Moments in Laplanche's Theory of Sexuality

This paper is a brief introduction to some of Laplanche's thinking, as well as a commentary on his essay that is published here. Some salient issues in Laplanche's theory are introduced, such as the decentering of the subject and the prioritizing of the other, the postulation of the “reality of the message,” in which gestures from the other both signify and excite/seduce, and an enlarged meaning of seduction. The child's translation of the enigmatic messages conveyed by the adult is a process of being seduced into building interiority and subjectivity. In effect, the present paper proposes not only that “otherness” constitutes the subject, but that an “asymmetrical intersubjectivity” is what enables the transition from instinct to drive and the creation of paradoxical human sexuality. In a meditation that illuminates significant issues in American feminist and psychoanalytic theory, Laplanche's essay analyzes and distinguishes three interrelated terms, gender, sex, and “the sexual” (“le sexual”), or so-called “infantile sexuality”, the latter documenting a Freudian and French emphasis on an additional, counter-realistic, counter-adaptational, and counter-social conception of sexuality. What stands out in this paper no less than “le sexual” is the use of the term “gender” by a French psychoanalyst, who is at once nodding in acknowledgment to contemporary American thinking, and enlisting the concept of gender to reaffirm its “intimate enemy,” infantile sexuality, “le sexual.” Laplanche sees the American-conceived couple sex/gender as a “formidable tool against the Freudian discovery.” Formidableness is what is common to gender and to infantile sexuality, in that both concepts resist and destroy the clear-cut biological/anatomical “destiny” of sex. Both pertain to cultural/acquired/constructed aspects of sexuality; both are phantasmatic and both subvert sexual role divisions. But gender is organized by, hence possibly subordinate to, sex. Laplanche acknowledges gender yet at the same time he makes it dependent on sexuality and thereby “downgrades” it in favor of the inarticulate, perverse, subversive, untameable aspect of human sexuality—“le sexual”, infantile sexuality—which remains outside and in excess of gender.     

Lifting the Veil: African American Images and the European American Gaze

Patricia Hill Collins presents and discusses gender and gender role norms, behaviors, and ideologies among African Americans in an interdisciplinary diagnostic endeavor that calls attention to health, economic, behavioral, and psychosocial patterns related to social injustice and inequality. Collins presents several popular culture, mass media, and social science literature topics that call for a progressive Black sexual politics necessary for African American empowerment. A most crucial and apparent point of Collins's discussion is that improvement in the lives of African Americans requires inspection and analysis of gender and sexuality related intragroup variation and diversity. I situate this discussion primarily within a post-civil rights ideological revolution related to the European American “gaze,” multiculturalism, and European American emotional ambivalence toward the Black body. It is proposed that Collins's analysis of the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality among African Americans occurs within an American context that reciprocally impacts African American intragroup dynamics.     

The Tightrope of Normalcy: Homosexuality,Developmental Citizenship,and American Adolescence, 1890–1940

In the early twentieth century, American developmental citizenship presumed a gradual extension of rights based upon a naturalized trajectory that would lead individuals toward heterosexuality, gender complimentarity, and increasing social and political investment. Means changed dramatically through which psychological, pedagogical, and political discourses positioned adolescence, sexuality, and gender in relationship to national belonging. Yet compliance with gender and sexual normativity as a marker of successful adjustment into adulthood persisted as a powerful precondition to full citizenship. Figurative “problem youth” were attacked in part because they threatened to expose exclusionary assumptions undergirding supposedly universal ideals in optimistic modern American democracy.     

‘If you're a male primary teacher,there's a big “why are you doing that? What is wrong with you?”’ Gendered expectations of male primary teachers: The ‘double bind’

The underrepresentation of men in non-traditional fields of work is often attributed to essentialist gendered beliefs that associate such roles exclusively with women. This phenomenon is not limited to any specific country but is observed worldwide. Moreover, male teacher drop-out rates remain a consistent issue. This article examines the detrimental impact of gendered expectations of masculinity on male primary teachers through interviews conducted with both male and female teachers in the UK. It argues that men in this occupation face a ‘double bind,’ being judged for conforming to hegemonic masculine norms while also facing judgement for deviating from them. All male teachers interviewed expressed feeling the pressure of gendered expectations, which primarily stem from one central misconception fuelled by traditional conceptions of gender; that the occupation is unsuitable for men. As a result, men who enter the profession encounter challenges not only related to their gender but also their sexuality and their sense of professional identity as teachers. Addressing the damaging role of gender beliefs is crucial in promoting the numerical representation of men in the teaching profession.     

Film as a political and educational device: talk about men,male sexuality and gender among Swedish youth

This article explores how upper secondary school pupils (16–18 years of age) talk about sex trafficking in mixed‐gender groups after having seen the Swedish film Lilya 4‐ever directed by Lukas Moodysson. An initiative to show the film during school hours was taken by the Swedish government in July 2003. The aim was to promote gender equality and decrease the sex trade. A video ethnographic study was undertaken in three media classes during film viewing and teacher‐led follow‐up discussions. The present article, drawing on critical discourse analysis, visual culture and positioning theory, demonstrates how pupils approach close‐up scenes of sexual abuse primarily by talking about men and male sexuality. Female and male pupils collaborate with teachers to construct men and male sexuality as an extensive structural problem in society with no hope for change. The analyses also show how gender differences are constructed in classroom interactions around the film.     

Self-Reported Gender Identity and Sexuality in an Online Sample of Cisgender,Transgender, and Gender-Diverse Individuals: An Exploratory Study

The relations between self-reported aspects of gender identity and sexuality were studied in an online sample of cisgender (n = 4,954), transgender (n = 406), and gender-diverse (n = 744) groups. Aspects of gender identity and sexual fantasies, attraction, behavior, and romantic relations were assessed using the Multi-gender Identity Questionnaire (Multi-GIQ) and a sexuality questionnaire. Results show a wide spectrum of gender experiences and sexual attractions within each group, an overlap among the groups, and very weak relations between atypical gender identity and atypical sexuality. At the group level, aspects of gender identity and sexuality were mainly predicted by gender and sex-gender configuration, with little contribution of sex assigned at birth. A principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that measures of gender identity and of sexuality were independent, the structure of sexuality was mostly related to gender, whereas the structure of gender identity was mostly related to sex-gender configuration. The results of both approaches suggest that measures of gender identity could roughly be divided into three classes: one including feeling as a man and feeling as a woman; a second including measures of nonbinary and “trans” feelings; and a third including feeling as a “real” woman and feeling as a “real” man. Our study adds to current scientific data that challenge dichotomous conventions within gender identity and sexuality research. Possible social and clinical implications are discussed.     

The family as gender and sexuality factory: A review of the literature and future directions

Early theorists understood the family as a key institution in the production of gender and sexuality. In this paper, I trace the development of this line of thought and review parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality over the life course. I first describe the three most prominent theoretical frameworks used to locate parents in these studies: psychoanalysis, socialization, and interactional approaches. In doing so, I illuminate the contributions of each theory to sociological thought on children's gender and sexuality while pointing to weaknesses with psychoanalysis and socialization. I then discuss how parents influence children's development and performance of gender and heterosexuality, paying attention to variations based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. Based on the current state of the literature, I suggest that we sociologists should diversify our methodological approaches in this area, attend to how changes in families correspond to changes in parents' role in shaping children's gender and sexuality, and grapple with how children's performances of gender and sexuality influence parents' performances of gender and sexuality.     

“I Think it Would Be a Very Sensitive Topic …” School Social Work,Gender Variance,and the Silencing of Differences

This article discusses an “orientational” study of the perceptions of school social workers regarding gender-variant students and the impact of their presence on the discourse about gender identity. The findings indicate that gender-variant students are becoming more known and visible in public schools but that they do not make up a homogeneous group. Moreover, the study seems to show that the discourse about gender remains extremely limited, in part due to a linking of gender identity with sexuality.     

Unfinished Business: Disentangling Sex,Gender, and Sexuality in Sociological Research on Gender Stratification

Focusing on two major strands of research on gender stratification, labor market inequality and health disparities, we argue that cisnormativity and heteronormativity obscure the rich variation in how people experience their own sense of gender and sexuality, as well as how others perceive them. Although researchers’ reliance on static notions of gender and sexuality is starting to shift, there is room for improvement, especially in the area of gender inequality. To highlight the advancements in researchers’ thinking, we spotlight exemplary work that incorporates gender expansive realities using empirically and/or theoretically grounded approaches. We conclude by outlining best practices to measure gender identity, sexual identity, gender expression, gender conformity, and other facets of gender and sexuality.     

Taking Over the School: Student Gangs as a Strategy for Dealing with Homophobic Bullying in an Urban Public School District

SUMMARY

This article discusses the African American lesbian gang, DTO (Dykes Taking Over), as an example of a student-initiated strategy for dealing with homophobic bullying in an urban American school district. A series of alleged incidents of same-sex sexual harassment by gang members on heterosexual students illustrate how lesbian/bisexual threat was used by these women to re-establish a power differential after they experienced bullying based on their sexuality and gender expression. A series of alleged incidents of same-sex sexual harassment by gang members on female heterosexual students illustrate how gay/bisexual threat was used by these women to re-establish a power differential after they experienced bullying based on their sexuality and gender expression. This article considers how these students were reacting, perhaps preemptively and in retaliation, to homophobia in their schools, particularly from their peers, forming gangs and using same sex sexual harassment of other students as a weapon against homophobia and a means by which they could assert themselves in their masculinities, not unlike their male peers who experience same sex bullying and/or harassment and use anti-female sexual harassment to assert their masculinity. Intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality frame several major questions that arise from these considerations, including: Might their masculinities be uniquely related to their performances of bullying? (How) could homophobic bullying be framed with sexual harassment in both policy and practice? Would this framing benefit or harm students who are bullied? How would/does that change the way we can handle it in schools (i.e., school policies), if at all? Implications for school-based practitioners are discussed with regard to how these students' behavior might be the result of a lack of programs and services available for LGBTQ and same gender loving youth both in and after school.     

Just Another American Story? The First Black First Family

Analyses of racial equality and gender equity remain muted within contemporary U.S. public policy debates. This context mandates a search for a new language to address social inequalities generally, and racial inequalities in particular. In this regard, the construct of family may be especially useful in that family rhetoric is the symbolic carrier of multiple, often contradictory stories about race, gender, class, sexuality and citizenship. Moreover, because family structures are vital institutional carriers for economic transformations of the new global economy, public policies can be made comprehensible via the rhetoric of family. Using the centrality of family narratives in Barack Obama??s campaign and subsequent Presidency as a site for exploring changing conceptions of race, gender, economic security and American national identity, this essay explores how the symbolic and structural dimensions of family have been an important part of the American national story.     

How Did Erectile Dysfunction Become “Natural”? A Review of the Critical Social Scientific Literature on Medical Treatment for Male Sexual Dysfunction

This article reviews the multidisciplinary social science literature assessing the social consequences of medical treatment for male sexual dysfunction. This literature applies medicalization theory and social constructionist approaches to gender to assert that Euro-American cultural ideals of masculinity and sexuality, as well as ageism and ableism, determine which sexual changes and experiences get defined as “dysfunction” and shape the marketing and use of medical treatments for those changes. These medical responses assuage the suffering of men who become unable to meet cultural ideals for sexuality but in the process make reductive norms for male sexuality seem biologically natural. In addition, the critical social science research suggests that an economic logic underlies the process of redefining diversity and change in men’s sexual function as medical pathology. However, comparative qualitative data on men’s and their sexual partners’ experiences of sexuality and aging across world regions suggest that people do not universally accept the narrow ideals of male sexuality embedded in medical discourse regarding men’s sexual dysfunction. The diversity in people’s sexual desires across the life course and their responses to sexual function change highlight the cultural nature of medical definitions of sexual dysfunction.     

Child Sexual Behaviors in School Context: Age and Gender Differences

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of the study was to explore the child sexual behaviors that Italian teachers have observed in the school context. A representative sample of 227 children, from 5 to 10 years old, was rated by their teachers through the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory. Frequencies of sexual behaviors among children aged 5 to 6, 7 to 8, and 9 to 10 are presented. Younger children showed a broader range of sexual behaviors that decrease with the growing age, such as males in comparison to females. Moreover, findings showed that child sexual behavior is not only related to age and gender but also to family characteristics. These results suggested that child sexual behaviors reported by teachers through the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory may provide useful information about the development of children’s sexuality. The knowledge of age appropriate sexual behaviors can help teachers discern normal sexual behaviors from problematic sexual behaviors.     

One of the Boys?

This article argues that American media reports of the Jessica Lynch case illustrate some of the ways in which gender has been reordered, policed and disciplined within the United States (and North America more broadly) in the wake of 9/11 and in the context of war. The study of a key gendered representation of the war – and of the way gender interlocks with race, class, nationality and sexuality in these representations – tells us not only about how the war was sold to the American public, but also about the degree to which normative and disciplinary gender roles can be stretched, or not, within domestic society and the ways in which contemporary media portrayals of foreign adventures serve to reinforce these gender norms. Ultimately we argue that media portraits of Jessica Lynch demonstrate how little the simple inclusion of women in the military acts to disrupt sexist systems of power and meaning.     

Gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors: a review of meta-analytic results and large datasets

Gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors are typically believed to be large, yet recent evidence suggests that some gender differences in sexuality are much smaller than common knowledge would suggest. This article reviews gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors as reported by major meta-analyses and large datasets. In particular, this article reviews gender differences in heterosexual intercourse, masturbation, pornography use, attitudes toward premarital sex, and gender differences in same-gender sexuality. Evolutionary psychology, social cognitive learning theory, and social structural theory are explored as possible explanations for gender differences in sexuality.     

Analyzing Cultural Models in Adolescent Accounts of Romantic Relationships

Research on academic achievement has led the way in demonstrating how culturally constructed meanings shape adolescent scholastic behavior. The aim of this research is to move this standpoint of analysis more centrally into the area of adolescent dating and sexuality by focusing on the cultural components of adolescent romantic relationships. This study examines cultural models of romantic relationships in Vernacular Term Interviews of 68 African American and 59 Mexican American 11th‐ and 12th‐grade female and male high school students. A subset of interviews was analyzed first qualitatively to identify the models. The models then were committed to a manual and 4 analytic coders established reliability before coding all interviews blind as to race/ethnicity and gender of the adolescent. The resultant data were summarized by a principal components analysis that yielded 5 interpretable factors. Factor scores were computed and compared for gender and race/ethnicity differences. The results demonstrated clear differences in factors by race/ethnicity but not by gender. Results are discussed in relation to cultural differences described in the literature for these 2 populations.     

Sexuality and Contemporary Issues in Black Parenting

Negotiating the burgeoning sexuality of adolescent children is an age-old challenge for parents of every cultural background. Contemporary parents must also manage increasingly sexualized social media that allow children and adolescents to be sexually engaged in unprecedented ways. For Black parents, this quandary is exacerbated by racism and internalized racism-often expressed through the hypersexualization of African American males and females in music, videos, advertising, and popular culture in general. Additionally, as more diversity regarding sexual orientation in African American families emerges, the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning (LGBTQ) Black adolescents must be addressed This article will outline a conceptual framework for consideration of these issues and make recommendations to assist Black parents in successfully guiding Black adolescents through the development of safe and healthy sexuality.     

Homophobia,transphobia and culture: deconstructing heteronormativity in English primary schools

This article presents some of the advances in legal support for addressing homophobia and transphobia in school settings and provides a critique of school‐based policies that focus on these phenomena as particular incidents involving bullies and victims. Defining heteronormativity as a cultural phenomenon underpinning recognisable acts of aggression, the authors describe some of the chief factors that seem to inhibit teachers from addressing sexuality and gender in primary schools. Drawing primarily on data from the No Outsiders project, where primary teachers throughout the UK have collaborated to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equalities in their schools and classrooms, the authors argue that heteronormativity should be addressed by purposefully promoting the equality of LGBT people as part of a broader whole school ethos that celebrates diversity and challenges inequities of all kinds.