Sexuality, Society, and Feminism (Psychology of Women Books)

422 Pages·24.991 MB·English

by  White Jaquelyn W.

Edited
bp
Cheryl Brown Travis and
Jacquelyn W. a t e
American Psychological Association
Washington,
DC
CONTENTS
List of Contributors ........................................... vii
Introduction .................................................. 3
I. EPISTEMOLOGY, THEORY, AND METHODS .............. 9
Chapter 1 Social Constructions of Sexuality: Unpacking Hidden
Meanings ........................................ 11
Jacquelyn W. White, Bam'e Bondurant, and
Cheryl Brown Travis
Chapter 2 Biological Models and Sexual Politics .............. 35
Danny S. Moore and Cheryl Brown Travis
Chapter 3 Gender Differences in Sexuality: Results from Meta-
Analysis ......................................... 5 7
Janet Shibky Hyde and Mary Beth Oliver
Chapter The Social Construction and Social Effects of Sex
4
Research: The Sexological Model of Sexuality ...... 79
Leonore Xefer
11. LIFE COURSE DEVELOPMENT ........................... 109
Chapter 5 A Normative Perspective of Adolescent Girls'
Developing Sexuality ............................. 11 1
Deborah P. Welsh, Sharon S. Rostosky, and
Myra Christen Kawaguchi
Chapter 6 Sexual Roles of Girls and Women: An Ethnocultural
Lifespan Perspective .............................. 141
PameIa Trotman Reid and Vanessa M.B ing
Chapter 7 Sexuality During Pregnancy and the Year
Postpartum ...................................... 167
Janet Shibky Hyde and John DeLamater
Chapter 8 Menopause and Sexuality: Ageism and Sexism
Unite ........................................... 181
Sharon S. Rostosky and Cheryl Brown Travis
III. MEANING AND FUNCTION ............................ 211
Chapter 9 Only Joking: Humor and Sexuality ................. 213
Mary Crawford
Chapter 10 Beauty, Sexuality, and Identity: The Social Control of
Women ......................................... 237
Cheryl Brown Travis, Kayce L. Meginnis, and
Kristin M. Barhri
Chapter 11 Dangerousness, Impotence, Silence, and Invisibility:
Heterosexism in the Construction of Women’s
Sexuality ........................................ 273
Laura S. Brown
Chapter 12 A Cultural Context for Sexual Assertiveness in
Women ......................................... 299
Patricia J Morokoff
,
IV. SEXUALITY AND THE SOCIAL ORDER ................. 321
Chapter 13 Consent, Power, and Sexual Scripts: Deconstructing
Sexual Harassment ............................... 323
Suzanne B. Kurth, Bethany B. Spilkr, and
Cheryl Brown Travis
Chapter 14 Re-Examining the Issue of Nonconsent in
Acquaintance Rape ............................... 355
Patricia L. N. Donut and Jacquelyn W. White
Chapter 15 Understanding the Unacknowledged Rape Victim ... 377
Arnold S. Kahn and Virginia Andreoli Mathie
Author Index ................................................. 405
Subject Index ................................................. 421
About the Editors ............................................. 431
vi CONTENTS
CONTRIBUTORS
Kristin M. Bardari, Private Practice, Pawleys Island, South Carolina
Vanessa M. Bing, Women’s Center, Borough of Manhattan Community
College, City University of New York
Barrie Bondurant, Psychology Department, Lyon College, Batesville,
Arkansas
Laura S. Brown, Private Practice, Seattle, Washington
Mary Crawford, Psychology Department, University of Connecticut,
Storrs
John DeLamater, Sociology Department, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Patria L. N. Donat, Division of Education & Human Sciences,
Mississippi University for Women, Columbus
Janet Shibley Hyde, Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Arnold S. Kahn, Psychology Department, James Madison University,
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Myra Christen Kawaguchi, The Guidance Center, Murfreesboro,
Tennessee
Suzanne B. Kurth, Sociology Department, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville
Virginia Andreoli Mathie, Psychology Department, James Madison
University, Harrisonburg, Virginia
Kayce L. Meginnis, Psychology Department, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville
Danny S. Moore, Psychology Department, St. Leo’s College, St. Leo,
Florida
Patricia J. Morokoff, Psychology Department, University of Rhode
Island, Kingston
Mary Beth Oliver, Department of Communication Studies, Penn State,
University Park
vii
Pamela Trotman Reid, Institute for Research on Women and Gender,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Sharon S. Rostosky, Counseling Department, University of Kentucky,
Lexington
Bethany B. Spiller, Psychology Service, Veterans Administration
Medical Center, Memphis, Tennessee
Leonore Tiefer, Private Practice, New York City
Cheryl Brown Travis, Psychology Department, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville
Deborah I? Welsh, Psychology Department, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville
Jacquelyn W. White, Psychology Department, University of North
Carolina, Greensboro
...
eflll CONTRIBUTORS
Sexuality,
Sociew, and
Femi&m
INTRODUCTION
Issues relating to sexuality are constantly in the headlines, are the
topic of heated controversies, and are the focus of national policy decisions.
A perusal of almost any forum of our society underscores the highly volatile
nature of these issues. Recent jury verdicts have awarded millions for a
woman sexually harassed by a law firm. A Supreme Court decision on a
case originating in Nashville, TN, held that plaintiffs did not have to
demonstrate psychological harm in order to prove sexual harassment. Re-
searchers have found their study protocols debated on the floor of Congress.
The former Speaker of the House, in an oblique allusion to the menstrual
cycle, stated that women could not serve in combat trenches. And even
the former Surgeon General of the United States, Jocelyn Elders, was re-
moved from her position following her endorsement of the idea of includ-
ing information about masturbation in sex education. Beyond these ex-
amples, we find that the meaning and experience of sexuality is changing
for individuals. For example, a new survey found that approximately 37%
of teen females have first intercourse primarily because of peer pressure
rather than out of affection for their partners. Furthermore, there are dif-
ferences of opinion regarding what behaviors are included in having sex.
Clearly, cultural notions of what constitutes sexuality and the elements
deemed acceptable affect not only individuals, but also aspects of larger
social agendas.
Women’s sexuality is a topic of increasing importance for several rea-
3
sons. First, psychology as a science has only recently begun to include
women as primary participants, rather than as comparisons to a male stan-
dard. For this reason, research on women’s sexuality is in need of a careful
reflection with regard to epistemology, life course development, and the
social order. Second, political economics and social changes in society have
affected women’s lives tremendously. It is important to determine the ex-
tent to which these forces have affected women’s personal development
and interpersonal experiences, especially with respect to sexuality.
The intent of this volume on sexuality, society, and feminism is not
to provide advice about how to have more and better sex, but rather to
transform our understanding of sexuality: how it is negotiated, developed,
and evoked; and what it means in a contemporary social framework. The
role of society in women’s sexuality has been to suppress and deny, and,
more important to set the framework and rules by which sexuality is ne-
gotiated and thus has determined the forms of sexuality that are possible.
For example, Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger (1993) have suggested
that a hidden assumption of heterosexuality frames all relationships. Fur-
ther, the assumption is not only that the framework is heterosexual but
that it is between women and masculine men, thus implicitly reproducing
issues of dominance and subordinance.
For this volume, we have followed a number of guidelines similar to
those outlined by Judith Wore11 and Claire Etaugh (1994) as key compo-
nents in transforming knowledge, including
1. challenging traditional knowledge;
2. focusing on the experience of women’s lives;
3. acknowledging power as a basis for social arrangements;
4. recognizing gender as having multiple conceptions that are
socially constructed;
5. attending to language and creating a public awareness of hid-
den phenomena; and
6. promoting social activism.
We take a pluralistic position with respect to methodology. We do
not look for the uniquely best form of feminist methodology. We suggest
that it is better to ask whether or how epistemology operates in the service
of feminism. We assume that language is particularly important in the
process of conceptualizing sexuality and that examination of language can
highlight contradictions that reveal hidden meanings and assumptions.
Our general approach to sexuality follows the idea others have applied
to gender (Crawford, 1995; Crawford 6r Unger, 1995; West & Zimmerman,
1977). Specifically, sexuality is a meaning system that organizes interactions
and governs access to power and resources. Sexuality is not so much an
attribute of persons, but rather exists in transactions between people. We
further agree with Mary Jacobus and her colleagues, E. F. Keller and
4 lNTRODUCTION
S. Shuttleworth (1990), that the arena of the body (masculine or feminine)
is often a battlefield where a variety of struggles, not all having to do with
gender or sexuality, are played out and that the body reflects the matrices
of power at all levels.
It is the purpose of this volume to contribute to contemporary fem-
inism by extending the discourse of constructionist accounts in psychology.
In a sense, this entire volume is a way of going forward to new understand-
ing of sexuality. We adopt the view that sexuality is actively constructed
and emergent within contexts. In other words, sexuality is repeatedly ne-
gotiated and redefined; sexuality changes developmentally over the life
span (explored in section 11); it has various meanings and manifestations
(as exemplified in section 111); and it can be used in a larger sense to
reinforce violence against women (see section IV). We also believe that
new constructions of sexuality have the potential to transform the way
women themselves think, feel, and behave.
SECTION I: EPISTEMOLOGY
Chapters in this section focus on aspects of epistemology, especially
chapter 1, and other chapters review evolutionary and biological ap-
proaches to sex and gender, meta-analytic approaches to human sex dif-
ferences in sexuality, and feminist considerations of sexology and the med-
icalization of sexuality. In chapter 2, Danny Moore and Cheryl Travis point
out that even when standard criteria of logical positivism are applied, much
of the gender-focused work in neuroanatomy and sociobiology is deeply
flawed in both logic and methodology. The fact that gender-biased facts
remain a favorite topic of science journals and popular media reveals the
social and political nature of these constructions. In chapter 3, Janet Hyde
and Mary Beth Oliver review a number of other theoretical models of
gender including the perspectives of the neoanalytic theorist Nancy Cho-
dorow, social learning theory, social role theory and script theory, and fem-
inist theory. Hyde and Oliver then apply empiricist methods of meta-
analysis to gender differences in sexuality as a way of clarifying their extent
and relative size. A major conclusion of this review is that sociobiological
models of gender are driving the research agenda and that feminist re-
searchers must consider how to recapture it. In chapter 4, Leonore Tiefer
points out that the contemporary public tends to rely on sex experts who
are assumed to be professional and neutral with regard to sexual values.
Thus, in some ways the experts create frameworks of meaning and reality
for the public. In contrast, she proposes that it is naive to believe that sex
experts have no particular ax to grind and instead illustrates how theory
and research formulations actively promote particular constructions of sex-
uality. This sexological model is not simply a “mirror held up to nature”
lNTKODUCTION 5