Sexuality, an obsession with categories
Billy Bragg, Sexuality (Link to you tube video).
However, lets go with some sort of definition of sexuality. Sexuality the human
capacity to have erotic experiences and responses.
Sexual
orientation, the enduring pattern of sexual and/or romantic attraction to
people of the same sex or gender, the other sex or gender, or to both sexes or
more than one gender, or to none.
A concern with categorisation
My argument is that very often psychology has followed societal concerns. What are those concerns.
The concern with categorisation has a history, both a legal history and a medical history.
Across history, and across cultures, there have
been differing moral and legal codes dealing with sexuality.
While the
diversity of human sexuality has (probably) been with us across time, seeing
sexuality as a major part of personal identity may be modern.
Legal
frameworks, in a UK context, moved from specific sexual acts, towards more
general behaviours, and then to decriminalisation and finally equality.
UK Legal history
Buggery Act
1533 – prior to this sexuality offences were tried through the Church (by this
point the split with the Church of Rome had happened).
‘Unnatural
sex’ Convictions for anal intercourse or oral intercourse by a man with a man
or woman; and sex by men or women with animals.
Death by
hanging, unlike many other offences land, titles and wealth were not passed on
but went to the crown. Unlike (e.g.) murder, Clergy could be executed for
buggery.
Suspicion
it was often used politically because of that.
Replaced by
the Offences against the Person Act 1828, which provided that buggery would
continue to be a capital offence. Offences
against the Person Act 1861 removed death penalty.
The United
Kingdom Parliament repealed buggery laws for England and Wales in 1967 (in so
far as they related to consensual homosexual acts in private). (Scotland 1980,
Northern Ireland 1982)
Up until
the 1st May 2004 while (male) homosexuality was decriminalised a series of laws
remained on the books that effectively made asking someone to have sex and
having sex with a partner in a private room of a shared house illegal for gay
men.
This came
from the Labouchere amendment to the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act
“Any male
person who, in public or private, commits or is a party to the commission of, or
procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of any act of
gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.”
The act
above was an act about the suppression of brothels and prostitution.
Age of consent
Age of
consent following Sexual Offences Act 1967 for sex between men was set at 21.
1994 age of
consent for male same sex activity lowered to 18. 2000 age of
consent for all sexual acts equalised at 16 (first time UK law acknowledged
lesbians).
Equality legislation
Equality
act 2010 (UK wide)
Civil
partnership act 2004 (UK wide)
Same sex
marriage England and Wales 2013, Scotland 2014, not recognised in Northern
Ireland
The legal framework matters, but arguably of more importance was the change in the psychiatric view.
The Psychiatric Viewpoint
DSM and
World Health Organisation International Classification of Diseases.
DSM I
(1952) and II (1968) included homosexuality as a diagnosis of psychiatric
disorder.
The seventh
printing of DSM II (1974) had removed homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder.
(Although egodystonic homosexuality remained until DSM IV)
ICD-9 1977
included homosexuality as a disease
ICD – 10
1990 removed homosexuality as a disease
Some Effects on Psychology
Conflation
of sexuality and gender identity, such that early masculinity-feminity scales
were used as part of a diagnostic process for identifying homosexuality.
Terman and
Miles (1936) Masculinity femininity test.
Mf scale in
first edition Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test – originally normed on
(male) GIs for masculine sample and (male) GIs in the stockade for
homosexuality for feminine sample.
Development of sexuality
Little
effort to understand general development of sexuality.
When
homosexuality was seen as a mental disorder effort to understand what caused
the ‘abnormality’.
—reudian
concepts used (hence egodystonic homosexuality).
Radao
(1940) Failure to resolve the Oedipus Complex in a ‘successful’ way.
Often led
to ‘mother blaming’
Later
‘mother blaming’ would continue under a guise of social learning theory, having
‘too strong’ a female role model, and/or ‘too weak’ a male role model.
Little to
no empirical evidence to back up the theorising.
The heterosexuality questionnaire
I use this in class, I don't want my students to tell me their answers to the questions, the point is to get out the way we treat straight people differently to Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual people. So if you are heterosexual try to answer these questions.
1. What do
you think caused your heterosexuality?
2. How and
when did you decide to become a heterosexual?
3. Is it
possible that your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?
4. Is it
that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of having intimate
relationships with those of your own sex?
5. If you
have never slept with a person of the same sex, is it possible that all you
need is a good gay or lesbian lover?
6. Why do
people like you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Can’t you just
be who you are and keep it quiet?
7. Why do
heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?
8. Why do
heterosexuals feel compelled to seduce others into their lifestyle?
9. Despite
the social support (and tax breaks) that marriage receives the divorce rate
continues to grow. Why is it that heterosexuals cannot form committed
stable relationships?
10. How can
you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive
heterosexuality?
11. There
seem to be very few truly happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been
developed that may enable to change your sexual orientation if you want
to. Have you ever considered, for example, aversion therapy?
12. Would
you really want your child to be a heterosexual, knowing all of the problems
that s/he may face?
And Finally
If you have got time I recommend this to you, it is the video of a talk by Dr. Lisa Diamond on sexual fluidity. It is 45 minutes long.
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