Download Same Sex Relations

Same Sex Relations
• To date we have examined the history of sexuality
primarily in the context of the history of the
family. Western religious traditions of Judaism
and Christianity conceptualize same sex sexual
relations as deviant and/or sinful, and classify
same sex physical relations with other forms of
deviant, sinful, or prohibited sexuality (e.g.,
fornication, adultery, bestiality, masturbation).
The logic behind such a conception is that the
purpose of sexuality is procreation, and such
behavior is not potentially procreative.
Movements for Sexual Liberation
• Come from a variety of interests, e.g.,….
– Women
– Science and Medicine
– Gays and Lesbians
Women….
• Women claiming the right of sexual
pleasure and control of their own bodies.
• ‘Birth control.’ 1920s and 1930s in the US,
birth control clinics began to provide
information and contraception. They
challenged the Comstock laws. Could birth
control information or paraphernalia be
banned from distribution in the mails as
obscene?
Women….
• Birth control pill was developed in the
1950s with support from Planned
Parenthood
• Made available to the public in the 1960s
• The most effective contraceptive method
yet developed which a woman could
control.
Science and Medicine...
• Challenge the authority of law and religious
authorities to define the “normal” and the
“deviant” in sexuality.
– Psychologists
– Sociologists
– Physiologists
Psychologists or Psychoanalysts..
• ..discover that sexual dysfunctions cause
neuroses.
• Examples: Freud, Havelock Ellis.
• When: late 19th-early 20th century
Sociologists...
• ...begin to survey sexual practices.
• The Kinsey Reports of the 1940s and 1950s
demonstrate the discrepancy between
morality and practice
• For example, 1/3rd of men acknowledge a
sexual relationship to orgasm with another
male
Physiologists...
• Masters and Johnson conduct ‘experiments’
to study human sexuality by putting people
in a laboratory, wiring them up and
recording physiological responses.
• When: 1950s and 1960s
Gays and Lesbians….
• And the the right to sexual autonomy.
• In the US, cities develop gay and lesbian
subcultures (turn of the 20th century),
including bars and restaurants, and
networks of jobs and relationships of
support.
• These communities are periodically
harassed and prosecuted under local vice
laws.
Gays and Lesbians...
• In 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in
Greenwich Village, NY, the patrons fought
back when the police attempted to raid the
bar and arrest patrons. A street riot broke
out and led to an open movement for the
rights of gays and lesbians, patterned on the
civil rights and women’s liberation
movements.