...Essay Test 2 By Cody Ward This essay argues that the attitudes toward sexuality were greatly varied between average people and activists between 1900 and 1960. The people in the 1960s had were much more sexually liberated than those in the earlier part of the century. (Peiss, Sexual Revolutions, p.405) The 1960s brought about a time when sex be came a more common place topic, and people where able to plan their families more easily. In the early part of the 1900s women became under scrutiny for their sexual practices. Many American women, as well as immigrants, were entering into prostitution in order to make ends meet. They received higher financial rewards as prostitutes than they would have if they had worked in factory of domestic jobs. (Peiss, Prostitution and Working-class sexuality in the Early Twentieth Century, p. 273) Some of the women were forced into sex slavery. They were often brought from abroad to work as sex slaves. The government launched an investigation into these practices, and determined said that most of these women were already living immoral lifestyles. It was not only happening abroad but within America as well. Many women who were prostitutes had to be very careful so to not become the victims of sexual slavery or violence. (Peiss, A Government Agent Explains the White Slave Traffic, 1911, p. 275) In this same time period most states had outlawed abortion. There were strict rules as to the types of contraception that women were able to...
Words: 944 - Pages: 4
...Sexuality has become a driven topic in today’s time.. For instance, the United States of America past president, Barack Obama, has fought for the lesbian, gay, transgender, and queer community and established legal protection for their lifestyle. Through this discourse, sexuality has emerged from just how one accept themselves, to how the world accept everyone since people are now able to express their sexuality more openly than before. Through this evolved sexuality, Michel Foucault, a French Philosopher who studies power and knowledge, reviews how sexuality became what it is by connecting power and sexuality together in his book The History of Sexuality. Similarly, Judith Butler, a feminist philosopher, argues that people should not be identified...
Words: 1183 - Pages: 5
...Foucault argues that there are two key histories that create the history of sexuality starting in the seventeenth century. These two histories are the history of an attraction to speak and learn about sex, as well as a history of power. This paper will explain how both these histories have been used by Foucault to craft a historical account of sexuality. The history of speaking and learning about sex outlines that it has always been present in society. Foucault disagrees with the repressive hypothesis of sex by saying that with the rise of the bourgeoisie class never has sexuality never been more spoken of before. He claims that the tightening of language and the proper times to speak of sex has only changed the way it is thought of in...
Words: 679 - Pages: 3
...Sexuality is one of those feelings that you are born with. Different cultures and religions have their own definition of sexuality. It's not something that you choose, it's a natural physically, emotional, and sexual attraction to male, female, or even both. For centuries it is believe by some cultures that if you weren't heterosexual then you have a mental disease and considered abnormal. Foucault believed that power is persuasive, multi-faced, and is not already planned. It’s a cultural production that represents the appropriation of the human body and of its physiological capacities by an ideological discourse. Sex has no history but sexuality does. French Philosopher Michel Foucault thought that sexuality was, “a set of effects produced in bodies, behaviors, and social relations by a certain deployment.” Sexuality for a person can be narrowed down to what a person is attracted to, their desires, and pleasures. In the article, “Is There a History of Sexuality?” by David M. Halperin sexually defines itself as separate, sexual domain, within the larger field of human psychophysical nature. For some cultures it is considered natural and psychological but different people feel different ways about that unproven theory. Sexuality effects different people due to their cultures views on passion, libertinism, eroticism, love, affection, and desire. Athenians felt like that was when people were sexually attracted to the same...
Words: 901 - Pages: 4
...more sources than just this one? * Does the source make any claims without having evidence to support them? | Explain in at least two to four sentences what information you can gather from this source? | Source nameMetaphors, Monuments and Texts: The Life Course in Roman Culture by Ray Laurence from World Archaeology, Feb 2000, Vol.31, Issue 3 | I consider this source of information credible because it is an academic journal listed in the University of Phoenix Library. The information is current and has several references listed. This information source does not seem to have any bias. | This academic journal explores the life experience in ancient Rome. It shows the structural division of Roman society according to gender, status, and sexuality. | Source nameGood Sex at Home in...
Words: 579 - Pages: 3
...Sexuality has became a form of personal identity over the course of history. Something that people were not allowed to talk about in the past has transformed with time and made American culture the most sexually open-minded nation. Sexual expression and repression are the influences and forces that directed the history of sexuality to what we have today. While sexual expression was a natural social desire of greater individual freedom, repression was a power of the Church or Government against sexual elements in the American society. We entered the 20th century with women being more independent and educated. Women also gained access to sports, which made a way of socializing and seeking for a more fun lifestyle. No one would even think back then that the beginning of the century, such as early 20s, was the first biggest sexual expression that has set the pace for its further development, and that pace was pretty fast. As the century started, American men came back home from the WWI. During the war, the Government was aware that soldiers had sex yet had no repression against it. Despite the warnings about venereal deceases, unprotected sex for soldiers resulted in millions of lost lives because there was no medical cure. Sex during the war mostly happen with prostitutes from Europe, and those men who survived the war, came back home with new knowledge about sex. This knowledge together with other changes in American history, launched the early 20s known as “roaring 20s”. ...
Words: 1786 - Pages: 8
...Leo Dudziak HLS 301G Human Sexuality Library Research Project 6/21/2015 1. Religion and Sex 2. International Human Sexuality Issues Female genital mutilation Female genital mutilation is a ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice of female genital mutilation is concentrated in 27 African countries. Although cases are found in other countries those 27 countries compose a vast majority of worldwide female genital mutilation. It is an appalling tradition that is practiced for religious and cultural reasons. There are four types of female genital mutilation according to The World health organization. Type 1 is partial or total removal of the clitoris. Type two partial removal of clitoris and labia minora. Type three is narrowing of the vaginal orifice and type 4 is any other harmful procedure to female genitals for nonmedical purposes. 85% of women who have had female genital mutilation have had type one or type two performed. The practice significantly affects females the sexuality of those that have had it performed to them. Woman can be severally affected because removal of part of the vagina or clitoris has many negative physical and psychological affects. The physical effects that can happen are severe bleeding, problems urinating, cysts, infections, infertility as well as complications in childbirth and increased newborn deaths. Female genital mutilation can take some or all pleasure away from sex. It also reduces orgasms...
Words: 1725 - Pages: 7
...Comparing and Contrasting Essentialist Approaches to Social Psychology with Social Constructionist Approaches to Social Psychology. A widely recognised definition of social psychology is “an effort to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others” (Allport, 1985). However, how to measure this, the research methods to be used and what constitutes useful evidence has caused much debate in the history of social psychology. This essay will compare and contrast the two epistemologies of essentialist and social constructionist approaches to social psychology and the research methods of quantitative and qualitative used in each approach. Essentialists’ view of the world is that the properties possessed by a group are universal in that group and do not depend on context. However, a member of a group may possess other characteristics that are not required to include it as a group member but, it must not have characteristics that preclude it from being a member of the group (Burr, 1995). For example, essentialists believe that personality consists of a number of traits and personality of an individual is established by the level of each of these traits. Essentialists also believe that these traits remain more or less stable over time and it is our personality that influences behaviour (Maltby, 2010). As essentialists are able to classify groups as such, they use quantitative research...
Words: 3936 - Pages: 16
...Socio-Cultural Influences on Sexuality There is nothing that sparks a debate more than the topic of sexuality. The multitude of opinions in societies displays an attempt to define, promote, or control sexuality. Sexuality is a part of our humanity in which defines sex, gender identities, gender roles, sexual orientation, pleasure, intimacy, and instigates procreation. Though, sexuality is experienced and expressed through thoughts, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, roles, behaviours, and relationships; it is greatly influenced by societies, cultures, historical perspectives, religious perspectives, biological forces, psychological theories, ethics, morals, and legal factors. In the United States, known as the “melting pot” because of the mass amounts of cultural influences brought in by immigrants worldwide that now reside on its land; one of the biggest concerns in regards to sexuality are the social and public health challenges that influence sexual behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs. Sexual behavior in not just a personal matter between two people, but rather a theme that can affect society in terms of social expectations for sexual behaviors, gender identity, roles, stereotypes, and bias. Social Expectations on Sexual Behaviors “Sexuality is an important part of our lives” (King, 2012, p.1), currently and amongst the generations before us. Throughout history, sexual behaviours have been largely influenced by culture, religion, and historical perspectives...
Words: 1417 - Pages: 6
...construction of childhood as a time of innocence Explain the idea of innocence – romantic discourse of childhood and how it shaped our view of childhood Barnados and ‘Painted babies’ Representation of childhood innocence in sexuality and criminality, and the roles, the age and gender play in portraying children as innocent of guilty Innocence Children enjoy dressing up and experimenting with clothes and make up as part of their play – a way to explore gendered identities and expectations. There is suggestion that ‘painted babies’ something more sexualized and provocative is going on promoted from a commercial venture and encouraged by parents Adults are quick to dismiss any loss of innocence or links with sexuality in the girls dressing up or performance. Although childhood innocence is a very powerful discourse...
Words: 826 - Pages: 4
...Huihui Zong Ally Day Women’s Studies 367.01 2/13/2011 Sexuality for Slave Girls In the book, “ Incidents in the life of a salve girl” (Jacobs, 1861), the writer Harriet Jacobs presents how a slave girl, Linda Brent, who mirrors Jacobs’s real experience, being suffered under the control and threaten of his master and how she escapes from the captors and finally gets free. The main character, Linda Brent, who is a slave girl working for Dr Flint’s daughter, is an epitome of the resistant black women. Having a master like Dr Flint, who threatens Linda constantly with violence and humiliating words, Linda shows intelligence and endurance to escape being further offended by Dr Flint. After Linda has children with Mr Sands who appears to be truly cares for Linda, Linda is threatened by Dr Flint again by being offered to buy her children’s freedom if Linda agree to live with him as his mistress. Linda refuses him and begins to plan her escape from that time. Linda has spent seven years hiding in her grandmother's attic and this exhibit her extraordinary psychological and spiritual strength. During the seven years, to elude her captors, she has moved several times to different cities within the help by some kind white people. Linda manages not only to survive but also to transcend seemingly insurmountable barriers, showing the difficulty for slave to live, especially women slave. Although some male authors of slave narratives had mentioned that African American women had been...
Words: 1379 - Pages: 6
...Russians from the medieval period up until the beginning of the 18th century. Throughout the book, the history of these behaviors are separated by six categories: the ecclesiastical image of sexuality, marriage, incest, rape, and sex and the clergy. Religion served as a huge foundation in the practices of these people, especially Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Listing the differences, the Holy Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Christianity are heavily discussed throughout these sections. The Slavic people recognized the importance of canon law in their society and even incorporated certain aspects of Byzantine secular law into their way of life. At the time of publication, Eve Levin was a professor of history at Ohio State University. She was a graduate of the all-girls Mount Holyoke College. Her take on Slavic history includes women on the forefront of sexuality. She cites works about the feminine figure in society when making these points about women. One of the works cited was the work by Joan...
Words: 653 - Pages: 3
...“A New History of the Civil Rights Movement:” The Unjust Treatment of African Americans Vincent Signorile U.S. History II Professor Parkin 6 April 2017 The Civil Rights Movement was one of the most important movements in the history of the United States. In Danielle McGuire’s At the Dark End of the Street, she makes a case for what she terms “A New History of the Civil Rights Movement.” McGuire uses great elements when describing her study, some of which are disheartening and tragic. These include topics of interracial sexuality, violence, rape, and segregation. The vital topics mentioned demonstrate the strenuous challenges that African Americans had to endure over the years, and even during the Civil...
Words: 1064 - Pages: 5
...and references contained in the title are illustrations of how power is expressed through normative discourse in Western capitalist society. The process of how an act once termed ‘sodomy’ became transformed into the term ‘homosexual’ is fundamental to the nature of power in general and to the mechanism of discourse specifically. Foucault draws our attention to domains of discourse that are characterised by establishing quantifiable knowledge as truth, which society affords positions of authority, such as the medical profession. This authoritative mechanism was an instrument that was applied to an existing system of sexual relation governance resulting in a control-dynamic between power, knowledge and sex. The medicalisation of sexuality through discourse spawned a categorisation of the individual as determined by their sexual identity in a process of transforming experience into knowledge, knowledge into truth, and truth into reality. Foucault’s reference to the ‘sexually peculiar’ draws our attention to the delineation between the procreative model of relationships and all other pleasure-centred sexual acts. The child-bearing relationship’s sexual activities were regulated and protected at the exclusion and vilification of all others. Through the 17th and 18th centuries the power of discourse shifted from the morality-regulation by the church to the industrial sensibilities of institutions such as the medical community. With a normal category of sexual behaviour...
Words: 2171 - Pages: 9
...Why is men’s fashion photography redefining the image of the contemporary male and how does it use diverse male sexualities as a tool in advertising? The works of renowned photographers such as Hedi Slimane have a heavy impact on prevailing images of male sexualities in fashion advertising, eventually affecting the image of the ideal male in fashion. Male sexualities in high fashion photography can oscillate between the homoerotic or a dominant hetero-masculinity, thus there is usually no middle ground in fashion advertising, especially where artistic direction takes over. Such advertising targets niche “high fashion” audiences and responds to the popularization of sexual themes in other forms of advertising (and indeed wider media), whilst associating diverse sexualities with artistry. Coding in high fashion advertisements affect, but also respond intuitively to, audience sexual ideologies by deconstructing the concepts of femininity and masculinity that have undergone rapid change in our self-reflective and deconstructing postmodern world. Hedi Slimane’s penchant for androgynous men has significantly heightened popularity for thin male models in the fashion industry. His work usually incorporates explicit concepts of homo-eroticism and femininity inspiring many leading contemporary designers and photographers who saw his designs as radical and surprisingly persuasive” [1]. Indeed, Hedi’s influence on modern fashion aesthetics suggests that “designers everywhere started...
Words: 2699 - Pages: 11
