Women and Sexuality - Lecture 1 Women and Sexuality...

Lecture 1 Women and Sexuality
Sexuality and Social Theorizing
Theory : A simple way to ....
 View and organize the world and make since of what happens
 A framework to understand, explain, predict, or question
social behaviors and trends .
 No single theory can capture the complexity of social phenomena.
Theories are often challenged, revised, or rejected. Broad range of
theories about relationship between sexuality and society.
Early Theorists
 Sigmund Freud- Best known for penis envy, castration anxiety,
the katipos complex, Electra complex. Less known about Freud
is he introduced ideas that shaped contemporary
understandings of female sexuality, especially female orgasm.
Argued that women have two types of orgasm, vaginal and
clitoral. Vaginal as superior orgasm to the clitoral, which
appeared to him as immature or childhood form of sexuality.
Freud theorized that healthy psychosexual development
required a transition from vaginal to clitoral orgasm, that is
orgasms that could occur through penile vaginal intercourse
alone. Women who did not or could not have an orgasm
without direct clitoral stimulation, this is most women, were
seen as stuck in an earlier stage of psychosexual development.
This set the stage for a highly medicalized framework to
understand female orgasm. Vaginal orgasms remain a
contentious topic. Although, self help literature/video about
female orgasm help describe the difference between vaginal
and clitoral orgasm providing instructions on how to achieving
a vaginal orgasm or the G spot orgasm. Others argue that there
is only one type of orgasm. That some women differ in terms of
what it takes to achieve orgasm. Some feminist take a political
stance towards the topic suggesting that continued focus on
vaginal penile intercourse as the source of women’s pleasure
refers to a larger ideology that frames women’s sexuality as
highly dependent upon men. Taking attention away from
female sexual empowerment and sexual exploration, and
sexual diversity.

 Richard Von Krafft-Ebing- Less known outside the field of
sexual studies .... Studied and cataloged multitude of different
types of sexual behaviors and interests. Psychologists Later
used to label and categorize different sexual behaviors and
proclivities as normal, abnormal, healthy or deviant.
 Havelock Ellis- Also examined the broad range of sexual
interests but had a slightly less judgmental approach towards
sexual difference and orientation. Appealing for tolerance and
acceptance and defining differences by diversity instead of
deviances. The tension of how to understand sexual differences
continues today.
Later Theorists
 Alfred Kinsey - Published the first book on the sexual
behaviors of women, he examined controversial topics
female orgasm, masturbation, and same sex behaviors.