oct 5 midterm 2

Sexuality and Deviance

Objectivist (Structural Functionalism)

• Sees it as potentially problematic because it destabilizes society

• Intercourse in marriage is the norm which keeps society stable and prevents teen pregnancy which could lead to broken societal bonds if not prevented

• i.e. condom use discussion

Subjectivist:

• Symbolic Interactionism: social construction processes i.e. prostitution, flappers

• Critical Theorists: Power-reflexive theory

• Definition of sexual deviance has evolved over time

• Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005

• Culture changes perception and experience of sex to being more socially acceptable. Women can now take control of her sexuality through birth control

Objectivist: Structural Functionalists

• Talcott Parsons — family provides number of functions for society

  • care for children

  • socialization of children

  • social cohesion which gives societal stability

• Structural functionalists:

  • sexual activity that is limited to marriage is most functional for society

  • sexual “deviants” are those who violate this norm and threaten societal stability

Subjectivist — Social Construction Processes: History, Culture, and Sex

• History — definitions of sexual deviant has changed over time

• Culture — formal and informal social control differences across cultures

• Sex — impact of cultural changes: diversity in experience

Subjectivist — Construction of a Social Problem, Prostitution

• Perceived as deviant through social construction

• Morality → Public Health → Victimization → Worker Rights

Prostitution as a Moral Problem

• Sinful:

  • drives men away from their wives

  • use of body for purposes other than serving God

  • Social Gospel Movement: need to cleanse the community; Protestant perspective, ban alcohol and sex trade to help people find God (morality pov)

• Criminal:

  • 1892 Canada’s Criminal Code: “Offenses Against Morality”

    • infanticide, sodomy, incest, indecency, seduction, corruption of children, prostitution and providing or procuring an abortion​

    • morality police: women put in jail if their swimsuit were too short

Prostitution From Morality to Public Health

• The Gold Rush (1896-1899): moving toward tolerance of the sex-trade (men get gold, gold gets deposited, drinking leads to funding sex work)

  • prostitution is seen as “necessary evil”

  • acknowledged gender imbalance in the Yukon

  • “solution” for men raping women

• (1898) Dawson city public health introduced all prostitutes had to be checked monthly for STI (syphilis)

• (1918) Alberta, Ontario, and Saskatchewan:

  • those charged with prostitution could be tested for STDs

  • Government regulation of “educational” literature — companies would make fake remedies for STDs because gov’t didn’t actually regulate

• Gov’t intended to educate about STD's to prevent its spread and misinformation

Prostitution From Public Health to Victimization

• Sex trade linked to human trafficking

• Average entry was 13-15 in 2001 in Canada

• Most sex workers were abused in childhood

• Most have experienced violence in this work

• Heavily stigmatized, marginalized, and experience lower levels of health-care access

  • HIV/AIDS

  • Criminality of trade makes work dangerous

• Alexa Albert’s book, Brothel, researched operation of legal brothels; interviewed women to see if legal brothels is better than illegal street work — brothels had protection while streets didn’t

Prostitution From Victimization to Workers’ Rights

• 2014: Made laws against rights of sex-trade workers by depriving them of security of person

  • keeping a brothel

  • living on the money from prostitution

  • soliciting on the street (selling is legal while purchasing it wasn’t)

• Bill C-36 Treats prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation that disproportionately impacts women and girls. Objectives:

  • Protect those who sell their own sexual services

  • Protect communities, especially kids, from harms of prostitution

  • Reduce demand for prostitution and its incidence

Coyote Advocacy (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics)

1. Cancel all prostitution laws: most of the harm from prostitution are directly from criminality

2. Reconstitution of prostitution as a credible occupation:

• selling sex is just another form of work using their body like any other job

• women should have the right to sell sexual services just as much as her brain

• argue that most women engaged in sex work do so voluntarily

3. Protection of prostitutes rights just like legit workers

• usually, work is legit and voluntary

• institutionalized vocab of “sex work” shows their rights as workers

Social Typing Exercise: Super Freak — Rick James

• Typing: wild, kinky, girl that will never let your spirits down, tempting, kind of girl you read about in new age magazines, groupie, lustful/sexual

• Prescription: get her off the streets, she’s “alright” (she isn’t marginalized by the singer)

Subjectivist Position: Symbolic Interactionism, The Flapper (Jane Nicholas)

• Modern Girl of 1920s: The Flapper

  • independent, young, urban women

  • revealing clothes, makeup, short hair

  • kept later hours, danced, drank, smoke, did intercourse

  • shopped for pleasure (aided by changes in advertising culture)

  • highest education was 8th/9th grade

  • movement towards an androgynous look

• 1900s women:

  • dressed modestly

Flapper and Moral Panic

• Film about flapper that starred Olive Thomas who died months after movie due to an accidental overdose

• Her death caused flappers to be scapegoated because there were

  • concerns about people coming from Europe to Canada

  • concerns about city being lustful/sinners and ruining rural life

  • unregulated drugs = concern about abuse

  • fear of women being lawyers and doctors aka gaining independence

Ads in 1860s to 1920

• 1860: didn’t picture women as individuals from the husband; connecting a couple’s joy to having a clean house due to a woman

• 1920s: flappers pictured alone smoking in beach and cars; showed women being freer and outside domesticity

Flapper as Folk Devil

• society projecting social anxieties onto flappers/women’s bodies

  • source of anxieties: downfall of nation/Canadian “race”

  • immigration anxieties

  • urbanization anxieties

  • morality anxieties

  • drug anxieties

  • women’s emancipation anxieties

Social Typing and Sexuality

• Description: flapper

• Evaluation: Orrin Klap’s studies saw his students associated Marilyn Munroe with flapper, floozy, scatterbrain, phony, prima donna, dumb dora

• Prescription: Donica Belisle said that:

  • Catholic church: saw flappers as sinners due to clothes

  • League Against Indecency in Dress: said flappers were asking to be SAed due to their clothes; petitioned stores to stop selling said clothes; doctors showed concern over cancer developing due to skin revealing

Deviance: Objectivist Approach

• Assumes:

  • there is something that differentiates deviants from non-deviants

  • there is an inherent quality in certain people that makes them deviant

• Extend study of why some are deviant — aim is to plan for a better society

How to convince teens to use protection?

• Explicit Message:

• Context of ad?:

• Intended Audience:

• Knowledge it assumes from audience?:

• What’s excluded in the ad?:

• Argument of ad?:

• Lifestyle promoted: bigger responsibility

• Implied values?:

• Tools to strengthen ad:

  • Ethos (credibility of brand):

    • famous/familiar brand

  • Pathos (emotions):

    • humor, shame, guilt, collectivity

  • Logos (logic):

    • statistics

    • simplicity of using protection

    • normalizing

Meta-Analysis of Protection Campaign

• Theory of Planned Behavior: Could predict our behavior

  • attitude toward the behavior: campaigns try to change your attitude

  • subjective norms: others are doing it

  • perceived control: seems easy enough

• These all lead to behavior intention which leads to behavior