Introducing the New Sexuality Studies by Laurel Westbrook & Steven Seidman

Author:Laurel Westbrook & Steven Seidman [Westbrook, Laurel & Seidman, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367756406
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

When you think of sexual desire, what – or whom – do you imagine? Do you picture someone with intense, spontaneous, almost instantaneous lust and a biologically hardwired, perhaps even uncontrollable, sex drive? Or do you envision a passive and demure person, someone who can participate in sex, but who might need someone with a stronger desire to assist them in getting “turned on” (because they are not particularly interested in sex in the first place)? When you imagine these two different types of people, what are their genders? Regina, a participant in my study of low desire in women, cited at the top of the chapter, told me she thinks that most people today believe the first type of desire – goal-driven, overpowering, maybe even aggressive – is much more common in men. The second type of desire – responsive, receptive, and more muted or in need of coaxing – is perceived as being more common in women. The idea is that women often need their desire to be “awakened” – by men.

There is a long-standing idea that men have strong sexual urges, whereas women are less initiating when it comes to sex – and these ideas about male and female desire have been promoted under the guise of science and medicine. But it is important to remember that science and medicine do not simply describe phenomena in the world and help us understand it; these human-created disciplines also make assumptions about people based upon preexisting ideas, that sometimes selectively confirm researchers’ biases (researchers are people, too, after all!). Doing the work of science involves constructing categories for human behavior, types of people, and forms of knowledge, or telling scientific stories, which come to be considered “expert” ways of knowing, and thus exercise power. To this end, science is ideological; it is founded in people’s beliefs, politics, and social circumstances. Unfortunately, these aspects of science that are based in ideology can end up reproducing stereotypes that are outdated, but make them appear as though they are new, unbiased, and evidence based. Regina’s words encapsulate the powerful nature of scientific discourses about sex, gender, and sexuality, how they are disseminated in popular culture, and how they are ultimately lived out by real people, with very real effects.

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