ones "perceived" to be different from oneself. In the paper, "Exotic Becomes Erotic: Interpreting the Biological Correlates of Sexual Orientation," Bem presents an interpretation that challenges the genetic underpinning for one's sexual orientation.

"According to the theory, biological variables such as genes or prenatal hormones do not code for sexual orientation per se but for childhood temperaments, such as aggression and activity level" (Bem, 2000)

There are many problems with genetic research on male homosexuality, and especially the aspect of this research that commonly report that parts of homosexual male brains are more like the corresponding parts in female brains, with Brookey (2002) noting that "most biological research begins with the assumption that male homosexuality is a state of physical effeminate pathology." Rarely mentioned in association with such conclusions are the results of the research that has sought to credibly identify differences between the brains of males and females:

"But the anatomical work [on male homosexuality] has come under heavy criticism by William Byrne, director of the neuroanatomy laboratory of neuropsychiatric disease at New York's Mount Sinai Medical Center. 'A general problem with this work is that there have been dozens and dozens of reports of sex differences in the human brain since the middle of the last century. But not a single one of these has been corroborated, except for the one that men tend to have slightly larger brains than women'" (Finn, 1996).

Another significant problem in the gay gene debate is related to the current world view that "100% heterosexuality" is the majority "sexual orientation" given the evidence of exceptionally common manifestations of bisexuality in the Ancient World (Cantarella, 1992). The Ancient Greek practice of pederasty is of special significance given that all boys, in a certain social class, were expected to have loving relationships with older males who also enjoyed more than "sexual" relationships with their boys. However, some commentators have suggested otherwise, indicating that the boys may not have enjoyed any aspect of these relationships. "In the case of classical Greek practice there is a strong current of scholarship which sees the same-sex relations as pretty well universal in the male population, but limited in time and context: the relic of an initiation rite. (One detects a sense that being an initiation rite somehow makes homosexuality acceptable - boys will be boys, and moreover, they'll get over it!)" (Thorp, 1992, p. 59).

This highlighted thought was nonetheless contradicted by Thorp's citations indicating that, as a rule, love without a hint of abuse was a major attribute in these relationships. The Sacred Band of Thebes illustrates this fact (Carpenter, 1917) and also challenges the idea that these highly venerated "love" relationships were just an initiation rite, or maybe a form of child sexual abuse (Note 3). These pairs of lovers went into battle together and thereby negates the often assumed highly vulnerable and naïve nature of these boys. They were not the equivalent of the modern "feminine" (fragile) stereotypical gay male (containing some truth) reflecting the 20th century professional and social belief that homosexual males are inverts, meaning "like women" (Ellis, 1906; Hekma, 1994). This perception, often propagated at the end of the nineteenth century by influential effeminate homosexual males such as Magnus Hirschfeld and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (Hekma, 1994), became the dominant belief in the American military by the early 1940s (Purkiss, 1997). The inversion theory continued to be taught well into the 1960s as the title of Judd Marmor's 1965 book indicates: Sexual Inversion: The Multiple Roots of Homosexuality.

Thorp argued that, in addition to the universal expression of male homosexuality in the form of pederasty in Ancient Greece, there were apparently some males who preferred other males all their lives, and they were perceived to have accepted a role "analog[ous] with the role of women in copulation" (p. 61). Given their description, it is possible that these men were similar to present-day transsexual males and, if this applies given the rarity of these males, they should probably not be called "homosexual." Later, I will address this common perceptual link between modern homosexual males (males sexually attracted to other males) and males having a high degree of femininity, but an important realisation must be made at this point. On the basis of the Ancient Greece fact of life for male citizens, it is apparent that human males have the potential to not only greatly enjoy same-sex sexual activity, but they may also experience great love for another male in association with their sexual attractions.

Some individuals today also appear to have acquired this knowledge as implied in a report on some individuals by Kenji Yoshino, the author of the paper, "The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure" (Note 2):

"Some people have this really utopian vision of bisexuality: Twenty years from now, we're all just going to wake up and realize that we're all bisexual" (Bass, 1999).

The words "bisexual" and "bisexuality," however, embody the belief that there are only two sexes, but this is not quite true. Given the reality of intersexed people and that five sexes have been proposed (Fausto-Sterling, 1993, 2000, 2000a), problems with current definitions for "sexual orientation" are evident, compounded also by some human realities related to sexual attraction as noted by Kessler (1998) and quoted by Fausto-Sterling (2000):

"The limitation with Fausto-Sterling's [1993] proposal is that ... [it] still gives genitals ... primary signifying status and ignores the fact that in the everyday world gender attributions are made without access to genital inspection.... What has primacy in everyday life is the gender that is performed, regardless of the flesh's configuration under the clothes."

Fausto-Sterling then states: "I now agree with Kessler's assessment. It would be better for intersexuals and their supporters to turn everyone's focus away from genitals. Instead, as she suggests, one should acknowledge that people come in an even wider assortment of sexual identities and characteristics than mere genitals can distinguish." Unfortunately, a word is not yet available to designate individuals who would be sexually attracted to other humans whether they are deemed to be male, female, or intersexed. It would appear, however, that the average ancient Greek and Roman males did have such a sexual orientation, even though socially imposed behavioural restrictions applied. 
 

NOTES 
 

Note 1

All binaries have increasingly been questioned as illustrated by Englert (1995) quoting Robyn Wiegman, a co-editor of the 1995 book, Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity: "Wiegman points out. The current concepts of heterosexuality/homosexuality, black/white, male/female, are artificial binaries: 'The more you think about this, the more you realize that these binaries cannot hold up. The actual multiplicity and variety of humans on the planet is absolutely non-binary, yet we're so wed to the binary concept and it scares us to think otherwise…" Challenges to the binary concepts have been reflected in titles of books such as Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history (Herdt, 1994) andBeyond Gay or Straight: Understanding sexual orientation (Clausen, 1996), and in essays such as The five sexes: why male and female are not enoughThe five sexes, revisited (Fausto-Sterling, 2000). In a study of working class males from the Australian city of Nullangardie, Dowsett (1994) not only placed current concepts of sexual orientation in question on the basis of the evidence, he also stated "the usefulness of the now-classical concepts of sexual identity and gender identity will be questioned as being too narrow and locked into questionable binary oppositions" (p. 11). In Bangladesh and India, Khan (2000) emphasised that "[c]ontemporary research on sexuality and gender have clearly shown that bipolar categories, such as man or woman as gender categories, and heterosexual or homosexual as sexual categories, are "not useful to describe the range of identities, desires and practices" (personal discussion with Carol Jenkins, Care Bangladesh, 1999) existing in South Asia. The terms "gay" or "homosexual" are also too constricted by a specific history, geography, language and culture to have any significant usefulness in a different culture from their source. In this we should be talking about sexualities, genders, and at the least, homosexualities and heterosexualites." 
  (Fausto-Sterling, 1993) and

Note 2

Tremblay (1998) summarised the status of bisexuality in the research world by stating that, even though Kinsey's 1948 research indicated significant bisexuality in males, it was only as the result of AIDS-related research that the concept began to surface again in discourses by researchers. "Essentially, sexual orientation has been presented as a homosexual/heterosexual dichotomy, with nothing in between. For too long bisexuality has been perceived as a transition and, by definition, unstable, linked to adolescence, to the absence of a female partner (as in the case of prisoners), or to economic reasons (as with prostitutes)." (Translated by Pierre Tremblay.) This rejection of bisexuality was also highlighted in an analysis of papers published in 17 family therapy journals from 1975 to 1995. The study reported that only .006% of the articles (n = 77) focused on homosexuality issues, and that "only two [of these] studies included bisexuals, indicating a dearth of knowledge in this area" (Clark et al., 1997: 248), with a corresponding absence of "bisexuality" from the consciousness of family therapists. This fact was witnessed in 1994 when I attended a meeting of professionals concerned about homosexually oriented youth and their problems. Calgary's leading expert on "homosexual orientation" issues (a family therapist of high stature who headed the list for related referrals by my family doctor) reported that, in his practice, bisexuality was responded to as a non-existent entity. One's clients were to be either homosexual or heterosexual and 'therapy' would proceed accordingly so that the results, even if some clients were being harmed, would not be in conflict with the therapist's beliefs about the binary nature of sexual orientation. Some of these problems have begun to be addressed in papers such as "Working With the Bisexual Client: How Far Have We Progressed?" by Hayes (2001).

In gay and lesbian communities, the general response to bisexual individuals has been to negate their existence because they were perceived to challenge the belief that only heterosexual and homosexual people existed. Tisdale (1998) writes: "Many gay activists see any talk of bisexuality as diluting the coherence of the community, particularly damaging in a time of attack... Others simply don't believe in bisexuality, seeing through the lens of their own difficult coming-out experience... Bisexuals hear the same things from straights and gays, friends, lovers and perfect strangers: You can't be both. You can't be neither. You just haven't faced the truth. You're secretly wishing for A or B. Insert gay, insert straight, and it comes out the same - something essential is denied." Button (1998) reports similar experiences: "As a bisexual woman... I have been called a fence-sitter, disease-carrier, AC/DC, confused, etc. by gay and lesbian communities."

Bowers (2000) describes his experiences in the San Francisco gay and lesbian community: "GAY INTOLERANCE. Sound contradictory? It's not. And I'm not talking about so-called heterophobia, the mainstream's latest claim to victimhood. I'm talking about real prejudice from parts of the gay and lesbian establishment, right here in the Sexual Mecca. Even more surprising? It’s aimed at another queer population: bisexuals. About two years ago, I came out as bisexual. I anticipated many hurdles, but I could never have predicted this one… Biphobia creates ugly stereotypes: We're confused. It's just a phase. We're harbingers of disease. We're really gay, but we're in denial. We're really straight, but we want to experiment. We can't be trusted, because we'll desert same-sex partners for 'heterosexual privilege.' It's telling that these bisexual 'facts' don't come from bisexuals. Reminds me of Jerry Falwell or Anita Bryant telling gay men and lesbians the 'right' way to live." Concerning such widespread abuses of others, Glorianne Leck wrote: "It is my intention in this writing to show that homosexual and heterosexual (i.e., gay and straight) is a limited classification that, although indicating that there are sexual diversities, has also led to an oversimplified misunderstanding of sexual social oppression and sexual confusion. Those confusions are clearly destructive for those individuals who are caught up in the politicization, the oversimplification, and the embedded misunderstandings about adolescent sexualities" (Leck, 2000: 332).

The situation for bisexual individuals is summarised by McLean (2001) in an Australian study of bisexual youth and their problems: " Traditionally, Western society has divided sexuality into two categories-homosexual and heterosexual. This binary insists that heterosexuality and homosexuality are mutually exclusive categories, and supports the belief that anyone whose sexual identity falls outside of these categories is psychologically maladjusted, confused about their sexuality, or unwilling to commit to one sexual identity category or the other. Dominant public discourses endorse heterosexuality and homosexuality as legitimate sexual identities, but do not recognise that some people are neither exclusively heterosexual nor exclusively homosexual… [Bisexuality] is understood as a number of stereotypes, images of the bisexual as promiscuous, needing multiple relationships in order to feel satisfied, untrustworthy in relationships, or as 'fence-sitters, traitors, cop-outs, closet cases,' reinforce the legitimacy of the heterosexual/homosexual binary and ensure the difficulty of publicly identifying as bisexual… The awareness that bisexuality was not recognised as a legitimate sexual identity was exhibited by the young bisexual people interviewed in two ways; in their persistent need for secrecy about their bisexual identity, and in their perceived discrimination for being bisexual from both the straight world and the gay and lesbian community… Many of the young bisexual people I interviewed said they felt pressure to not identify as bisexual, but to lie and pretend to be heterosexual, and sometimes as gay or lesbian."

In an interview, Kenji Yoshino, the author of "The Epistemic Contract of Bisexual Erasure" published in the Stanford Law Review (Yoshino, 2000), summed up the situation for bisexual individuals: "Advocate: It's a conspiracy. Yoshino: Yeah. My theory is that both gays and straights have agreed that, no matter what else they disagree on - they disagree on a lot - they'll both agree about this one thing, which is that bisexuals don't exist. Because they have different but overlapping interests in erasure. If the realm of bisexual possibility exists, it becomes impossible to actually prove that you're straight or you're gay. If you're straight in a world where bisexuality doesn't exist, then you can prove you're straight simply by adducing cross-sex desire: like, 'I have a wife, I have a girlfriend' - if you're a man - kind of thing. Right? Whereas, once you introduce a bisexual possibility, the fact that you have cross-sex desire does not [prove] that you don't have same-sex desire. Given that same-sex desire is stigmatized, people who want to identify as straight are going to have a lot invested in making sure that they can prove that they're straight. Because otherwise they'll lose heterosexual privilege... One of the things that both straights and gays, according to their own accounts, feel [is] threatening about bisexuals is that bisexuals are seen to be gender-blind" (Bass, 1999).

The elimination of bisexuality began in the professional world with individuals such as Sandor Rado (1940). He was quoted in the following way: "...biologically speaking, 'there is no such thing as bisexuality either in man or in any other either vertebrate,' except for developmental disturbances that are clearly recognizable as 'inconsistencies of sex differentiation' (p. 464)" (Quoted by Marmor, 1981: 14) Many in gay communities and professional worlds bought into a generalised view of this ideology (written to invalidate Freud's belief in an innate human bisexual nature), to the point that bisexuality was widely given a non-existent status by the 1980s and 1990s. As a result, there were great abuses by gay and lesbian identified individual (and professionals with similar beliefs, including therapists) of individuals daring to assert that their sexual attractions included both sexes.

Individuals who are well versed on issues related to sexual orientation as represented by the Kinsey (1948) 7-point "homosexual to heterosexual" scales for behaviour and fantasy, Klein's sexual orientation scale or grid (Weinrich et al., 1993; Keppel and Hamilton, 1998), and especially contemporary and historical cross-cultural anthropological knowledge of human sexualities (Carrier, 1981; Murray et al., 1992; Werner, 1998; Murray and Roscoe, 1998; Halperin, 2000) are likely to begin acquiring perceptions similar to the one presented by Peter Voeller (1997). After attending comprehensive lectures on sexual orientation given by Lois McDermott, Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Voeller summarised the thoughts he took from the lectures. "The idea of sexualities and the fluidity of human sexual experience, shown by her figure of a total of as many as 400 homosexualities, heterosexualities, and bisexualities. This theory has unfolded in order to capture not only the well-established and clear-cut distinctions like gay and straight, but also newer distinctions, like transsexuality and transvestism, in order to distinguish more of the variety within the broader rubric of sexual orientation." 
 

Note 3

Enid Bloch (2001), in his paper's "Sex between men and boys in Classical Greece: was it education for citizenship or child abuse" generally used suppositions, as oppose to evidence, to propose that all the Ancient Greek men involved with pederasty were child sex abusers. His major focus was on Athens, noting here that the institution of pederasty varied in Ancient Greek city-states (Murray, 2000: 34-42, 99-110). Block therefore uses Socrates words as made available by Plato in Phaedrus: "Eros is 'inspired madness,' it is 'the greatest of heaven's blessings,' and the soul possessed of it flied heavenward… Most significant, not just the man, but also the boy has erotic feelings. ' His desire is as the desire of the other, but weaker.' Socrates claims. The boy wants to use and touch and kiss his lover and go to bed with him. He is 'burning with passion which he understands not,' and in that state he can refuse his love nothing. If the lover is a virtuous man, and self-control and philosophy prevails, together the souls of man and boys can reach Olympian heights" (192). Although Block attempts to turn such a description into a 'child sexual abuse' situation, or more like into a sex abuse possibility, Phaedrus was written in a world where the men involved with adolescent males had, themselves, once been in the boy's situation. Therefore, they would know best (or much better than Block or ourselves) what they had felt as boys in a love relationship with an older male, and later as young men who would then have the welfare and education of boy entrusted to them. These facts also greatly inform us about the concept of "sexual orientation," given that most males can grow up to greatly enjoy relating sexually with another male (with associated strong love responses) in one society, and that most males in North America now grow up to be quite different generally. This knowledge almost precludes the conclusion that same-sex desires, or even opposite sex desires, including related love responses, are innate in nature. That is, this knowledge makes suspect all claims that same-sex desires are related to genetic anomalies, or even to the effects of hormones on male/female human development, including the proposition that same-sex desires are associated with males who have female-like brain parts as some genetic researchers have proposed. 

The socialization of homosexuality and heterosexuality in a non-Western society

Journal	Archives of Sexual Behavior
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
ISSN	0004-0002 (Print) 1573-2800 (Online)
Issue	Volume 18, Number 1 / February, 1989
DOI	10.1007/BF01579288
Pages	13-29
Subject Collection	Behavioral Science
SpringerLink Date	Monday, May 16, 2005

John D. Baldwin¹ and Janice I. Baldwin¹

(1)	Department of Sociology, University of California, 93106 Santa Barbara, California, USA

Abstract  Data on the Sambia—a tribe living in Papua New Guinea—are presented to demonstrate how Sambia males develop a homosexual orientation in boyhood and adolescence, then switch to become heterosexuals in adulthood. Social learning theory is used to explain how sexual orientation in the Sambia change from homo- to heterosexual during the transition to adulthood. Whereas most learning analyses of sexual orientation are based on data from Western cultures, this manuscript extends that literature to deal with a non-Western culture. While including Pavlovian and operant conditioning, which is stressed in many learning analyses of sexual learning, the present analysis also includes detail on the social and cognitive learning principles that are important in understanding the learning of sexual orientation and behavior.

Key words  homosexuality - bisexuality - heterosexuality - learning theory - non-Western culture

Note from Reclaiming Natural Manhood site: 

The only problem with this paper is their assumption that the men become exclusively heterosexual after marriage. The Western 'experts' can't help expolating their values on the non-western subjects, often forcefully and without any evidences.

How Bonds between Men Shape Their Sexual Relations with Women

This version was published on April 1, 2008
Men and Masculinities, Vol. 10, No. 3, 339-359 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1097184X06287761

Men, Sex, and Homosociality

How Bonds between Men Shape Their Sexual Relations with Women

Michael Flood

Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University

Male-male social bonds have a powerful influence on the sexual relations of some young heterosexual men. Qualitative analysis among young men aged eighteen to twenty-six in Canberra, Australia, documents the homosocial organization of men's heterosexual relations. Homosociality organizes men's sociosexual relations in at least four ways. For some of these young men, male-male friendships take priority over male-female relations, and platonicfriendships with women are dangerously feminizing. Sexual activity is a key path to masculine status, and other men are the audience, always imagined and sometimes real, for one's sexual activities. Heterosexual sex itself can be the medium through which male bonding is enacted. Last, men's sexual storytelling is shaped by homosocial masculine cultures. While these patterns were evident particularly among young men in the highly homosocial culture of a military academy, their presence also among other groups suggests the wider influence of homosociality on men'ssexual and social relations.

Narrating Masculinity: Gender, Identity Work, and Heterosexual Male Sex Stories

Authors: Kelly, Brian.

[Working Draft – Conference Paper Format, 2007 ASA Annual Meeting] Brian C Kelly, PhD Purdue University, Dept of Sociology & Anthropology Keywords: masculinity, sex, young men 1

Introduction:

Gender and sexuality have been shown to be linked in profound ways. In their negotiation of everyday life, men and women act out sexual scripts in their expressions of erotic desire and engage in certain sexual behaviors shaped by culturally prescribed conceptions about masculinity and femininity (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). Conceptions of masculinity circulate within society such that they create normative expectations of behavior for both men and women (Deaux, 1984). These expectations profoundly influence sexual interactions and often operate in such a hegemonic fashion that people often unknowingly conform to dominant norms. Research suggests that men are even more likely to conform to social pressures around masculinity than women are to femininity norms (Martin, 1995). Yet, men are not simply passive victims of this process. They actively construct and reproduce norms of masculinity in ways that display and enact their conceptions of gender and sexuality. This occurs in the context of our social relationships, as gender is produced and reproduced within the confines of everyday social transactions. Yet, although men may conceptualize a similar idealized masculinity, they deploy or enact masculinity in different ways (Connell, 1995). I set out to explore the ways in which men deploy these masculinities in the course of discussing their sexual lives. To situate this exploration within a theoretical framework, I draw upon the sociological concept of “identity work.” Within every social encounter, individuals subtly assert elements of their identity (Goffman, 1959). Identity work refers to a “range of activities individuals engage in to create, present, & sustain personal identities”, both Narrating Masculinity as individuals and as parts of collectivities (Snow & Anderson, 1987; Einwohner, 2006). In other words, identity work refers to the practices that construct & negotiate identity while nested within a social context. Individuals may engage in a variety of forms of identity work through their actions, habits, posture, and talk (Snow & Anderson, 1987). It is this discursive identity work that I explore among young men. Identity work becomes a means by which men “do gender” (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Through it, gender is produced and reproduced in our social relationships in dynamic and dialectic fashion. Thus, men will deploy masculinity in some contexts but not others (Connell, 1995). In this case, the discursive identity work entails masculinity assertions of gender identity within the context of discussing sexual experiences. I look at how these young men use discursive identity work to harmonize their social roles, identities, and self-concept within the context of describing their recent sexual experiences. In the ensuing paper, I explore how men construct various forms of masculinity and how these enactments of gender inform sexual interactions with female partners, conceptions of intimacy, and sexual behaviors. In particular, this paper provides an analysis of how idealized masculinity is expressed via sexual narratives. Methods A diverse sample of young heterosexual men completed qualitative in-depth interviews with trained staff as part of the Club Drugs and Health project – a study designed to examine a range of health issues among 400 young adults (ages 18-29) who participate in club subcultures. Each of the subjects enrolled in the project participated in a qualitative interview at baseline and then+ once every four months for a one year period. Baseline interview transcripts were coded and analyzed to further understand conceptions of masculinity among heterosexual men and how it relates to male sexual activity. Qualitative interviews were conducted using Critical Incident Measures to elicit sexual narratives. These qualitative narratives described recent sexual encounters – consisting of narratives relating both sober sexual activity and sexual activity under the influence of alcohol and/or club drugs – and were analyzed for assertions of masculinity within the language used in discussing sexuality, the concordance/discordance of behavior and identity, and reasons for engaging or not engaging in certain sexual activities. Emphasis was placed on how men describe their sexual encounters with women in narrative form. Prior to discussing to the qualitative data I want to discuss the interview context as a social transaction. After coding the data for masculinity assertions, I began to think about my use of the framework of identity work. Since each interview can be thought of as a social transaction, I began to think about the interview context as a determinant of identity work. Given the contestation of gender norms within same-gender circumstances, I hypothesized that the subjects would make more masculinity assertions in the presence of other men. I took the coded data and categorized the interviews into 3 categories: no masculinity assertions, lone masculinity assertion, and multiple masculinity assertions. I dropped the lone masculinity assertions out of the analysis because it was a 50/50 split between interviewer gender. As shown in Table 1, the instances of multiple masculinity assertions were significantly more likely to be concentrated in the interviews conducted by male staff. Results The first element of masculinity assertions that I’d like to highlight revolve around assertions of sexual identity. When starting off the sexuality component of the in- depth interview, we asked everyone their general feelings about their sexuality. Many men were quick to assert their heterosexual identity despite that the question did not relate to sexual identity. For instance, a typical question by an interviewer was, “Can you tell me generally how you feel about your sexuality?” Amongst other things their responses included, “Um… I’m straight.”, “Completely straight. I like girls a lot.” and, “How do I feel about it? … I’m straight and I really don’t think about it too much.” These men asserted their masculinity through adhering to dominant heteronormative prescriptions for making it clear that they are not gay. Discussions of male and female wiring became a means for constructing masculinity by drawing clear distinctions between themselves and their feminine counterparts. Men, themselves included, are discussed as sexual animals with appetites, whereas women operate differently in both desire and function. For instance a young man said, “Everything makes me want sex. I’m a guy. C’mon, guys think about sex every 6 seconds.” Another echoed these sentiments saying, “Isn’t that the typical modus operandi for anything with a Y chromosome?” Another young man contrasted male and female sexuality saying, “It’s not that hard to get a guy off. Insert, somewhere preferably moist, repeat. To get a girl off is a fuckin’ art form.” It is well known that men in many societies consider it normative for men to be the active partner in the sexual interaction. But the ways in which men construct this activity can serve to further assert their masculinity. Besides simply characterizing their active role in the sexual interaction, some men draw upon imagery of a machine to further assert a masculine identity. One exchange between the interviewer and respondent was: I: What kind of sex did you have that night? R: “Jackhammer sex. I pounded the hell out of her.” Another young man said, “I’m there for one purpose only and that’s to get off. So, if I’ve got to pound the hell out of her or flip her upside down, I’ll do what I have to do to get the mission done.” Another described a sexual experience in a club and said, “So, I bent her over the fuckin’ sink. It’s plowing time.” The young man providing this first quote likens himself to a jackhammer. Men often discussed “plowing,” “pounding,” or “banging” women. Such mechanical assertions served to further deploy their masculine identities. The discussion of a lack of male expressivity or emotion may further serve as a means to construct masculinity. “I’ve had girlfriends who like it when I talk dirty, but I could never keep it up for more than a couple of sentences because I lose my train of thought. I don’t want to talk. If I wanted to talk to you, I wouldn’t have sex with you. I’d sit down and talk to you. The reason I’m having sex with you is because I don’t want to talk, I want to have sex. If I wanted to have a conversation, I’d go down to Starbucks and get a cup of coffee.” In this quote, this young man discusses a disinterest in talking during sex. This coheres with the stereotypic conception of the male as disinterested in communication and concerned with physicality. This focus on physicality is at the core of this man’s masculinity assertion. He ultimately mentions that if he wanted conversation, he’d go down to the Starbucks and get a cup of coffee. Also related to the active nature of men however is their ambivalence towards performing oral sex. Some of this indirectly relates to how men construct their masculinity through a desire to perform with their penis. Some viewed oral sex as unnecessary or others as dirty, sloppy, and gross. The following exchange was but one example: I: “Did you give your girl some oral action too?” R: “Yeah, I definitely hooked it up. I put on my bib and went to work.” Another young man said, “I tell you, some guys say they like it, but they’re lying. They only do it because…” And another admitted to an oral sex double-standard among men. “It’s just that it kind off grosses me out, but I don’t mind them doing it to me.” The first man refers to putting on his bib, which draws in imagery of messiness and creating a barrier between himself and this messiness. Other men simply refuse stating that it is “gross”, yet of course they do not mind receiving oral sex themselves. This is fundamentally about an expression of power and male privilege. Further related to the issue of gendered power relations and male privilege is that many men assert their masculinity through the objectification of women. We came across the use of the word “slam whore,” which is likened to a “fuck buddy” – a woman who will have sex with a man without the “hassle” of a relationship – yet the image of a slam whore evokes a sense of domination. Other men objectify by merely treating their sexual partners as objects for their own pleasure. “I was happy ‘cause if she wasn’t here, I would have been smackin’ it to some friggin’ magazines. So, I was glad it was a person.” Another young man said, “You just want a girl in the club if you’re piss drunk. You might not care about condoms. I don’t know this girl, throw a bag on her head, you know?” Some men are simply glad they had a woman, regardless of who it was, suggesting a detached sex of intimacy and raw sexual physicality. Objectification continued with men discussing women as sexual conquests, such as saying “I was like, ‘Wow, I did that? Great!” “That” being a woman and not even dignifying her with the appropriate pronoun. Other forms of objectification came with referring to women as bitches, whores, or simply pussy. The following exchange was typical: R: Well, once I had sex with two whores, so I don’t know. I: Once you had sex with two horses? R: (laughs) No, I mean two bitches. Another young man succinctly stated, “All I can think about is pussy when I’m drunk.” In this respect, men constructed their masculinity through a portrayal of women serving the function of fulfilling male needs. Distancing is a classic form of discursive identity work. Distancing from sexual dysfunction was a concern for many men given that dysfunction is perceived to be in direct conflict with their masculine identities. These issues of dysfunction were particularly germane within the context of sex under the influence of alcohol or drugs. One young man asserted his masculinity through the following quote: “I don’t know if you know, but doing a lot of coke, it’s a little hard to get hard. But then I persevered through it.” Another young man said, “Coke can go one way or the other. Coke can make me fuckin’ limp as a ramen noodle or make me a fuckin’ porn star.” In discussing dysfunction, men often hedged their bets in a variety of ways in attempts to preserve their masculinity. Some men discussed issues of perseverance, as if connected to the ideal of rugged individualism, through which they could prove their masculinity by overcoming the dysfunction. Other men leave themselves a way out, by acknowledging the dysfunction but by asserting that they still performed on other occasions. Other men constructed their masculinity by distancing themselves from dysfunction simply by making it clear that they do not have a problem. “It takes longer to reach orgasm. Not that I feel I have any performance problems.” Another said, “I’ve never gotten to the point that I cannot get an erection.” The following exchange ended with the respondent barking at the interviewer in their discussion of dysfunction. I: A lot of guys report having problems performing when using coke. It doesn’t sound like an issue for you. R: NO! In some cases men had to contend with the issue of female sexual agency. These often led to dismissals of female agency in a means to juxtapose their own masculine identity through identifying gender non-conformity among their partners. One young man said, “Girls who approach guys usually tend to so that more than once and if she has a history… I don’t really talk to her much to know about that but if she has a history, I don’t want to get anything from her.” Such men were often dismissive suggesting that women who expressed sexual agency were potentially disease carriers or had problems with nymphomania. Another said, “She might be a nympho.” In other instances, women who were expressing sexual agency were described as begging for it, which of course evokes a sense of these men having unbearable desirability. Typical of such assertions was the young man who said, “She was basically begging for it.” Of course a fundamental means by which men constructed their masculinity was by discussing their sexual prowess. Some men liked themselves to athletes or champions connecting their sexual exploits to physical feats. One man noted, “It’s pleasurable because you’re having so much of it and it kind of turns into a sport, you know? You feel like an Olympic athlete. So that’s fun.” Another young man touted his one night stands saying, “I loved it. I never did the one night stand thing, so every time I did it I felt like a champ.” Others likened themselves to masculine animals, such as bulls, in order to assert their masculinity. “I was fucking like a bull.” Such assertions evoked images of virility and ruggedness. Others discussed their prowess by asserting that they could do things that other men couldn’t, most commonly being that of brining female partners to orgasm. One young man touted his ability to provide women with pleasure by saying, “I can make them like twenty, thirty orgasms. I work as a bartender so the women talk to me sometimes. They tell me they don’t have orgasms… so, you know, I can make it… ten or fifteen.” Another said, “For instance some women don’t have orgasms. Some of them have their own partners but they don’t please them, so sometimes I please them, you know what I mean.” Despite that some expressions of prowess border on the implausible, such instances of fictive expression still account for how men conceptualize themselves and assert their masculinity. Discussion Men engage in “identity work” to construct various masculinities when discussing sex in an attempt to harmonize them with their sexual self-concepts. Though this identity work occurs in a variety of forms, discursive identity work is a key mechanism to construct masculinity in sexual stories. The identity work involved in interviewing will yield a particular type of gendered data. I suggest that the practice of gender matching should be re-examined as the social transaction will yield a particular type of data. Assertions of masculinity should not be blindly considered to be a better type of data, simply a different type of data. The dynamics of gender power can be seen in the sexual narratives of heterosexual men. Many men asserted their masculine dominance in a variety of ways from the objectification of women, to male sexual privilege, to discounting female sexual agency. Even the tempered nature of the discussion of sexuality by men in relationships about current romantic partners suggests an element of protection and control by these men. These constructions of masculinity are discursively reproduced by heterosexual men and provide a means for them to harmonize their masculine identity with their sexuality, social roles, and self-concepts. In sum, the telling of sexual stories provides a forum for young men to engage in identity work as a means of harmonizing their sense of self with their performance of gender. Table 1. Masculinity Assertions Interviewer Gender No Masculinity* Assertions Multiple Masculinity* Assertions Female 8 (66.7%) 4 (33.3%) Male 2 (9.5%) 19 (90.5%) * Statistically significant diff at p < .001 level