Long Post 2/15

This chapter begins with the story of the Olympic hurdler who after genetic testing was determined to be genetically XY. This sparked a debate over whether Maria should be allowed to compete as a woman. This is just one example of the long standing debate over how do we determine a person’s gender. Different groups in society all bring different opinions on this topic. Feminists believe that gender is only a social construct. Biologists believe that sex is a product of the hormones and physical structures that make us who we are. Fausto-Sterling also discusses Loveweb, which is made up of people who believe that we are born with certain preferences. This book is unique because its author does not fully validate nor discredit any of these viewpoints. In fact she states that as a member of all the above groups she wants to come to an understanding of how these viewpoints might interact in order to create a whole picture. Understanding of human sexuality cannot be approached as black and white or male and female because it is much more complex than this. Just as there is a continuum of masculinity and femininity there may also be a continuum of the importance of nature vs. nurture. Individual life experiences as well as the culture that one grows up in play an important role in how one expresses their sexuality. In different cultures throughout history sexuality has been defined in a variety of ways, which once again shows that there really is no right and wrong. For example in some ancient cultures it was considered normal for older men to have sexual relationships with young boys. In our culture now a person is classified as a homosexual and therefore not “normal” if they have same sex sexual experiences. This idea of “normal” and ‘not normal” stems for a tendency in modern culture to classify the world into dualisms. Dualisms create a rigid structure where behavior and people are either accepted or there not. This has created discontent in society because humans and life are not that simple.
In this modern era we often attempt to use science to explain the way things are. Fausto-Sterling brings up an interesting point that science may not be as objective as we like to believe it is. Scientists are humans and are therefore subject to the pressures and influences of society. Some of scientists’ findings are the result of a search in order to prove something. Often as long as one searches long enough evidence in support of it can be found. This brings us to the developmental systems theory which offers a less rigid structure to analyzing human sexuality. This theory offers an approach that looks more at each person as an individual case rather than forced classification into groups. This is a necessary change when one looks at the way hermaphrodites have been treated throughout history as well as the formation of the modern viewpoint on intersexual. Hermaphrodites and intersexual have been treated differently depending on the time and culture in which they lived. Despite this difference there is one thing that has remained fairly common and that is there isolation at the outskirts of society. Systems within cultures, for example medical, legal, and educational, have struggled to define the place of hermaphrodites in society. Each group struggling to determine the correct gender of the individual through physical structure or self identification. In summary of these two chapters perhaps the main point was that analyzing human sexuality is not something that can be broken down into a dualism.