Essay about Rubin? Yes! Yes! Yes!

Since the dawn of man, sex has played a crucial role in society. Before they learned to read or write humans were engaging in sex and without it none of us would be here. In today’s society, sex has grown to become much more complicated. If I were to ask a group of people on the street what they believed sex was? I bet they would have a hard time answering. The question puzzling society today is how do we define sex? Can we define sex? These are questions raised in Tracy Steele’s article “Doing it: The Social Construction of S-E-X”. This article is about the current questions and issues that have been raised about sex within today’s society. In this paper I will summarize the key points of the article, while sharing my own thoughts and

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

Frederick Elliston’s “In Defense of Promiscuity” elucidates promiscuity and claims that non-committal sex holds more merit than sexual experiences restricted to either marriage or commitments; two spheres of the Western norm rejected by Elliston. Contrarily, Robert M. Stewart claims in “Meaningful Sex and Moral Respect” that engaging in “junk sex” (i.e. non-committal sex) hampers a person’s overall ability to achieve a higher level of sexual experience which surpasses physical pleasure and seeks deeper meaning. Although Stewart presents his arguments in accordance with morality and respect, his claims are one-sided and represent only the detriments of “junk sex” which make his arguments more questionable. On the other hand, Elliston’s arguments

Intercourse, one of Andrea Dworkin’s most revealing novels on sexuality in an exploitive ethos, poetically argues that male hegemony and female inequality are manifested in the somatic action of heterosexual intercourse, a “sexed world of dominance and submission”. This world, simply titled, “Amerika” is, the world that exists within the contemporary American. In “Amerika,” sex is healthy and enjoying it is morally right [59]. It is furthermore, distinctly regarded in the context of vaginal penetration by man. In which women are

In his article, “The Invention of Sexuality”, Weeks argued that sexuality is a product of society and is shaped by

Ira L. Reiss, a well-known sociologist, has contributed greatly to the field of human sexuality and in the 1960’s brilliantly predicted the revolutionary changes in sexual attitudes. In his novel, An End to Shame: Shaping Our Next Sexual Revolution, Reiss develops the notion that our previous sexual revolution did not adequately eliminate the inequalities related to sexuality. In reality he argues that America is in need of a newly formed sexual revolution, one that will address the negative consequences that our sex negative culture is experiencing. A significant portion of our population argues that these consequences are due to the fact that we talk too much and too soon about sex. This is an inaccurate view of the reasoning behind the sexual problems we are experiencing in America, as in reality the negative sexual outcomes we observe are due to the opposite of this view. This misconception is a common explanation for our sexual problems and many believe it is the key to solving our sexual crisis, but in reality is part of the problem. Reiss argues that “America is long overdue for a rendezvous with sexual reality” (18) and that the future of our nation depends on accepting these realities.

have looked at the history of sexuality since the 18th century in what Foucault calls

Throughout the book, Bailey argues that in cities around the country in the 1960’s, the “ordinary” person battled the constant struggle of both private and public sexual behaviors, which came to follow post WWII in America. Throughout the text, Bailey

For women unable to bare children, it’s disheartening, for men who cannot procreate it’s emasculating. In his case he acknowledges his “want to,” in terms of establishing his sexuality, but he simply can’t. How much more American can you get than just simply being able to express yourself sexually. Kovic’s birth marks the first years of the Baby Boomer generation. In this era moving forward the expression of sexuality isn’t a forbidden staple anymore – at least in terms of being talked

This binary relationship manifests itself in Levy’s work in another way, as well. Toward the very end of the book Levy claims she has no complaint against women who do gain genuine sexual pleasure from “their vaginas waxed, their breasts enlarged” (Levy, 198). On one hand, Levy recognizes that sexuality is personal and that everyone’s own experiences and preferences are unique. Yet at the same time, by drawing the line between “authentic” and “fake”, she must impersonally interpret these experiences in order to classify them as “problematic”. This desire to judge yet not judge women’s sexual nature represents an underlying tension within the book that threatens to unravel her arguments.

Both Berlant and Warner’s Sex in Public and Bersani’s Is The Rectum A Grave, contain similar connections in explaining how sex is mediated to the public. Both writers argue that the media makes a mainstream heterosexual public. That it is the media and policies that presents information and socially accepted behaviors in a heterosexual way and is geared toward heterosexual groups. Both writers also insist on the idea of re-inventing or reshaping the model of sexuality and sex and rethinking the norms gearing away from heterosexual groups. Finally, both writers touch on this notion of “normal” sex.

The uniform truth about sex is really a consistent and unique truth that is inscribed upon society as necessary to keep societies organized and controlled. These controlled systems acquire and control our sexual appetite too for effectiveness because our sexuality is the weakness point of our bodies through which multiple discourses or sources of knowledge can pervade our conduct and our existence (Foucault 69). The control of our sexual feelings is the best method to discipline our behaviors, and thru discourses of knowledge is how power is prompted. For instance, Foucault explains that through confessions power is applied. As humans, we tend to see such confessions as a way

This construction reinforces control over young women’s sexual expression. Faus highlights how it forces women to partake in this patriarchal culture where women’s bodies are under control

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.

This theory of sexual liberation is favoured by Giddens (1992) who sees that in sexually liberated Britain relationships now exist solely on whatever rewards that said relationship has to offer. Commitment in these relationships is negotiated which has