10.4 Sexualities: Perspectives and Sociological Research
10.4 Sexualities: Perspectives and Sociological Research
The study of human sexuality is interdisciplinary and covers a wide range of topics, some of which are the focus of this chapter. Intersectionality is a useful lens to use when studying sexuality. Social locations like gender and race intersect with one’s experience of sexuality and can impact interactions. Attitudes and practices related to sexuality can inform the structure of social institutions such as work, education, religion, and media. In this section, we focus on sexuality as a continuum and queer theory.
Understanding sexuality as fluid or on a continuum is not a new idea. Alfred Kinsey was among the first to conceptualize sexuality as a continuum rather than as a strict dichotomy of gay or straight. For an optional closer look at Kinsey’s research and his contemporaries, you can refer to the Kinsey Institute [Website] at Indiana University.
Later scholarship by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick expanded on Kinsey’s notions. She coined the term “homosocial” to oppose “homosexual” and to describe nonsexual same-sex relations. Sedgwick recognized that U.S. culture influences gendered behavior. Women can express homosocial feelings (nonsexual regard for people of the same sex) through hugging, handholding, and physical closeness. In contrast, men refrain from these expressions since they violate the heteronormative expectation that male sexual attraction should be exclusively for women. Research suggests that it is easier for women to violate these norms than men, because men are subject to more social disapproval for being physically close to other men (Sedgwick 1985). Sedgwick was also one of the founders of queer theory.
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emphasizes the fluidity of gender and sexualities and the performative qualities of them. It is an interdisciplinary approach to sexuality studies that questions how we have been taught to think about sexual orientation. This theory emerged in the early 1990s from queer studies and women’s studies. The approach problematizes the way Western culture has rigidly split gender and sexuality into specific roles. According to Jagose (1996), queer theory focuses on mismatches between anatomical sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and how people cannot just be divided into male/female or homosexual/heterosexual. By calling their discipline “queer,” scholars rejected the effects of labeling; instead, they embraced the word “queer” and reclaimed it for their own purposes. This perspective highlights the need for a more flexible and fluid conceptualization of sexuality—one that allows for change, negotiation, and freedom. This mirrors other oppressive schemas in our culture, especially those surrounding gender and race (Black versus White, man versus woman).
Sedgwick argued against U.S. society’s monolithic definition of sexuality and its reduction to a single factor: the sex of someone’s desired partner. Sedgwick identified d