Sexuality, Diversity, and Social Change

In the modern era, sexuality is part of the expression of free choice that is now expected of everyone.
The new openness about sexuality, along with the feeling of uncertainty that comes with that growing individual freedom, plays out within the family arena.

To study sexuality, some sociologists study identities, focusing on sex categories and sexual orientation.
Our identities related to sex and gender are closely related to human biology, which sets the stage for sex in the social realm.
Our identity and biology are the building blocks of sexual behavior, which creates the social reality of sexuality that we see around us.

Sexual orientation: the pattern of romantic or sexual attraction to others in relation to one’s own gender identity.
The pattern of attraction exists on a continuum that ranges from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, with variations in between that represent degrees of bisexuality.
People commonly embrace a sexual orientation that is either heterosexual (straight) or homosexual (gay, for both men and women, or lesbian for women only).

Bisexuality is not a widely recognized identity, partly because those who use this identification often find themselves excluded from both straight and gay categories.
A variation on bisexual is pansexual, a label chosen to identify attractions not limited to two fixed gender categories.
A small percentage of people have no sexual attraction to people of either gender and may adopt (a variety of) asexual identity.

Large-scale surveys on sexual orientation are relatively new.
Methods and measures vary, and society is changing rapidly.
Sexual orientation is not a fixed quality that people “have.”
Sexual orientation itself is not the same as behavior.
Sexual orientation is hard to study because of homophobia and stigma.
- Stigma: a quality that is perceived as undesirable and that sets a person apart from others in his or her social category.
- Homophobia: fear of or antipathy toward homosexuality in general and gays and lesbians in particular.

Homosexuality was once considered a mental disorder or disease.
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
Failure to come to terms with one’s sexual orientation is now considered a potential mental health problem by many professionals.

Mention of Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy in the Senate Judiciary Committee, 12 Sep 2023

Classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
Florida DOE can investigate complaints, parents can sue for damages.

Prohibits sexual orientation or gender identity instruction in prekindergarten through 8th grade.
Restricts reproductive health education in 6th through 12th grade.
Requires schools to teach “that sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth; that biological males impregnate biological females by fertilizing the female egg with male sperm; that the female then gestates the offspring; and that these reproductive roles are binary, stable, and unchangeable.”
Bars schools from requiring students or employees to refer to each other with pronouns that do not align with their assigned sex at birth.
Prohibit trans school employees from sharing their pronouns with students.

Example: Iowa law prohibits public K-12 schools from offering any instruction, materials, announcements, or promotions of any kind related to gender identity or sexual activity in grades K-6.
Example: Kentucky law bans, for all K-12, “any instruction or presentation that has a goal or purpose of students studying or exploring gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation”; bans requiring staff to use different pronouns; bans trans kids from using gender-appropriate bathrooms; bans puberty blockers and gender-affirming surgery for minors. (SB150, passed, vetoed, overridden)

Some aspects of sexual orientation have a genetic component, but the specific genes have not been found.
Genetic influences are overwhelmed by other factors.
People may be “born with” sexual orientation because of hormones or other influences on fetal development.
Many species—from insects and spiders to birds, dolphins, and whales and a variety of monkeys and apes—display homosexual behavior.

Modern birth control has made it possible to explore more partners without making long-term commitments.
Greater acceptance of sex outside of marriage has reduced social penalties for non-marital relationships.
The growing independence of young adults from their parents’ supervision has increased their sense of freedom and stimulated the pursuit of self-determination – especially for women.
Due to improving health, medical intervention, and changing expectations, sex at older ages has become more commonplace.

Over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sexuality became part of the new intimacy of family life, as the family came to represent loving informal relationships.
The increasingly explicit appreciation of sexual pleasure and the centrality of sexual identity to the modern self troubled traditional moral authorities.
Sexual self-gratification was seen as evidence of “the dangerous excesses of modern selfhood taken to a potentially unlimited degree.”

Research has established some common patterns of nonmarital sex.
Sex comes before marriage.
Men have more partners than women.
Having many partners frequently is relatively uncommon.
Sex without consent is relatively common.
The growth of nonmarital sex is a major change, but most sexual activity still takes place between people in long-term relationships with an expectation of fidelity.

Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues at the Institute for Sex Research made history in the 1940s with their study of sexuality.
The Kinsey Reports were met with controversy by the public, and the research methods used have been questioned by social scientists.
Still, some of the basic findings remain central to the study of sexuality.
It was the need to understand sexually transmitted diseases, especially the AIDS crisis starting in the 1980s, that led to greater scientific attention to sexual behavior.