New Media: Gender, Culture, Technology » October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality

October 30th: Social Construction of Sexuality

Plan for the Day

Will & Grace and Jack & Karen

I don’t like being so direct with my views on the media we discuss because my goal isn’t to present my ideas as better or “truth”; instead, I want introduce ideas and interpretations as a way to have us think differently than we might normally have given our culturally constructed lenses. That being said…

Will & Grace is a heteronormative TV show. On the surface, the show is about a gay man, Will, and his heterosexual best friend, Grace. The show also shows viewers–on the surface–two other friends–Jack, a gay man, and Karen, a heterosexual woman. While the two sets of couples have extra relationships, those are peripheral–the show focuses on Will & Grace and Jack & Karen as if they were two couples. Will and Grace live together (even when dating others), and Jack and Karen are seen together so often viewers would assume they’re married except for Jack’s flamboyancy and Karen’s talk of her convict husband (who’s always off camera).

Gayness Sanitized

The gayness of the show is sanitized for “polite” middle-American society watching this show on prime time TV. Male-to-male affection is never the same as male-to-female affection, and, interestingly, Grace and Karen touch each other in more sexual ways than Will and Jack ever touch their romantic interests…I’ll leave that to your critical thinking selves.

While the show might be consider more gay than previous sitcoms, the antics of Will and Grace–living together, planning to have a baby together, planning to raise a baby together, hugging and kissing all the time–show them to be a heterosexual couple. Unconsciously, America accepts Will & Grace because the show is not too gay; it doesn’t offend heterosexist paradigms. That fact was underscored in the series finale when {spoiler alert…don’t keep reading if you don’t want to know the ending} we learn Will’s baby–with his husband, Ben–and Grace’s baby–with her husband, Leo–are to fulfill Will & Grace’s destiny–to make a heterosexual union happen. Will & Grace’s kids meet in college and eventually get married…what’s next? Exactly, potential for a baby to be born. Will & Grace fulfill their destiny in “proper” heterosexual fashion by producing children who marry.

How is that a gay show?

Modern Family can have multiple readings (interpretations). On the surface, ABC’s Modern Family is a funny story and a leading character triumphs. Below the surface, it’s a trite display of gender roles and gendered value in patriarchal culture. Check out Gloria meeting Javier’s fiancée. (Here’s a short article about the first part of the episode–Season 4, ep. 20). Here’s the link to Jay getting Gloria new shoes. Phil worried about his manhood when discussing his potential vasectomy with Jay. Here’s an article/review on the entire episode–Modern Family: “Schooled”/”Snip.”

Vance’s “Social Construction Theory and Sexuality”

She does cover, briefly, “constructivist” perspectives, which are more important in the history of psychology and anthropology, so we won’t focus on that. Instead, recognize that Vance points out that social construction theory comes from the work of several disciplines. Like the other critical theories we’ve used to look at new media and, therefore, re/think about culture, social construction theory is impossible to “get” in the short time we’re devoting to it. However, haven’t we discussed social construction throughout the semester? Because culture mediates how we experience the world, I argue that nearly all epistemologies (the study of knowledge or ways of knowing) can be thought of a socially constructed ideologies that are governed or just influenced by ideology–the overall set of beliefs and values of an entire culture.

Below are some key points from Vance’s article, which is more a review of literature than argument:

  • p. 38: “theories which used reproduction to link gender with sexuality.”
  • p. 38: male domination of science “provided ideological support for current social relations.” In other words, ‘he who had the power over science used it to explain woman’s place in the world.’
  • p. 38: feminist struggle “to separate sexuality from reproduction and women’s gendered roles as wives and mothers.”
  • p. 39: members of a culture see sexuality “as natural, seamless, and organic.”
  • p. 40: homosexual behavior and homosexual identity…universal and culturally specific, respectively.
  • p. 42: No universal meaning for sexual acts or sexualities.
    • “…sexuality is mediated by historical and cultural factors.”
    • “…a sexual act does not carry with it a universal social meaning…”
    • “Cultures provide widely different categories, schema, and labels for framing sexual and affective experiences.”
  • p. 43: What about the point that sexual desire is “constructed by culture and history from the energies and capacities of the body”?
  • p. 48: “reproductive sexuality constitutes a small portion of the larger sexual universe.”
    • This is probably the most surprising quote, so we ought to understand it.
  • p. 48: the hegemonic view of sexuality–essentialism.

Basically, Vance shows that we’ve observed physiological responses (e.g., stimuli) and reproductive features of sexuality, and we assume those are essentially all there is to sexuality or that those are the main components of sexuality. Well, maybe it’s just a socially influenced way of thinking about sexuality? Although not necessarily enforced, many societies have laws that essentially ban sex outside of marriage.

Products of the Culture: Children’s Shows

As I’ve mentioned once or twice, the texts of a culture tell you about that culture. They are repositories that reproduce cultural ideology, but it’s not always conscious. A creator might consciously use masculine or feminine codes, but they might not think they’re social constructs: it is what it is…(that’s an anti-intellectual phrase by the way). Consider the gender codes in the openings of two 1980s children’s shows over on the Gender Studies section of another page.

Steven Seidman “Sex Work”

Seidman’s argument, while more nuanced, can be boiled down to a simple statement–all work is similar to prostitution. What do you think?

Below are some key points from Seidman’s article:

  • p. 114: “Sex work raises a boundary dispute over the relationship between sex and commerce.” If we permit porn, why not selling sexual acts?
  • p. 118: “Is sex work different from other types of work? In many jobs, workers exchange the use of their bodies for wages.”
  • p. 119: “sex as a form of pleasure and self-expression.”
  • p. 121: “Women become sex workers…in part because of a culture that already values them for their sexual attractiveness.”
  • p. 121: “Many of our work choices are constrained and are not self-fulfilling.”
  • p. 121-122: “sex work is exploitative to the extent that it is women who do the sex work while the men control the industry.”

What’s going on here? What critique(s) can you make about the assumption that “the system” naturally orders things for us? Therefore, work is simply a matter of supply and demand and other market logics.

Next Class

We’ll be discussing social media from a fictional perspective the next two weeks, so finish reading Hank Green’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. Also don’t forget to do your weekly discussion post before 11:00pm on Friday, November 1st.

Works Cited

Dick, Bernard F. Anatomy of Film. (5th ed.). Boston: Bedford, 2005.