History Of American Sexuality By Kathy Peiss And A Desired Past By Leila J. Gilman

Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, grandparents, pimps, prostitutes, straight people, gay people, lesbian people, Europeans, Asians, Indians, and Africans all have once thing in common: they are products of sexuality. Sexuality is the most common activity in the world, yet is considered taboo and “out of the norm” in modern society. Throughout history, people have been harassed, discriminated against, and shunned for their “sexuality”. One person who knows this all too well is activist and author, Angela Davis. From her experiences, Davis has analyzed the weakness of global society in order to propose intellectual theories on how to change the perspective of sexuality. This research paper will explore the discussions of

Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.

Sex. It is everywhere. We see in television shows. In magazines. On the Internet. But sex is still seen as a taboo subject in our society. I believe that being educated about sexuality is vitally important to one health. Understanding one’s body and how it impacts your life. To understand how your beliefs about sexuality and sex have developed one needs to look back over the years and how your beliefs were engrained in your life. This essay will be based on my reflection by looking back on my sexual history on how and what have significantly impacted my development of sexuality. The focus will be on my reflection of answering the sexual history questions and how I have changed and developed over the years. It is important to analyze and reflect to understand how I came to be today, that the past has created my ideas and beliefs about sex and sexuality that have shaped me.

As part of McGill’s Community Engagement Day, I went on a walking tour of Montréal’s historical Red Light District presented by Karen Herland, professor and specialist in the history of prostitution. Her historical analysis (personal communication, October 2, 2015) of the neighbourhood gave great insights on morality and legislation issues regarding sex work, specifically about the relationship between authorities and prostitution as well as some of the impacts that these laws and other attitudes that regulate sex work have on women. Her astute reports lead us to the following proposition: the dynamics between authorities and sex work indicates that under the guise of “morality”, the laws in place and their application did not actually oppose sex work, they rather worked to limit women’s emancipation.

In the text reading Delinquent Daughters: “Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States” Author Mary Odom states raising the age of sexual consent in the U.S. increased the number of people prosecuted for statutory rape among consenting teenagers. Laws Predicated on the backs of the immigrants, native Blacks, and Mexican workers who had consensual sex with the daughters of the white middle class or Working-class minorities under Patriarchal rule. Odom states due to differences in the middle and working class sexual expression, to (avoid generalizing), Odom says the differences in the sexual expression of the middle class which operated within a patriarchal moral code, and the immigrant and working-class communities, who were more concerned with female chastity. (“Patriarchal structures of the preindustrial societies, diverse religious tradition, and codes of honor that associated family reputation with the morality of wives and daughters.” Odom states that in the United States fathers/men controlled both the workforce, labor and the “sexual lives of their wives’ children and servants in ways that supported the family economy” (p.43). One threat to Patriarchal control “was the out of wedlock birth” (p.44) Thus premarital chastity was influenced by religion and men and therefore, was highly regarded. Premarital sex was considered sinful and the double standard of sexual roles was at work as “sexual promiscuity would destroy a woman’s honor, while it

To a certain degree, seeing how these matters have progressed since the 1960s gives a good vantage to predicting where they will go in the future. In conclusion, I will look at the future of change on these matters, by examining what seems to be the "avant garde" regarding matters of sex and gender, the phenomenon of transsexualism. I hope an examination of transsexualism will point out some of the contradictions that still continue to exist in American ideas about matters of sex.

Gender, race, age, and ability have been used to shape the history and our understanding of human sexuality, as well as how certain groups, specifically marginalized groups, were seen as degenerate or delinquent people. When examining why and how specific groups of people were though of as being sexual delinquents, it is important to use an intersectional lens, and consider how these different categories and identities of gender, race, age, and ability work together to form experiences and opinions. By marginalizing, controlling, and regulating the sexualities and bodies of those who were women, people of colour, adolescents, or differentially abled, the social norm of a white, heterosexual, patriarchy has been enforced through history.

The article, The Cult of Womanhood: 1820 - 1860 written by Barbara Welter discusses the philosophy towards women in America during the mid 19th century. A set of demands and expectations based upon four principles: piety, purity, submission and domesticity were placed on women as well as certain behavioral expectations left 19th century women feeling guilty. It also left women feeling this way during the industrialization period as well as having a huge presence of incompatibility with society. Welter shares her viewpoint that the Cult of Womanhood was an attempt to preserve pre modern values in the industrial age. Men held a dominant place in society and continued to prevent new opportunities for women to explore. Narrow minded

Human sexuality is a common phrase for all, and anything, pertaining to the feelings and behaviors of sex for the human race. Sexuality has been a topic that has been discussed and studied for as far back as 1000 years B.C. and is still being studied today. As the discussion of sexuality has progressed through history, theories have been created based on research and experiments that scholars have implemented, based on their own perceptions of human behavior. Out of the many theories that pose to explain sexual behavior, Sexuality Now explained ten that are seemed to be the most overlapped, and built off of theories. Of these theories, two that were discussed in the text were the behavioral and sociological theory. These two theories cover some of the basic ideas of what could possibly influence a person’s sexuality.

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

I chose to evaluate MacOdrum Library’s History of Sexuality research guide for my digital humanities project is. MacOdrum’s primary purpose appears to be to help serve the students of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with their research. I have decided to focus my evaluation on “Finding and Using Primary Sources” tab and the “Websites” tab, because I find them the most interesting and also the most useful sections for everyday people who might visit.

With today’s society growing more accepting sex has never been harder to define. Historically society has found ways to conceptualize everything from sex to sex work. However, with conceptualization come consequences. The language we use, the historical concepts we hold on to and the approaches we take on topics effects our views. Our language can change depending on who is being talked about and our historical concepts can become weak the deeper we discuss a concept. Sex is a complicated topic and can cause tension around negotiations in recognizing different ways of understanding it. All of these approaches to sex have always been, and still is, the locus of so much debate precisely because what is being investigated has never been, and likely never will, be completely agreed upon.

For years, many scholars have provided many discussions over the topic of gender and sexuality. However, one needs to ask themselves: Are these two topics, gender and sexuality, useful as a category for historical analysis? The articles written by both Joan W. Scott and Afsaneh Najmabadi, answer such a question. By critically examining and assessing their two article, can the usefulness of gender and sexuality as a category for historical analysis be proven.

There is constantly cessation why women and men cohabitate, nurture, desire, and endure. Many shrug the similarities and differences to the side due to the complex nature that is involved in understanding the progression. Since the beginning of time, according to the bible, man was placed as the dominant sex, fending for the families well being. The woman has tended to the important jobs around the homestead as situations arose. Often in society, one will find himself in a battle depending on the views of the receiving recipients. Following is a dialogue explaining a safe and metro sexual view as a general whole.

Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian, social theorist, philologist and literary critic whose work had a tremendous impact on several disciplines. He was not a sociologist by training, but he worked diligently on sociological issues and otherwise had significant influence on the work of other sociologists. One of his most famous works is the The History of Sexuality, in which he examines the emergence of "sexuality" as a discursive object and separate sphere of life. According to Foucault, the idea that everyone has a sexuality is relatively a recent development in the West. In Volume 1, Foucault discusses the relationship between sex and power in a historical context. He states that the ways in which humans think about sexuality is primarily shaped by the "repressive hypothesis," which claims that Western society had suppressed sexuality from the 17th to the mid-20th century, and this was due to the rise of capitalism and the bourgeois society. There are several key concepts in this book that will be discussed in this paper include repressive hypothesis, sexuality, power, and discourse. This paper will seek to show the ways in which sexuality is a discursive object, and how sexuality was linked to power throughout history.