Set 5: Sexing

The topic of sex is such a hotly debated issue since it taps into one of the most basal aspects of humanity. Even though the urge to procreate has been wired into our brains throughout our evolution, sexual desire and urges is still controversial and is greatly influenced on societal norms and rules. From society we learn what is considered sexually acceptable, what we are to consider appropriate objects of our desire, and even what are “normal” levels of pleasure and sexual acts. The two readings deal with the topics of homosexuality and the sexual disorders: sex addiction and inhibited sexual desire (ISD). Discussion of such taboo topics are focused on what happens when biomedicine attempts to quantify and explain something that is perceived as internally driven which leads to show how this structure of understanding has been the root of our prejudices and assumptions towards them

Homosexuality, in biomedicine, has had a rocky journey fraught with accusations of immorality and deviancy. Jenifer Terry’s chapter “Medicalizing Homosexuality” in her book American Obsession follows the historical understanding of studying homosexuality and the still current argument of whether it is inherent or acquired. This burning question led many people, scientific and non, such as Ulrichs, Freud, and others to construct different and sometimes conflicting explanations of the origin of homosexuality. Naturalists understand it to be a benign but inborn anomaly that was a condition of “sexual inversion, which caused homosexuals to be neither truly male nor truly female” (Terry 43). Freud believed that homosexuality was an individual’s inability to fully “castrate” from their Oedipus complex and their inappropriately directed sexual desire. All views of homosexuality attributed some hormonal/physical cause for homosexual but also posited it as a contamination of the body and ultimately the mind, that it was “a behavior or disposition confined to only particular types of people” (Terry 56). As Terry further goes on to explain the medicalization of homosexuality did not further its understanding but led to oppressing views that were/are culturally accepted. Homosexuality until 1973 was deemed a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and its classification as a disease allowed for society’s Judo-Christian views to pervade into its being. It was something that doctors and those “afflicted” should seek to treat and ultimately cure. This point of view is not archaic but still prevalent in today’s society with countless camps and programs that promise to cure homosexuality. Homosexuals have been deemed abnormal and deviant from heterosexuality but where is this base of normalcy? The widely accepted notion that natural and normal is a man and a woman screams strong biblical influence. Alongside with this camp of beliefs are those that argue homosexuality is due to prenatal conditions or are currently searching for some sort of genetic marker. Is this a better understanding? My argument is that it is a different understanding but still one that is still oppressive.

In the above clip, the host draws attention to how homosexuals are stereotypically depicted in popular culture. Homosexuals are seen as outlandish, boisterous, and flamboyant. The way I see it is that instead of displaying overtly violent and negative emotions towards homosexuals, as we have done in the past, our homophobia has become subversive and this “third sex” is accepted in only culturally accepted ways. The culturally and scientifically accepted idea of “the model homosexual male” as effeminate and passive marginalizes homosexuals who do not fit this normal model of abnormality. Would a girl who enjoys makeup and “girly” activities lose her sense of identity as a lesbian just because she is not the “typical lesbian”? Homosexuality is still not seen as something normal but distinctly different within our heterosexually driven society. Again we run into the problem that we have encountered in the medicalization of many body experiences (mental disorders, diagnosing) that generality is cast over the whole. When complex and still not yet understood issues are cast in binary opposition, nuances are ultimately lost and hegemonic ideology purveys.

This structuring of sexual orientation can also be seen in how we interpret and accept sexual addiction in our culture. Janice Irvine’s article “Regulating Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sexual Addiction” deals further with this analysis of how the medicalization of sexual disorders still find their place within cultural contexts. Irvine posits the medical belief that “sexual desire, resides in the body” (Irvine 320) and that “sexuality, although influenced by culture…[is] driven by an inner force or impulse” (Irvine 322). This correlates with the understanding of sex as primal instinct for humans and that one’s sexual drive is bodily manifested. However, the fact that outside referents are the diagnosing tools used for these disorders clearly places these disorders as formed outside of the body through societal interactions. An ISD partner’s frustration at insufficient amounts of sex is the driving force for the disorder, not the person’s own “suffering”. Those with ISD almost seem to think nothing of their disorder as one woman’s testimony regarding an interaction with her husband. The woman saw nothing extraordinarily pleasurable with sex as opposed to an ear scratch and it was the husband who deemed her as “sick” Early on in her work Irvine makes note that “More women than men are diagnosed with ISD, although many therapists report that the rate among males is rising” (Irvine 316) and I believe this points to the inadequacies of the cultural influence model used. A very plausible explanation for this may be that as sexual expectancies for males’ changes, they gain more power in voicing their lack of sexual desire. Males who have been long regarded as “sexual powerhouses” with “insatiable drives” may now feel comfortable with apathetic feelings towards sex. A recent skimming of celebrity sex addicts demonstrates a huge imbalance among those “afflicted” as they are all male. Like homosexuality, sexual deviancy such as sexual addiction is only presented and constructed on culturally accepted terms. Men are seen and accepted as being more sexually driven and in “less control” of their sexual urges. A man with a heavy sex drive is seen as virile and masculine. Therefore in this model, male sexual addiction makes medical sense, a sort of sex in overdrive explanation. A sexual addiction has become the male celebrity go to excuse for acts of infidelity or sordid stories and the public accepts and forgives these males. Women, on the other hand, are seen as promiscuous and morally loose when they commit the same acts and do not as readily use addiction as a fault. Is this because our society does not readily accept women with strong sex drives even though it constantly objectifies them? Even for a woman to engage in casual sex is seen as “having sex with a man”. The invention of these disorders has taken away power from persons that already lack most of their autonomy.

Biomedicine has sought to explain and deconstruct these sexual questions but have ultimately placed them further back into the dark closet. By allowing cultural influence into understanding, these issues have just been greater perpetuated as “abnormal” for homosexual or illnesses based on Judo-Christian ideologies. Although I see and understand the initial drivers to study these issues, researchers and biomedicine must be more mindful of what their knowledge can do for those they study.

Works Cited

Jennifer Terry. 1999. “Medicalizing Homosexuality.” IN An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp 40-73.

Jannice M. Irvine. 1995. “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sexual Addiction.” In Deviant Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture.” Edited by Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla. Bloomington and Indianoplis: Indiana University Press.