Jeffrey Month: The Evolution Of Sexuality

Recently, in our modernized society, a big topic in many aspects of our political and emotional lives has become sexuality. Sexuality is defined in The social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality article as, “those scripts shared by a group that are supposed to lead to erotic arousal and in turn to produce genital response.” (Reiss, 8) Especially in areas of which feminism studies are predominant, sexuality has become a frequently discussed theme. Feminists are interested in studying sexuality because it becomes a very heavy topic when looking at rights and equalities and how these may differ when regarding someone’s sexuality. It is also a concern to them because of the stereotypes and misjudgments put out on those of different sexualities

We may not notice it day by day but looking back, especially over a number of years, things change. When looking back at what scientists thought about the human body two hundred years ago, merely nothing is the same. Jeffrey weeks brings up a good point that just as we recognize say the history of our ancestors, we must recognize the history of sexuality as well. If we don’t take the time to go over the evolution of the different debates and critical learnings of sexuality in the past how are we to ever move forward? Jeffrey weeks simply puts it as: “the best way of understanding sexuality is as a ‘historical construct.’”(weeks,365) I think the most important reason for giving recognition and consideration to the pest is that we are always evolving. Weeks makes it very clear that a big part of sexuality historically is the evolution of the language we use. He writes, “The development of the language we use is one valuable index of that: it is in constant evolution.” (Weeks, 367) Not only does the language we use evolve, but the relationship between men and women evolves drastically as well. Weeks pulls a quote from Krafft-Ebing: “The relations between men and women, in which female sexuality has been historically defined in relationship to the male.” (Weeks, 367) Recognizing the difference between then and now is very important because we can apply our knowledge from our past to improve our language and relationships of today. As Weeks put it: “We can understand attitude to the body and sexuality only in their specific historical context, by exploring the historically variable conditions that give rise to the importance assigned to sexuality in any particular time, and by grasping the various power relations that sharpen what comes to be seen as normal and abnormal, acceptable, and unacceptable behavior.” (Weeks, 368) To create a better path for our future, one where binary opinions have less influence on our knowledge we must understand