Download Sexual Histories, 2nd Lecture Sexual Histories: A Framework

Sexual Histories, 2nd Lecture
Sexual Histories: A Framework
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Sexualities in History: A Reader
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History 102
Student Representatives
Jasmine Clancy, [email protected]
Isabella Francis,[email protected]
Aims of lecture:
1. To get you thinking about key theme of the
paper – i.e., sexuality as a social, cultural and
historical construct (to be continued in Barry’s
‘Thinking Sex’ lecture)
2. To consider range of ways one might approach
topic of sexualities from a specifically historical
point of view.
Outline:
1. Sexuality is historically constructed. Its forms and
meanings vary across time.
2. Possible frameworks for sexual history
a. Essentialist. Sex is biologically driven and thus largely
unchanging across time.
b. Progressive narratives. Past societies were repressed,
recent societies increasingly permissive.
c. Social Constructionist. Sexualities vary across time and
according to their social or cultural context.
1. Sex is Historically Constructed
Ideas about sex and sexuality,
that may have the cultural status
of ‘reality’ or ‘common sense’, can
be shown to be produced in
specific circumstances and thus
subject to change.
That is, like ideas about ‘race’ and
‘gender’, they are subject to
change.
A nun picks fruit from a penis tree,
from a 14thC copy of La Roman de la
Rose, BnF MS Fr. 25526
We are interested in the variety
and diversity of human
sexualities in different historical
eras. We offer accounts of what
we take to be dominant themes,
or dominant discourses, of sex
and sexualities in different
periods.
‘Venus venerated by Six Legendary
Lovers’. Birth tray made in Florence, c. 1400.
Current concern with “identity”
Our notion of sexual “identity” and
primary division into
“homosexual”, “lesbian”, and
“heterosexual” is only about a
century old.
Previous western cultures were
more concerned with power and
social structures; sin and morality;
and marital and familial
frameworks, and organised basic
sexual concepts accordingly.
What is this?
‘Gabrielle d’Estrees and One of Her Sisters,’ School of Fontainbleau,
late sixteenth century.
Gabrielle (on right) was a famous beauty and mistress of King Henri IV of France
(reigned 1572-1610)
‘Gabrielle d’Estrees at her
Bath’
(French school, early
seventeenth century,
Chantilly, musée
Condé)
‘Essentialism’:
The view that biological, physiological and genetic
factors are the fundamental causes of human behaviour.
An essentialist view of sexuality therefore holds that
human beings are and always have been basically the
same in their sexual desires and practices. It does not
allow for major differences between cultures or across
times.
‘We are survival machines –
robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the
selfish molecules known as
genes,’ Richard Dawkins,
The Selfish Gene, 1976, p. v.
A Married Couple in Bed Receiving a Child from
the Holy Trinity, French School, (15th century)
Bibliotheque de L'Arsenal, Paris.
Progressive narratives
These chart a history from
repression to ever greater
liberalisation of attitudes to
sex and sexuality, wherein
western societies become
increasingly open-minded
about sexual matters.
Philip Larkin, (1922-1985), ‘Annus Mirabilis’
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.
Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.
Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unloseable game.
So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.
From High Windows, 1974.
Michel Foucault (1926-84), author of The Will to Knowledge:
The History of Sexuality vol. 1 (1976)
‘Constructionism’
The view that social and
sexual categories are
cultural constructs,
subject to change across
time and across
cultures.
The seduction of Lancelot, from Le livre
de Lancelot du Lac, France ca. 14011425, Bib. Nat. De France, Arsenal 3480,
p. 33 .