You know how important the human sex drive is. You've been experiencing this aspect of yourself since at least puberty. When your hormones kicked in, suddenly the world looked different. And it hasn't looked the same since!
You also know how powerful the human sex drive is. Of those many things that you would
like to do--or the things you might like to experiment with, or have thought about doing--there are only some that you
can do. Others are out of bounds. Even our sexual fantasies--our internal longings that sometimes take picture form--we certainly can't share them with everyone, much less do them. We have to keep many aspects of our sex drive under control, or else we would get in trouble.
WHAT DOES SOCIOLOGY HAVE TO DO WITH SEX?
One of the first questions you might be asking is: "What does sociology have to do with sex? I know that I have a sex drive--and I have sexual preferences and fantasies--but these are mine. These are personal matters."
And certainly sex
is personal! But sex is more than personal. It is also a
social matter. Let's see what I mean by this.
Sex as Personal
First, let's consider the personal aspect of
sex--our sexual desires, our sexual attitudes, and the sexual things we do. These feelings and behaviors are
ours. They are highly personal and intimate. They are part of us.
Sex is part of our very nature. Although we may think of puberty as the time when our sexual life began, some analysts, especially psychoanalysts, say our sexual life began at birth, or shortly afterward. Some even say it goes back to
before birth, while we were in our mother's womb (Gagnon and Simon 1998). Some of us can remember sexual behaviors that go back to our infancy. Such memories of unfocused sexual activity are not far-fetched, for infants have been observed to sexually stimulate themselves.
Each of us has images of ideal sexual partners, of people who "turn us on." Some of us are attracted to people with blonde hair, others to people with dark hair. Some of us find skinny people sexually attractive, while others are attracted to heavy people. Some of us prefer short people, others tall people. Some of us are attracted to members of the opposite sex, others to members of the same sex. The parts of the human body that turn some of us on don't have the same stimulating effects on others. Some of us are sexually stimulated by inanimate objects, or even animals, while some of us are not. The sexual acts that stimulate some of us, others don't like them at all.
Our
sexuality--our sexual attitudes, desires, preferences, and behaviors, in whatever forms they take--is a highly personal matter. Our sexuality is so intimate that it is an integral part of our own identity--our feelings of
who we are. It is difficult for something to be more personal than this.
Sex as Social
Sex is much more than personal, however. It is also social. In fact, we can't understand sex apart from our membership in human groups. Although it is we who feel particular sexual desires,
we who have certain sexual preferences and fantasies, and
we who engage in particular sexual behaviors, these are not simply an expression of something that comes from
within us. Throughout this text, you have seen how your membership in groups shapes your feelings, attitudes, and behavior. This highly personal and intimate realm of your life called sex is no exception. It, too, is shaped by your membership in groups.
The Thinking Critically box on the social control of sex explores this further.
Throughout this text, I stress how human behavior varies around the world. I've reviewed some strikingly different customs concerning marriage, suicide, race, gender, medicine, religion, infanticide, and other aspects of life. Just as cultures differ in these areas, so they differ with regard to human sexuality. As we look at some of this variation around the world, it should be apparent that had you been reared in a different culture, not only would your speech, your clothing, and your ideas about how to make a living be different, but so would your sexual attitudes, behaviors, and even fantasies.
This, in short, is the
social aspect of our sexuality: Although we have a built-in biological sex drive, our membership in groups shapes or gives direction to this drive. Because different groups have different expectations--and different values, beliefs, and patterns of behavior--sexual behaviors, and even desires, vary from one group to another. This principle applies not only to different groups around the world but also to different groups
within the same society. Consequently, sexual desires and behaviors differ by gender, race-ethnicity, age, religious orientation, and social class. Sex research is still in its infancy, and most of these differences are yet to be discovered, but consider just two aspects of the effects of social class in the United States: Compared with middle-class boys and girls, lower-class boys and girls begin to have sexual intercourse at an earlier age; compared with lower-class women, professional women and those with graduate school education are more likely to reach orgasm (Simon and Gagnon 1998).
It is probably not surprising to you that, true to their calling, sociologists place a greater emphasis on the social aspects of human sexuality than does anyone else. You may find it surprising, however, to learn that some sociologists, primarily symbolic interactionists, consider that our sex drive is so undirected at birth, so malleable or capable of being shaped, that any of us can learn to be
heterosexual or
homosexual. Let's consider this view.
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SEXUAL IDENTITY
The Essentialists and the Social Constructionists
When we refer to sexual orientation, two views come into conflict. The
essentialist view is that we are born with a sexual orientation. This orientation develops from within us, much like a flower unfolds from a seed or a bulb. Depending on what you plant, you can only get a rose or a hyacinth. A rose does not learn to be a rose, and a hyacinth does not learn to be a hyacinth. So our sexual orientation--which becomes the center of our sexual identity--is inborn. We are born with a sexual desire for people of the opposite sex or for members of our own sex. Our sexual orientation is essential to what we
are. We do learn how to express our sexuality according to social expectations; that is, we learn a
role--what society or some group expects of us because of what we are--but we already
are that particular thing.
Most sociologists reject this view in favor of the
social constructionist view. In this view, represented especially by symbolic interactionists, we construct our sexual identity. We are not born homosexual (having sexual preference for members of one's own sex) or heterosexual (having sexual preference for members of the opposite sex); rather, we
learn these sexual orientations. As we learn them, we come to think of ourselves in these terms; that is, we
acquire a sexual identity. As we do, we get a lot of help from others--from our family, friends, and peer groups. Even our culture is significant in this process of acquiring a sexual orientation and identity, for it provides the ideas and concepts that we apply to our self. Let's look at the social constructionist view in more detail.
The Shaping of Sexual Identity
Symbolic interactionists emphasize that our self-images are never firm, fixed things, but, rather, they are fluid and always "in process." You probably have noticed how your own self image changes. It may even go "up" or "down" with a grade you receive. It does the same when someone we are sexually attracted to says something positive or negative about us. We can feel our self image change when we feel accepted and loved--or rejected and disliked.
Our sexual identity is firmer than this. During childhood it may be tenuous, but over time it becomes more firmly rooted. As adults, we seldom question it. Most of us feel solidly heterosexual, and some of us feel solidly homosexual. We have our sexual desires, and we have a sexual identity that matches those desires. Seldom does our sexual identity come into question. But it does happen. We may have a disruptive experience, such as an unexpected sexual attraction to someone of the opposite sex (for those with a homosexual identity) or of the same sex (for those with a heterosexual identity). This can lead the individual to question his or her sexual identity. Homosexuals can wonder if they are, perhaps, "really" heterosexual, and heterosexuals can wonder if they are, perhaps, "really" homosexual.
For some, laying claim to a specific sexual identity is easy. They feel strongly that they are heterosexual or homosexual--and always have been. For others, finding what they think of as the "real" sexual self is a long, torturous process. Some never do settle the question of just "who" they are sexually. They move between heterosexual and homosexual identities, never quite sure if they are "one" or the "other." Some even decide that they are neither. Feeling sexual attraction for both males and females, they call themselves
bisexuals.
Confirming our sexual identity: Activities and outsiders As we acquire our sexual identity, we try to confirm it. We tend to associate with people who reinforce our sexual self-image. If we identify ourselves as heterosexual, we tend to associate with heterosexuals and do "heterosexual things." Those "heterosexual things" may include making jokes about homosexuals. If we identify ourselves as homosexual, the process is similar. We tend to associate with homosexuals, and we do "homosexual things." We may joke about heterosexuals, the way "they" are.
Doing things associated with our particular sexual identity and joking about the "other" helps us lay claim to our sexual identity. Homosexuals serve as "outsiders" that help heterosexuals claim their sexual identity, while heterosexuals serve as "outsiders" that help homosexuals claim their sexual identity. One way that we know who we are is by knowing who we are
not. "Insider" and "outsider" statuses help us to claim a distinct identity, for it means that we are not one of "them." The identities of heterosexuals and homosexuals differ from one another, but the process by which they arrive at those identities is similar. Regardless of our sexual orientation, each of us attempts to affirm a sexual identity, to more fully discover just "who" we are.
The role of culture In this process of developing a sexual identity, you can see culture at work: The categories we are currently offered are heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual. People are expected to select one (actually, they are expected to select heterosexual), and to then define themselves according to that term. That term is commonly taken as written in stone--as representing what people really "are," not a role or a temporary identity. Earlier in our history, we apparently did not have this either--or approach, and some people engaged in occasional sex with members of their own sex without being labeled homosexual (Chauncey 1994; Valocchi 1999). To make the role that culture plays in our sexual identity clearer, you may want to consider a group that offers an entirely different choice.
In sum According to the
essentialists, our sexual orientation is fixed in nature and inherent at birth. It represents our essential sexual being, what we really
are. We learn roles that match our inborn sexual orientation. Since these roles are social, they differ from one group to another, but if there is a correct match, those roles reflect our biologically determined sexual orientation.
This view is rejected by most sociologists, who follow the
social constructionists (represented especially by symbolic interactionists). According to this view, our sexual orientation is neither fixed in nature nor inherent at birth. Instead, we are born with an undirected sex drive that becomes channeled by our social experiences in some particular direction. In short, unlike what is commonly thought, our sexual orientation--whether it be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or something else--does not unfold automatically from within. Our sexual orientation is not like an acorn that can become only an oak tree. Rather, based on our personal experiences we learn our sexual preferences, assume a matching role from those available within our culture, and create a sexual identity.
To better understand the
social aspect of human sexuality, let's consider the incest taboo,
homosexuality, and heterosexuality. As we do, you may gain a better understanding of your own sexual self, of how your sexual identity develops.
THE INCEST TABOO: SOCIAL CONTROL OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
Another way to see how extensively sex is social is to look at the social control of human sexuality. One of the best examples is incest. Although most of us feel revulsion at the idea of having sex with our mother or father, a brother or a sister, or our own child, not everyone does. Such desires are present in every human group--for every human group has rules against such sex. These rules, or
incest taboo, prohibit sex and marriage between certain specified relatives. In our society, those relatives are parents and their children, and brothers and sisters.
How the Incest Taboo Varies Among Groups
Feelings against incest run so deeply that we might think the incest taboo is due to human instinct. As you may have noticed, however, nowhere in this book do I speak of any human behavior whatsoever as due to instinct. The sociological view is that our behaviors and attitudes are due to our socialization in human groups. The incest taboo is no exception to this basic sociological principle.
Why don't we sociologists think of the incest taboo as instinctual? After all, it is found among every human group in the world. In no culture is sex between parents and their children, or between brother and sister, the norm.
First, the definition of incest varies from one group to another. In the United States, for example, marriage between first cousins is illegal in some states, but legal in others. Americans don't carry the ban against marriage beyond first cousins, but some groups carry it much farther. The Arunta, a tribe in Australia, for example, look at relationships in an entirely different way than we do. They think of certain clans as being "blood" relatives, and marriage between people in those clans as incest. They reckon such blood relationships so extensively that for Arunta men marriage to seven out of every eight women is defined as incest. Obviously, there is nothing instinctual about prohibiting sex or marriage among people we don't even see as related to one another--say your uncle's aunt's daughter's sister or brother, or even someone who has a certain last name.
"But the Arunta don't allow sex or marriage between brothers and sisters or parents and their children," you might argue.
"So that is where the incest taboo is instinctual. The Arunta have just applied this universal instinct farther than anyone else." This argument sounds good, but it takes us to the second argument against the incest taboo being due to a human instinct. Some groups allow exceptions even here. For example, several groups have allowed marriages between brothers and sisters. In fact, three groups that we know of
required brother-sister marriages for their high nobility: the ancient Egyptians, the Incas of Peru, and the old kingdom of Hawaii (Beals and Hoijer 1965). Some groups also allow sex between fathers and daughters. The Thonga, a tribe in East Africa, permit a hunter to have sexual intercourse with his daughter before he goes on a lion hunt. And a tribe in Central Africa, the Azande, permit high nobles to marry their own daughters (LaBarre 1960).
Are the Exceptions to the Incest Taboo Due to Power?
You may have noticed that these exceptions to the incest taboo that bans parent-child sex allow fathers to have sex with their daughters, not mothers to have sex with their sons. This may sound like more of the discrimination due to male power that we have examined throughout this text--men holding the power and giving themselves privileges that they deny to women. If you notice, these exceptions also generally apply to a group's nobility, to its rulers, which lends additional support to this argument.
This difference in power, however, is not necessary for a group to have patterns of approved incest. Ethel Albert, an anthropologist, did research among a group that approves of sex between a mother and her son. In her fieldwork among the Burundi of tropical Africa, Albert (1963:49) found that when a son is impotent the mother is supposed to have sex with him in order to cure his impotence. Here is what she says:
Sometimes the marriage does not last the four days of the honeymoon. The morning after the wedding, it can be that the young bride will go out into the yard and announce in a loud, clear voice: "I did not come here to go to bed with another girl." She goes home. The boy's father knows that his son is impotent. It is the mother's fault. She must have allowed the dried umbilical cord to fall on the male organ of her newborn son. The cure also is up to her. The parents give their son a great deal of beer so that he will become drunk. The father then leaves the house, and the mother then has intercourse with the son in order to remove the impotence which her neglect caused. If the cure has not failed--and there is great confidence in the probable success of this remedy--the young couple will be reunited and remain together to face the other risks of married life.
The Sociological Significance of the Exceptions
These exceptions to the incest taboo are startling to our ears, but I don't want you to get lost in the examples. Their sociological significance is that what one group defines as incest, another group may define as approved sex. In some groups, under circumstances that they determine, sex between a mother and her son, a father and his daughter, or a sister and brother is approved. Among some groups, it may even be required. We can see that behavior that we disapprove--or even find shocking or revolting--is approved by others. This follows the basic sociological principle stressed in the text--how we evaluate behavior depends on our socialization. That is, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, we learn our values--including our ideas of what is moral and immoral.
Why Is an Incest Taboo Universal?
If what is considered incest differs from one group to another, and what one group finds revolting another group approves or even requires, then why is there no human group that approves of father-daughter, mother-son, or brother-sister marriage for most of its people? Why does every human group prohibit such sex and marriage except for specified members under highly specific situations?
A
social basis for the incest taboo was proposed by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1927, 1929). Malinowski said that the lack of an incest taboo would disrupt the socialization of a group's children. As you saw in the chapter on socialization (Chapter 3) and in the chapter on the family (Chapter 12 of
Essentials and Chapter 16 of the hardback text), the family is essential for transmitting a society's customs--its way of life--to the next generation. It is in the family--no matter what form it may take in any part of the world--that children are initiated into the customs of their group.
If incest were generally allowed, said Malinowski, it would disrupt this socialization, which is essential for society. For example, if fathers and mothers were allowed to have intercourse with their children, what would their role be? Would they still be able to guide their children as parents? Or would their role change to that of lover? What we expect of people as parents and lovers are quite distinct matters. Specifically, to permit incest would lead to
role conflict--the expectations and obligations that are attached to one role would conflict with those attached to another role. As a result, said anthropologist George Murdock (1949), to avoid these strains on the family every society developed some form of an incest taboo.
Because the incest taboo developed somewhere in the ancient past, leaving us no records, we are left with theorizing, not fact. This explanation of roles and socialization that anthropologists have developed may be correct, but we don't know for sure. We do know that every human group has some form of the incest taboo, and that it pushes children outside the family for marriage (what we call
exogamy). By doing this, the incest taboo extends people's relationships and forces them to create alliances. In early human history, this would have been important for survival as alliances would have diminished war making between small human groups. In contemporary society, uniting people in larger networks leads to more cohesion (or unity). This
functional analysis of the incest taboo, however, does not explain its origins, which are lost in history.
Offenders and Victims
Although incest is strongly condemned in U.S. society, it is not rare, and it has serious effects on its victims. Sociologist Diana Russell (1986) interviewed a probability sample (a representative sample from which we can generalize) of 930 women in San Francisco. She found that before they turned age eighteen, 16 percent of these women had been victims of incest, but only 5 of 100 cases had been reported to the police. Even though Russell interviewed a probability sample, we have to be careful of this conclusion. As you may recall from the materials on sociological methods (Chapter 2 in
Essentials and Chapter 5 in the hardback text),
operational definitions (how we define the concepts we are researching) affect our findings. Russell's operational definition of incest was so broad that it included not only sexual touching, sexual intercourse, and rape but also unwanted kisses and even "stealthy looks." It also included any relative. While this study does not adequately reflect common assumptions about incest, Russell found that many cases of sexual intercourse had not been reported to the police. We can conclude that the actual rate of incest is much higher than the official statistics.
Who are the offenders? Russell found that the most common offenders are uncles, followed by male first cousins. Then come fathers, brothers, and finally a variety of other male relatives from brothers-in-law to step-grandfathers. She found little incest between mother and son, a finding supported by other researchers (Lester 1972). As you can see, far from being random, incest shows specific patterns. You can see that incest increases as the relationship to the victim decreases. Gender is also especially strong, for seldom do women break this taboo.
Incest can create enormous burdens for its victims, from lower self-esteem and higher promiscuity to confusion about one's sexual identity (Finkelhor 1980; Bartoi and Kinder 1998; Lewin 1998). Diana Russell (n.d.) found that incest victims who experience the most difficulty are those who have been victimized the most often, those whose incest took place over a longer period of time, and those whose incest was "more serious," such as sexual intercourse as opposed to sexual touching.
HOMOSEXUALITY: GAY AND LESBIAN SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
In this section, I'll try to answer some basic questions. How many people are homosexual? Why are some people homosexual? Do some people who are not homosexual have sex with members of their own sex? Let's see what
sociological answers we can find. That is, we will place the emphasis on the group or social context and be as objective as possible.
The Dilemma of Terms
Before we examine research and theory on homosexuality, we need to pause for a moment and consider terms. Terms have
political meaning (they are seen by some as containing a bias in favor of or against something). Terms also have
emotional content (people experience feelings when they hear or use them). In short, no term that refers to a matter of controversy is neutral for everyone, all terms arouse negative sentiments in someone, and no term will satisfy everyone. Even terms in common use in homosexual subcultures, such as gay and lesbian, are rejected by some homosexuals, who see them as oppressive (Yeung and Stombler 2000). In addition, the meanings of terms change, making a term that seems neutral at one point in time a matter of controversy at another point in time.
Hoping to find language that no one will object to, social analysts have suggested a variety of terms, such as "same-sex love" (Rupp 1999), homoeroticism, and even "same-gender affectional and sexual relations" (Gagnon 2001). Some--often those who are involved in "same-sex sexual or love relations" (another possible term)--are using the term "queer." They have aggressively tried to lay claim to an identity by snatching a term of derision from heterosexuals and imbuing it with new meaning. They have been fairly successful at this, at least in some academic circles, and a subfield has developed called "queer theory" and "queer studies." To what extent this term will become popular or how long it will last is anyone's guess.
I will use homosexuality to refer to sexual preference for members of one's own sex. Although this term has its detractors, it has a long history, and, as I see it from reviewing the alternatives, it is the most neutral, and yet standard, of terms available to refer to this aspect of human sexual behavior. Homosexuality is used in the full knowledge that no term in what has become a highly charged political matter (called "cultural politics") is entirely satisfactory.
To place homosexuality in perspective, we first need to distinguish homosexuality from homosexual behavior. Where
homosexuality refers to the sexual
preference for members of one's own sex, homosexual behavior refers to sexual
behavior between people of the same sex, regardless of whether they
prefer same-sex partners or not. Many male prisoners, for example, prefer to have sex with women, but, since they can't, they engage in homosexual behavior.
Attitudes and Discrimination
Attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexual behavior vary widely around the world. The countries with the most accepting attitudes are probably Denmark, Holland, Norway, and Sweden, where same-sex marriages are legal. The countries with the most rejecting attitudes are probably Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen, where homosexual behavior is punishable by death (Mackay 2000). Most societies fall between these extremes.
In recent years, Americans have become more tolerant of homosexuality, but their attitudes are still largely negative. Despite the efforts of gay action groups to change laws, private, consensual sex between people of the same sex remains illegal in most states. As
Figure HS.1 shows most Americans want it this way. Americans are fairly evenly split on this issue, however, and 44 percent would like to see consensual homosexual relations between adults legalized.
From this table, you can see how attitudes vary by sex, race-ethnicity, age, education, income, and even region of the country. Younger people, college graduates, and those who have higher incomes express more favorable attitudes. Those most likely to favor the legality of private, consensual homosexual acts are white male college graduates who have high incomes and live in the West. Those most likely to want homosexual relations to be illegal are elderly black female high school graduates who have low incomes and live in the South.
As this table shows, attitudes toward homosexuality are the least favorable in the South, the most favorable in the East. These attitudes are reflected in state law. Georgia, for example, has made sodomy (anal intercourse) punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Although marriage between homosexuals is not legal in any state, one of the Eastern states has come close to making it legal. In 2000, the Vermont legislature approved what it calls "gay unions." It reserved the term
marriage for heterosexual couples, however. This fine distinction in terms--allowing homosexuals "legal unions" but not marriage--was intended to satisfy the concerns of heterosexual voters. It failed to accomplish its purpose, however, and an uproar of protest followed the passage of this law.
You may wonder if Georgia's law that allows judges to sentence an adult to 20 years in prison for a private, consensual sex act could be constitutional. Many people thought it wasn't, and this law was challenged. In 1986, in
Hardwick v. Bowers, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality (Wermiel 1986).
Over the years, homosexuals have been the victims of violence. Out of concern that much violence motivated by bias was being overlooked, in 1990 the U.S. Congress authorized the FBI to collect data on hate crimes. Hate crimes are not new crimes, but traditional crimes that are now defined as motivated by bias against the victim, in this case, crimes committed against someone
because that person is a homosexual. This law provides some measure of additional protection, but, as with any law, it is only as good as its enforcement.
Changing Relations
The overall situation of homosexuals in the United States has been changing. Due to protests by gay activists and the position taken by the American Civil Liberties Union, homosexuals face less discrimination than they used to. The Civil Service Commission no longer denies federal employment to homosexuals. Similarly, many multinational firms--from AT&T to IBM-- follow policies of not discriminating against homosexuals in hiring or promotion. San Francisco even seeks homosexuals to be members of its police force. Homosexuals used to be easy targets of politicians who wanted to ingratiate themselves with voters and further their own political ambitions. Today, for a politician to verbally attack homosexuals would be to risk his or her political career.
Such changes, however, do not mean the end of open discrimination. The FBI and CIA, for example, will not knowingly hire homosexuals. And although the Defense Department follows a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, soldiers who are discovered to be homosexual are discharged from the military. In some work settings, however, notably the arts, homosexuals are more open about their sexual preference. Openness also varies by geography. Homosexuals are more open in some urban centers, such as San Francisco and New York, as compared to small towns in the South.
Because of continuing hostility and discrimination, most homosexuals remain "in the closet"; that is, while they are at work and in most of their social relations, they conceal their sexual identity. For an analysis of their strategies of concealment, see the
Cultural Diversity in the United States box.
Research on Homosexuality
The Kinsey research The most famous research--and for a long time just about the only research--on homosexuality was the Kinsey studies. Alfred Kinsey, a zoologist, and his associates included homosexuality in their classic 1948 study,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Based on the experiences of about 5,300 men, Kinsey found that 37 percent of U.S. men had at least one sexual experience with a same-sex partner that resulted in orgasm. Many of these acts were sexual experimentation by adolescents. Almost all these males went on to live heterosexual lives. Kinsey also concluded that about 4 percent of U.S. males are exclusively homosexual throughout life.
Kinsey's findings shocked the U.S. public and unleashed a storm of criticism in the academic community. It turned out that Kinsey's research had a major flaw: He had used a biased sample, and there was no valid way to generalize from his findings to the U.S. population. Kinsey had recruited some subjects from prisons and reform schools, inmates that hardly represent U.S. males. He also had interviewed only white males, and he had too high a percentage from the lower classes (Himmelhoch and Fava 1955).
As I stressed in the materials on how sociologists do research (Chapter 2 in
Essentials and Chapter 5 in the hardback text), if you use the right sample, you can generalize to an entire nation. If your sample isn't any good, however, you can't generalize to anything. And that is how bad Kinsey's sample was. Instead of
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, his book should have been called something like
Sexual Behavior of Lower Class, White American Males Who Have Been Locked Up in Prison. This at least would have been more accurate.
Despite this fatal flaw, Kinsey and his associates do deserve credit for doing groundbreaking research in what had been a forbidden area. Unfortunately, Kinsey's research continued to be quoted as true for 50 years. In fact, some continue to quote Kinsey's findings today, although he hadn't used a representative sample of U.S. males.
If it isn't 37 percent of U.S. males who have had sex with other males and 4 percent who are homosexual, then what percentages are correct? And what about women?
The Laumann research It took until 1994 to be able to answer these questions. Sociologist Edward Laumann headed a team of sociologists that studied U.S. sexual behavior. Because they interviewed a representative sample of the U.S. population ages 18 to 59, we can generalize their findings to the entire U.S. population of this age. As you can tell from
Figure HS.1, Laumann found that over a five-year period, 4.1 percent of U.S. men and 2.2 percent of U.S. women had sex with someone of their own sex. If the time period is extended to include their entire lives, these totals increase to 7.1 percent of the men and 3.8 percent of the women.
This is a far cry from Kinsey's 37 percent for men. But Kinsey could be right--if we refer to lower class, white U.S. men who have been incarcerated. Laumann is correct if we refer to the general U.S. population, ages 18 to 59.
As
Figure HS.1 also shows, 1.4 percent of U.S. women and 2.8 percent of U.S. men identify themselves as homosexual. These percentages are almost identical to Americans who report that they have had sex with a same-sex partner during the past year (1.3 percent of the women and 2.7 percent of the men). Even these totals may be slightly high, as the Laumann researchers counted as homosexual people who identify themselves as
bisexual. Although Laumann's sample is excellent, giving us data from which we can generalize, as you will recall from the text's materials on how sociologists do research, some sociologists desire more qualitative data. They want to know what occurs when people interact with one another. (Recall the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research discussed in the chapter on methods.)
Qualitative research: the Humphreys sStudy To get qualitative information on homosexual behavior, sociologist Laud Humphreys (1970) devised an ingenious but widely criticized technique. Laud, a friend of mine in graduate school at Washington University, was "in the closet" at the time. He didn't reveal his own homosexuality openly until several years after he completed his research.
Laud knew that some male homosexuals meet for impersonal sex in public restrooms, which they call
tearooms. He began to study these encounters for his doctoral dissertation. Homosexuals who engage in sex in tearooms like to have a third person present, someone they call a "watch queen." This person warns them if he sees a stranger approaching. Humphreys took this role, which allowed him to be present and enabled him to make systematic observations of who does what with whom. He saw that to initiate sex these men used a system of gestures at the urinal, and then moved to a toilet stall for fellatio (oral sex). Their quick, anonymous sex usually occurred without the exchange of a single word. Another sociologist, Edward Delph (1978), confirmed the silence surrounding these sexual encounters.
Humphreys was puzzled by something he observed. He found that 38 percent of the men who were having tearoom sex were married, and they identified themselves as heterosexual. He wondered if they were really heterosexual. If so, why were they having sex with other men? It turned out that these men were sexually frustrated with their wives. Tearooms gave them a sexual outlet that did not require an emotional commitment (which would interfere with their marriages), money (which they didn't want to waste), or socializing (which they didn't have time for--this was just a quick stop off the highway on their way home from work). In essence, the tearooms functioned as a free house of prostitution, a place where they could obtain oral sex at no charge. Their quick stop at a park restroom just off the highway jeopardized neither their work nor their commuting schedule.
Sociologists Jay Corzine and Richard Kirby (1977) did a study of sex at truck stops. There they found something similar--heterosexual truckers having sex with homosexuals who search out partners at highway rest areas.
As you read about Humphrey's research, you may have wondered how he knew that 38 percent of the participants in tearoom sex were married. Certainly they didn't tell Humphreys that--and counting wedding rings wouldn't be accurate. Humphreys wrote down these men's license plate numbers and traced their home addresses. A year later, he visited the men at home, in the guise of a researcher conducting a health survey. As I said in the research methods section in the text, this technique set off a storm of controversy--both within and outside of sociology.
Situational homosexual behavior Sociologists have also studied
situational homosexual behavior. Although the participants prefer sex with someone of the opposite sex, due to a special situation they engage in homosexual sex. Prisons and same-sex boarding schools are two examples where this often occurs.
Sociologist George Kirkham (1971) studied situational homosexual behavior at the state prison at Soledad, California. He found three types of participants. In the jargon of the prisoners, they were known as
queens (homosexual men who prefer same-sex partners),
wolves (heterosexual men who force other men to have sex with them), and
punks (heterosexual men who are forced to have sex). Situational homosexual behavior usually disappears when the situation changes--such as when a man is discharged from prison and again has access to sex with women.
Causes of Homosexuality
This example helps us understand why some heterosexuals have sex with someone of their own sex-because of force or lack of access to someone of the opposite sex. But what do we know about the causes of homosexuality? That is, why do some people
prefer to have sex with people of their own sex?
Despite many theories and thousands of studies, we do not know the answer. Although it is possible that genetics in the form of DNA markers, or the organization of the brain, may underlie human sexual orientation, researchers have found no chemical, biological, or even psychological differences that distinguish homosexuals and heterosexuals (Hooker 1957, 1958; Masters and Johnson 1979; Paul et al., 1982; Hamer et al. 1993; LeVay 1993; Laumann et al. 1994). In addition, we would expect identical twins--who develop from a single fertilized egg and share 100 percent of their heredity--to always have the same sexual orientation. If sexual orientation is inherited, then if one twin is heterosexual (or homosexual) the other twin should have the same sexual orientation. In some pairs of identical twins, however, one twin may have a heterosexual orientation and the other a homosexual orientation (McConaghy and Blaszczynski 1980; Bailey and Pillard 1991; Satinover 1996).
With such findings, most sociologists take the social constructionist view and consider homosexuality to be the result of socialization (the environment), not genetics. No consistent patterns of socialization of homosexuals have been identified, however. Like heterosexuals, homosexuals come from a variety of family backgrounds. Consequently, unlike some psychoanalysts, sociologists do not view the cause of homosexuality to be a particular type of family relations, such as a "weak," aloof father and a close, "dominant" mother (Bieber 1976; Pillard 1990; Mallet and Apostolidis 1997).
As with other human behavior, sociologists do not rule out the possibility that genetics underlie homosexual and heterosexual orientations. If these genetic causes exist, however, they have yet to be demonstrated. Also, if they exist, the sexual orientation is likely due to an interplay between these genetic factors and the environment. At this point, however, no "gay gene" has been found.
Comparing Male and Female Homosexuals
Let's consider one more aspect of homosexuality--differences that researchers have found between male and female homosexuals. (The term for a female homosexual,
lesbian, apparently first referred to the Greek island of Lesbos, home of the poet Sappho, who wrote poetry that celebrated the love of woman for woman.)
Earlier, we saw that homosexuality is more common among males than females, a finding supported by all researchers who have reported on this matter. Let's see what other differences researchers have found. One of the most significant is that lesbians are more likely to seek emotional relationships, and to place greater value on mutual commitment and sexual fidelity (Faderman 1981; Blackwood 1985, 1996). As a result, they tend to have fewer sexual partners than male homosexuals, and, if living in a committed relationship, they are less likely to have sex outside that relationship (Blumstein and Schwartz 1990). Lesbians are also less likely to go to gay bars (Wolf 1979; Lowenstein 1980; Peplau and Amaro 1982).
Denmark legalized same-sex marriages in 1989. The first study of homosexual marriages in Denmark shows that lesbians have a higher divorce rate (23 percent compared to 14 percent for male-male marriages). The suggested explanation is that women initiate most of the heterosexual divorces in Denmark (as they also do in the United States), so it is likely that lesbians are following the heterosexual pattern. "Women simply expect different things from marriage than men do," suggests one analyst, "and if they don't get them, they prefer to live alone" (Jones 1997). Frankly, no one yet knows the reason for this pattern. The one that has been suggested is no more profound than to say that women are pickier than men, which certainly sounds like gender stereotyping.
As you see, the differences that have been identified between male and female homosexuals largely parallel differences between male and female heterosexuals. For both homosexuals and heterosexuals, symbolic interactionists would trace these differences to early socialization. Girls are more likely to learn to associate sex with emotional relationships, and, like their heterosexual counterparts, lesbians tend to conform to this basic expectation. Similarly, boys tend to learn to separate sex from affection, to validate their self-images by sexual conquests. Boys are also more likely to see sexual fidelity as a restriction on their independence (Prus and Irini 1988).
The Social Construction of a Homosexual Identity
By themselves, erotic desires--and sex with members of one's own sex--are not sufficient for people to label themselves homosexual. Many people who experience such desires and who have sex with others of their own sex identify themselves as heterosexual (Laumann et al. 1994; Murray 2000). What is the process, then, by which people come to identify themselves as homosexual?
Researchers have developed several models to account for this process (Troiden 1989). One of the more useful was developed by sociologist Vivienne Cass (1979, 1984). Using symbolic interactionism and based on case studies, Cass found that identifying oneself as homosexual involves six stages:
- Identity confusion Finding his or her feelings--or behavior--at odds with heterosexual expectations, the individual feels confused and upset. He or she begins to ask, "Who am I?" and replies, "My behavior (or feelings) could be called homosexual."
- Identity comparison The individual begins to feel "different," as though he or she does not belong. He or she makes a tentative commitment to a homosexual identity by saying, "I could be a homosexual."
- Identity tolerance The individual turns his or her self-image further away from a heterosexual identity and more toward a homosexual identity. He or she concludes, "I probably am a homosexual."
- Identity acceptance The individual moves from tolerating a homosexual self-image to accepting a homosexual identity. After increasing contact with others who define themselves as homosexual, he or she concludes, "I am a homosexual."
- Identity pride The individual thinks of homosexuality as good and heterosexuality as bad. (Heterosexuals, for example, represent oppressors.) He or she makes a strong commitment to a homosexual group, which generates a firm sense of group identity. The individual may become politically active and thinks, "I am a homosexual--and proud of it."
- Identity synthesis The individual decides that the "them and us" view is false. He or she begins to feel much similarity between himself or herself and some heterosexuals--as well as much dissimilarity between himself and herself and some homosexuals. Although homosexuality remains essential to the individual's identity, it becomes merely one aspect of the self. At this point, the individual may say, "I am a homosexual--but I am also a lot of other things in life."
In line with symbolic interactionism, Cass stresses that the six stages are not fixed. People don't go through them rigidly, marching straight from number one to number six. Rather, the stages are fluid, and not everyone moves through them in the same way. People may stop at any stage. Individuals who have begun to interpret their feelings and behavior in terms of homosexuality, for example, may question that interpretation. They may even move back toward a heterosexual identity. For example, people in the first stage--who are facing the possibility that their behavior
could be called homosexual--may stop their same-sex behavior. Or they may continue it--but define their behavior (or their feelings) as situational, and, therefore, not part of their sexual orientation. If they are in the third stage, they may feel positive that they "probably" are homosexual and move eagerly to the fourth stage. Or, if they dislike this probability, they may move away from a homosexual identification.
In metaphorical terms, once one boards the train to a homosexual identity, one can continue the journey, get off at the station marked "Identification Stops Here," or even get off at the station called "Return to Heterosexuality." Not everyone who begins this journey continues it to a final destination called "Homosexuality" (Bell et al 1981). No one, however, has data to tell us what percentage of people who begin this journey complete it.
HETEROSEXUALITY
Researchers have also studied differences between men and women heterosexuals. Let's consider some of their findings, and then go back to the question of nature-nurture once again.
Basic Differences in Men's and Women's Sexuality?
It probably won't surprise you to learn that researchers have found that men tend to initiate sex more frequently than do women. (Sociology is sometimes criticized for proving the obvious, as with this finding. Yet, unless we conduct studies, we don't know if our common observations are true or not. Recall the box on Sociology and Common Sense in Chapter 1. Researchers have also found that men tend to be more "goal oriented," to consider the act of sex, especially orgasm, to be what love making is all about. Women, in contrast, tend to focus more on tenderness and the quality of their emotional relationship (Hite 1976; Halpern and Sherman 1979; Blumstein and Schwartz 1983; Simon and Gagnon 1998).
Are most women, by nature, more oriented to emotional relationships and less oriented to sex than most men? This question brings us to the thorny issue of "nature or nurture" that we have discussed from time to time. (The "essentialist" and "social constructionist" views contrasted earlier largely represent this issue. For an extended example, see the chapter on gender.) Although there are indications that biology underlies men's and women's approaches to sex, we simply don't know if this is the reason. Human sexuality always takes place within culture--and culture overlays our nature, shaping it in some particular direction. If culture allowed the free expression of our sexuality (that is, if we could do anything we wanted sexually with whomever we wanted under any circumstances we wished), we don't know if women would be as sexually oriented as men. I personally doubt it, but I am viewing reality through the lens of culture.
We must also keep in mind that generalizations about human behavior, although true in the abstract, do not apply to individuals. Most men and women apparently have different emphases on sexual intercourse and emotional relationships, but any particular individual may vary from this tendency. A particular man, for example, may be more oriented toward intimacy, a particular woman toward having sex. Generalizations, then, can lead to stereotypes that paint everyone with the same broad brushstroke, causing us to overlook individual differences. Consider this example, which shattered a stereotype that I was holding:
A female graduate student in my department pointed to her jeans and told me that she had first seen them on a salesman who knocked on the door of her apartment. She admired his jeans, and she offered him sex if he would give them to her. He accepted. (In case this leaves you with a mental picture of the salesman leaving her apartment in his underwear, which was one of the pictures it left me with, she gave him the old pair of jeans she was wearing at the time.)
We must be careful, then, when we attempt to generalize about male and female sexuality. Our sexuality is so overridden by culture that we can't imagine what it would be like if it were not.
One of the ways our culture inhibits women's sexuality is through stereotypes. A sexually promiscuous man is often looked up to by his friends. He is seen as a success in sexual matters, a conqueror, a sexual victor. In contrast, a woman who has many sexual partners is not as likely to be viewed in the same way. Questions are likely to be raised about why she is "like that." People may refer to her by negative terms, such as
whore. Although this double standard of stereotypes is easing, it persists. If you want to test this stereotype yourself, on a sheet of paper write all the negative terms you can think of for a woman who sleeps around. On another sheet, write all the negative terms you can think of for a man who sleeps around. If you are like most people in our society, your list for women will be longer.
Sexual Arousal and Sexual Fantasies
Based on their interviews, sex researchers first reported that women are not as easily aroused sexually as men (Kinsey et al. 1948, 1953). Later research, based on devices that measure men's and women's physical sexual responses, showed little difference in how men and women become aroused to erotic stimuli (Heiman 1977). Because common experience indicates that men are more easily aroused sexually, we will have to leave this as an open question, one for which we need more research.
A study of sexual fantasies confirms the stereotype that women are more oriented toward emotional relationships and men toward satisfying their physical needs (Ellis and Symons 1990). Apparently men have more sexual fantasies than women, and in their fantasies they have more partners. Men's fantasies also move quickly to sexual acts. In their fantasies, women are more likely to fantasize about men with whom they are having or have had a relationship, and to focus on touching and foreplay.
Frequency of Sex
As you might suppose, one of the aspects of sexual behavior that researchers have investigated is how often people have sexual intercourse. Most studies use inadequate samples, and we can't have confidence in their results. Because the Laumann research is based on a representative sample of the U.S. population ages 18 to 59, we can generalize those findings to the entire U.S. population of this age.
Tables HS 2 and
HS 3, based on Laumann, allow you to compare the frequency of sexual intercourse for single and married men and women.
As you might expect,
Tables HS 2 and
HS 3 show that married men and women have more sex than do single men and women who don't have live-in partners. These tables also show that single men and women who have live-in partners have more sex than do married men and women. Interesting. Why do you think this is? The most likely reason is that sex is more frequent in the early stages of a relationship. Sex decreases over time, and cohabitations don't last as long as marriages. Another possible reason is based on the legal standing of the relationship and men being more likely to initiate sex. In a cohabiting relationship--in which women's rights are not established--women may be less secure, and therefore feel less capable of turning down sex when they don't feel like participating.
If you compare men and women in these two tables, a surprising finding shows up. As you might expect, single men who aren't cohabiting have more sex than do single women who aren't cohabiting. But single women who have live-in partners have more sex than do single men who have live-in partners. If you wonder whom the women are having the extra sex with, you're not alone. It is likely that the women are not having additional partners, for that flies in the face of both what we commonly know and what research confirms: that men generally have more sexual partners (Oliver and Hyde 1993).
The answer probably lies in the research itself. All social research is imperfect, even that which uses a representative sample. Although the Laumann sample is outstanding, the people who were interviewed have both faulty memories and various motivations for answering questions. Although I cannot say for certain why more single cohabiting women report having sex two or more times a week than do their male counterparts, I would chalk it up to different memories.
As you can see from
Tables HS 2 and
HS 3, some married people don't have sex. These are not just the elderly. In some sexless marriages, even young husbands and wives find themselves incompatible and don't have sex. Yet they hold onto the marriage for some reason, often due to religious convictions or for the sake of their children.
Virginity
As you know, not all single people have sex either, and a small percentage remains virgin until they marry. This total may run about 10 percent of U.S. women and 8 percent of U.S. men (Weinberg et al. 1996). Sociologists Susan Sprecher and P. C. Regan (1989) studied college students who were virgins, 192 women and 97 men. The main reason the students gave for abstaining from sex was that they had never felt enough love for someone to give up their virginity. Women expressed more positive feelings about their decision, and they were more apt to say they were proud or satisfied with their virginity. Men, in contrast, were more apt to say they felt embarrassed or even guilty about their virginity.
The reason for this difference in attitude about virginity is likely due to
gender roles, to differences about what is expected of men and women. There appears to be a general idea that if a woman is a virgin, she is one by choice, but if a man is a virgin, he has problems of some sort. It seems that a woman can wait for the right person, or for marriage, but a man
ought to be seeking sex--and the more sex he has, the more manly he is. In short, being a virgin may challenge a man's masculinity, but not a woman's femininity.
A CONCLUDING NOTE
As I have stressed throughout this text, it is not the purpose of sociology to evaluate human behavior. In fact, sociology has no means to evaluate behavior, to decide that some particular behavior is superior or preferable to another behavior. Sociology's task is to study human behavior-to observe, describe, count, and analyze how behaviors are related to one another. Sociology can determine likely consequences if a group chooses one form of behavior over another, but sociology has no moral basis for determining that one behavior or consequence of behavior is better than another.
It is within this principle that sociologists study human sexuality. Sociologists count (quantitative sociology) and describe (qualitative sociology) human sexual behavior. They also analyze what they count and describe, relating behavior to theory. To sociologists, sexual behavior is like any other human behavior-it is similar to buying a car or making a decision to go to college. People make evaluations about which act is preferable for them. Sociologists study those acts, whether sex or anything else. They attempt to determine how that behavior is related to people's position in society-to their social class, race-ethnicity, gender, age, and so on.
When sociologists take a position on a social issue-such as premarital sex, marital sex, abstinence, age of sexual consent, cohabitation, prostitution, homosexuality, hate crimes, masturbation, sexual fidelity, male-female relations, and so on-they are not doing so as sociologists. They are stepping out of the role of sociologist and speaking as individual citizens. They are taking a stand based on their own values, preferences, and image of a better society, of the way they want things to be. Sociologists are often outspoken, for many feel passionate about their image of an ideal society, of how relations
should be between men and women, racial and ethnic groups, heterosexuals and homosexuals, and other groups in society.
Sociology, in contrast, is silent on the
shoulds of human behavior. Human sexuality poses no exception to this principle.
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