Overview 30 – Love and Sex Phil Pers - PHIL-2005-0BF PDF

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Paul Corey...

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Anne Fausto-Sterling works in the eld of “sexology” (the study of sex) and has written extensively on issues concerning gender and sexual orientation. We are reading a chapter entitled “Thinking About Homosexuality” from her book Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World (2012).

This chapter provides an insightful overview of the attempts by researchers in the elds of history, anthropology, and biology to arrive at coherent accounts of sexual orientation. Much of the debate about sexual orientation over the past century has revolved around the “nature/nurture” question: is sexual orientation determined primarily by our genes, our DNA, and our hormones (i.e., biological “nature”); or is

sexual orientation constructed primarily by our social environment (i.e., “nurture”)? Notice that this is framed as an either/or question: either you accept “natural determinism,” and hold that sexual orientation is determined by biology; or you accept “historical constructivism,” and hold that we are shaped by social factors such as family, culture, religion, friends, and so on. Natural determinists hold that there are universal factors in human biology that underlie all culture and that even explain culture (as we saw in our earlier component on evolutionary psychology); historical constructivists hold that the extreme variety of sexual behaviours throughout history and across cultures reveals that there is no universal biological nature, and that our identities are constructed by the time and place into which we are born. If the debate is formulated in this way, then sexually identity is reduced to either the product of biological nature or historical shaping. In some elds of sexology, however, there has been increasing skepticism of this either/or. The common complaint is that such studies simplify the phenomena they are trying to explain by “reducing” sexuality to either the result of nature or culture. Many recent studies explore how gender and sexual orientation are shaped by complex interactions of biological factors and cultural inuences.

Required Readings & Discussion Activity Read Fausto-Sterling, “Thinking About Homosexuality,” from Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World , by clicking HERE (../../_source/readings/faustoSterling_thinkingAboutHomosexuality.pdf). When you are nished, complete the discussion activity (https://learn.humber.ca/webapps/discussionboard/do/conference? toggle_mode=read&action=list_forums&course_id=_27515_1&nav=discussion_board_entry) for Module 5 and then continue reading the instructional notes....