Bisexual Categories Of Identity

The world now becomes a state of change or flux. Human beings act toward others and objects on the basis of the meanings that such things have for them but meanings are being continually constructed and modified through interaction. The fundamental approach is simple put: nothing is sexual but naming makes it so. Sexuality is a social construct learned in interaction with others. This is not to deny biological facts. It is simply to assert that things do not have sex meanings in their own right. They have to be bestowed upon them through sexual encounters. The mind has to define something as sexual before it is sexual in

Contemporary understandings of sexuality are not the same as back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Understandings and terminology in the past hold multiple differences and similarities than our current contemporary understandings.

In “The Myth of Homosexuality” by Christine Downing, there is the discussion of homosexuality and its meaning over the years. Downing begins the article by stating how a myth has classified women-on-women and men-on-men relationships to fall under the same term of homosexuality, but there is much deeper understanding to it than that. The classification under one word has caused a lot of shaping concerning how they are viewed or how they view themselves. In order to look past the surface of what defines the myth, Downing states that we must start with the culture’s myth and it’s origin.

This paper examines the social aspects of the sexual identity in America, illustrating how sexual identities have progressed, evolved, and transformed. Social categories have been created as a tool used for social divide and control, inadvertently creating stereotypical facts and discriminatory opinions on sexes; while also helping create social and welcoming communities, whose goals are to diminish ideals such as those. Concluding, this paper will have explained the dichotomous categories of different sexualities and the divides within them. The already established sexual divide leaves no room for those stuck in the in between of today's society, especially one as progressive as America’s. Derived from the examples giving, this paper argues

Both terms ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ are very common, broad and the meaning of it differs from person to person. Eugenically the term ‘gender’ is defined to have socially composed roles, activities, behaviours, and peculiarity that a given society considers right for men and women (WHO, 2015). Whereas the term ‘sexuality’ has various meanings, it is described as feeling or having attraction or having sexual thoughts and preferences towards same sex or opposite sex (reachout.com, 2015). This essay will explore Pascoe’s (2005) article on sexualised insult ‘fag’ by American teenage boys. It will also focus on the racialized nature of this ‘fag’ discourse. As it is not the only identity related to homosexual men but can briefly associate to heterosexual men as well. Another sexualised insult ‘slut’ depicted in Attwood’s (2007) work has many meanings and has changed overtime. This will be illustrated by highlighting how the word ‘slut’ was used to define women sexually and their struggle over class, race and generation. The term ‘bitch’ explored in Crawford & Popp (2003) study share similar perspective to Attwood’s work where talking about sexuality or gender would involve making assumption about race and class. This will help present the different identities which people use to define their sexuality and gender such as gay, fag, slut and bitch in terms of race and class. This will be explored in various academics work. This implies that understanding about sexuality and gender in

Early efforts to understand the range of human sexual behavior came from European doctors and scientists, including Sigmund Freud and Magnus Hirschfield (American Psychological Association, (APA), n.d). Sexuality is an important aspect of a person’s identity. Many challenges had were overcome for the LGBT population to express that part of their identity.

“Our sexual identity, that label we embrace to let others know whether we prefer people of the same gender, of different genders, or both (e.g., gay, lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual, queer), does not always necessarily reflect who we are attracted to, who we fantasize about, and who we have sex with.” (Vrangalova &

This article’s main idea is to illustrate the characteristics of clergy sexual offenders, derived from a study conducted by the Saint Luke Institute. This article covers the pressures that have prevented the church from dealing with the problem more effectively. It is an academic source that has evidence of a research made about the topic that throws an important data needed for supporting my point of view in my research paper.

Thirdly, queers challenge the categories as well as binaries of sexual and gender by questioning the categories and binaries’ reasonability. Queer theorists concern about how and why the categories of gender and sexuality are shaped, thinking the main reason is to better control people so as to achieve political goals. As de Lauretis (1991) stated, the existing strategies of homosexual, which is created based on the existing categories of gender and sexuality, is to ensure the “ center” integrated. Moreover, they reject and question the usefulness of categories. According to

This article is about heterosexuality and it talks about homos vs. hetero and how it’s different in other culture. Katz goal of this article to get people to have open minds about the name “heterosexuality”. He wants to remove the idea of heterosexuality from “the realm of the taken-for-granted, subjecting it to the dangers of analysis–and the possibility of critique” (67). To me this article make the readers open their mind up to things they never properly thought of and think out of their own boxes. Makes them think what “hereto” and “homo” people are like and how they live their lives. Katz goes back to the 19th century and talks about the history back then and how sexuality wasn’t a

Sexuality correlates with terms like: Hetero- (Opposite), Bi-(Both) and Homo-(Same) sexuality, which refers to an identification or preference an individual prefer to be acknowledged. These terms verify how different these three terms are; furthermore, these three words separate individual into different categories and dictate certain roles that the individuals play. Nanda also states that, “Every culture recognizes distinctions between male and female, but cultures differ in the meaning attached to these categories, the supposed sources of the differences between them, and the relationship of these categories to other cultural and social facts” (Nanda 240). This simply states that this world has numerous cultures with different perspectives on life and roles within their society. These varies culture participate in events to influence or determine the knowledge in the roles of sex, gender, and sexuality. These words with their terms should be reinforced in society for proper understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality because with proper knowledge people could possibly think outside the box and live in

Throughout history, definitions of sexuality within a culture are created and then changed time after time. During these changes, we have seen the impact and power one individual or group can have over others. In the Late Nineteenth Century into the Early Twentieth Century, we see multiple groups of people and or authorities taking control over the idea of sex and how they believe society is being impacted by sex. At this point in time, society had groups of people who believed they had the power to control how society as whole viewed and acted upon sex. Those particular groups and ideas changed many lives and the overall definition of sexuality within that culture.

Unfortunately, in today's society, sexual promiscuity and perversion is rampant. From the sexual revolution of the 1960s till today's modern age, sex has been seen as a liberating source for some and a cause of scandal for others. But we can all agree that sex can be seen everywhere from TV, to movies, to the internet. One might think that in the early centuries, such disregard for the privacy and dignity of the sexual act never existed. But as we can see in Ruggiero's The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice, historical facts beg to differ. By using criminal records, he takes us into a world that, although it is many centuries long ago, is much like today's society in their way of committing

Homosexuality is defined as a predominant sexual attraction to persons of the same gender. For example, men being sexually attracted to other men and women being sexually attracted to other women (Exodus Global Alliance, 2017). Heterosexuality however, is the opposite of homosexuality. A heterosexual person has a sexual attraction to a person of the opposite sex, as opposed to an individual of the same sex. In Western society, heterosexuality has been constructed to be viewed as the norm, this however was not always the case. Sociologist Michel Foucault coined the term ‘homosexuality’ arguing that homosexuality was not discovered but produced. “Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul.” Following on from the invention of the term known as homosexuality, medical doctors invented a counter-position, heterosexuality. Although same-sex relationships existed prior to the invention of this terminology, it encouraged people to identify themselves and others differently (Angel Daniel Matos, 2013). As a result, the judgment of gender and

Upon entering this course, my understanding of human sexuality was decent; I was aware of certain aspects of sexuality such as being straight, gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, etc. Nevertheless, I did not realize how expansive sexuality is; it never occurred to me that sexual health, prostitution, marriage, rape, sex trafficking, divorce, families, etc., all fell under the umbrella of human sexuality. Books and essays such as Renee Hill’s Walk Together and David Shneer’s “Out of School” showcased the multiple facets of human sexuality and how terms like queer are not directly related to homosexuality. While sexuality and homosexuality are linked, frequently, people mistake them as being synonymous; before entering this class, I was searching for a definition of sexuality, and often in the thesaurus section of dictionary websites homosexuality and or sexual orientation was considered a synonym of sexuality. Formerly, I too would have agreed they were the same, however, after taking this course, I concluded that homosexuality is just one topic in the broad discussion of sexuality. My understanding of sexuality now is that it