Is Ones Sexuality Fixed by Birth or by Upbringing - Essay Example

To what extent are our sexualities fixed at birth? The question of gender has been one of the most relevant questions discussed in contemporary worldand recognizing gender has a crucial role in the modern world. Gender difference and recognition is evident all though the lives of human beings and every aspect of social living is marked by the question of one’s gender or sexuality. From the early stages of one’s life itself, one is structured according to the gender or sexuality. Thus, boys are taught the importance of appearing hard and dominant, rather than making themselves attractive, and men are recruited into jobs that require the use of force such as police, the military, private security etc, while women are normally recruited into jobs that repair the consequences of violence, including nursing, psychology and social work. Significantly, scholars have debated on whether one’s sexuality is fixed at birth or not, and one dominant argument is that being a man or a woman is not a fixed state, as it is a becoming or a condition actively under construction. According to major French feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, one is not born, but becomes, a woman. “So we cannot think of womanhood or manhood as fixed by nature. But neither should we think of them as simply imposed from outside, by social norms or pressure from authorities. People construct themselves as masculine or feminine. We claim a place in the gender order – or respond to the place we have been given – by the way we conduct ourselves in everyday life.” (Connell, 4) Therefore, one’s sexuality is not completely fixed either by birth or by upbringing, and it is fundamental to realize to what extent are our sexualities fixed at birth. This paper makes a reflective analysis of the question to what extent our sexualities are fixed at birth. Gender is not fixed by nature alone, i.e. one does not completely assume one’s manhood or womanhood by birth. It is also determined by what is imposed on an individual from outside, including the social norms and pressure from authorities. Understanding gender is essential to realize to what extent our sexualities are fixed at birth and it is common that people claim a specific place in the gender order which they enjoy in their daily life. Significantly, most of the people willingly accept this gender order and enjoy the gender polarity. It is also important to realize that sexual pleasure is frequently organized around gender polarity in Western culture. However, there are also several cases of gender ambiguities and there are masculine women as well as feminine men. According to psychological researches, the great majority of people combine masculine as well as feminine characteristics, rather than being all one or all the other. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the sexuality of human beings – as it is created at birth and as it is formulated all through the stages of development in human beings – is essential and a clear understanding of the term gender is also crucial. “In its most common usage, the term ‘gender’ means the cultural difference of women from men, based on the biological division between male and female. Dichotomy and difference are the substance of the idea… Gender is, above all, a matter of the social relations within which individuals and groups act. Gender relations do include difference and dichotomy, but also include many other patterns… Gender is the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena, and the set of practices (governed by this structure) that bring reproductive directions between bodies into social process.” (Connell, 8-10) Therefore, it is important to recognise that one’s sexuality or gender refers to the structure of social relations based on the reproductive arena and it is a set of practices which determine the reproductive distinctions between men and women. A reflective analysis of the definition of gender confirms that there may be striking difference in the gender patterns from one cultural context to another. It is also essential to realise that gender arrangements are reproduced socially, rather than biologically, by the power of structures to constrain individual actions. In a profound analysis of the human sexualities, one can determine how human sexualities are fixed at birth and how various other factors influence the shaping of human sexualities. According to Ken Plummer, human sexualities consist of complex historical actions, relations, and practices which are performed through metaphors and languages, shaped by social divisions, lodged in political processes, and constantly open for changes. In the wave of ‘new theories of sexualities’, it is often remarked that men as well as women change across time, space, and contexts. It is commonly agreed that human sexualities are not merely biological facts, in spite of the protest by some people that they are. Therefore, according to contemporary researches, human sexualities are not merely shaped at birth and it is patterned by cultures. In other words, human sexualities are shaped by factors such as class, gender, and age, and there are various other essential factors influencing human sexualities. Thus, Ken Plummer purports that “human sexualities are complex historical actions, relations, and practices performed through metaphors and languages, shaped by social divisions, lodged in political processes, and always open to change. Recent work shows very definitely that sexualities are patterned by cultures: they are shaped by class, gender, and age; they are negotiated through institutions of family, religion, education, and economy; they shift across the life space and cycle; and they are enmeshed in all manner of power relations.” (Plummer, 180) Therefore, there are convincing research evidences in the study of human sexualities which suggest that our sexualities are not fixed at birth and various elements of human cultures such as class, gender, age, family, religion, education, and economy influence the shaping of one’s sexuality. Analysing the factors that influence male sexualities, Plummer purports that male sexuality is not a single shared experience for men, but it is the amount of emotions of weakness and strength, pleasure and pain, anxiety, conflict, struggle, tension etc. In order to comprehend the nature of male sexuality, it is fundamental to place it within actual histories of men’s intimate relationships with others. Unlike the common practice of linking men’s sexuality to the penis (at the physical level) and the phallus (at the symbolic level), it is essential to realize male sexuality within wider perspectives and cultural factors. Stories of hegemonic male sexuality can significantly determine the various factors that influence the understanding of human sexualities and the contemporary account of male sexuality is based on the biology and evolutionary theory of human sexuality. Accordingly, gender differences in regard to sexuality are striking and these differences are given in nature or at birth. According to one version, the presence of testosterone in the male is a prime driver of sexuality, while another version maintains that the biological significance of a single sperm and a single egg differs drastically. Significantly, the biology and evolutionary theory of human sexuality maintains that a man is biologically capable of fathering thousands of offspring, while a woman is able to bear only a relatively small number of children. Based on this biologically based difference, the theory establishes that each sex is well served in long-term evolutionary adaptations by distinctively different ‘reproductive strategies’. “From a strictly biological perspective, a man reproduces his genes most efficiently by being promiscuous – that is, readily engaging in sex with many partners. This scheme, however, opposes the reproductive interests of a woman, whose relatively few pregnancies demand that she carry the child for 9 months, give birth, and care for the infant for some time afterwards… This popular argument of evolutionary psychology hence argues that men are much more sexual and that this serves evolutionary adaptive needs. The male is seen as more sexual and more likely than female to desire sex with a variety of partners.” (Plummer, 181) This theory of biological and evolutionary theory of human sexuality can also be realized as a major device to legitimise the behavioural patterns in men and women. However, in the background modern theories of human sexualities, one can realise that human sexualities are not completely fixed at birth. Rather, human sexualities are constantly evolving through the various stages of human life and the influence of the culture and other aspects of upbringing on human sexualities should be realized as fundamental. In the background of same-sex marriage or gay marriage in the contemporary world, one can easily realize the changing concepts of human sexualities. Unlike the earlier perspectives of human sexualities, the modern theories emphasise the relevance of cultural and social aspects of human development. The examples of non-heterosexual ‘families of choice’ and ‘life experiments’ illustrate the point that human sexualities are not fixed at birth. In other words, the lives and life choices of self-identified lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, ‘queers’, and others historically consigned to the margins of the culture illustrate the essential changes that have taken place in the understanding of human sexualities. These practices have changed the ways in which the culture and civilization of the modern man were determined and the changes that have taken place in the wider perspective of human sexualities illustrate how the culture of people determine their sexualities. “What for many are the cornerstones of western civilisation – the institution of marriage, the biological imperatives of reproduction, the social conditions of parenting – are being radically challenged by the emergence of new patterns of intimacy new claims to relational rights. This is occurring at a time when our social guidelines are in unprecedented flux, and where each society, in its own ways, has to find ways of living with difference.” (Weeks, 2) Significantly, the developing patterns of family and parenting are marked by various dimensions of difference in the background of human sexualities. Men and women undertake new possibilities of human sexualities and often the culture and context of their upbringing influence human sexualities. Understanding the various aspects of gay sexualities and masculinities can help one in realizing that one’s sex is not fixed at birth. There is an important sense of contradiction surrounding male homosexuality and masculinity which seem to work on several interrelated levels. First of all, it works in relation to homosexual men themselves who are caught up in still being men. Secondly, in more social perspective, it works in relation to questions of representation and attitudes that represent gay men as promiscuous perverts of some monstrous masculine sexuality or as effeminate queens whose relationship to the masculine is a negative. An analysis of the history of homosexuality is important in realising that it developed within the framework of culture and that human sexuality is not completely fixed at birth. “It is now well-known, within more academic circles at least, that homosexuality is a culturally specific, modern and Western phenomenon. While same-sex desire is in all likelihood universal throughout time and space, the homosexual as a type of person is only a century or so old and only fully exists in a similar form within the developed world and very little that is truly comparable anywhere else… What this assertion also rests on is the logic of social construction. Social constructivist theory, in a variety of ways, seeks to demonstrate that sexuality, far from being biological, constant, or inevitable, is socially variable, contingent, and ambiguous.” (Edwards, 52) Therefore, based on the logic of social construction and social constructivist theory of sexualities, one can affirm that human sexuality is not completely fixed at birth. In the legendary works of anthropologist Margaret Mead in Samoa, the best demonstrations of the variety of sexual practices and gendered identities, in some empirical detail, are found. The social constructivist accounts of sexuality have, more recently, gained significant impetus from the works of Michel Foucault, who saw the homosexual as a specific type of person, ‘invented’. “The assertion that homosexual identity is a culturally specific that varies from time to time and place to place also undermined the notion that the homosexual identity at least, if not same-sexual activity, is simply the result of some kind of behavioural, biological, or psychological essence.” (Edwards, 52) Therefore, the influence of cultural elements and social factors on determining human sexualities is widely recognised in the social constructivist accounts of sexuality. In conclusion, a reflective analysis of the various factors that determine the human sexualities confirms that our sexualities are not fixed at birth and they are influenced by the cultural and social aspects of the various stages of human development. Recognising and understanding gender reality is important for individuals to determine the true base of their sexualities. It is not merely the biological factors that determine one’s sexualities and one cannot think of womanhood or manhood as fixed by nature. However, it is not also logical to think of them as simply imposed from outside, by social norms or pressure from authorities. In other words, one’s sexuality is not completely fixed either by birth or by upbringing. Works Cited Connell, R. W. Gender. Wiley-Blackwell. 2002. P 4. Edwards, Tim. “Queering the Pitch? Gay Masculinities.” Handbook of studies on men & masculinities. Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn, and Raewyn Connell. (Ed). SAGE. 2005. P 52. Plummer, Ken. “Male Sexualities.” Handbook of studies on men & masculinities. Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn, and Raewyn Connell. (Ed). SAGE. 2005. P 180. Weeks, Jeffrey., et al. Same sex intimacies: families of choice and other life experiments. London: Routledge. 2001. P 2. Read More