Sexuality

A variety of different approaches to understanding sexuality have emerged over the last 150 years. One way of categorizing these approaches is to distinguish between essentialist and social constructionist models of sexuality. Essentialism prioritizes a biological explanation for sexuality and hence limits its definition of sexuality to the individual expression of human desire and pleasure. In contrast, social constructionism prioritizes the relationship between the individual and society to show that the meaning attached to sexuality is embedded in specific historical, political, and social practices. Attention is paid to the culturally and socially diverse ways in which sexual desires, practices, identities, and attitudes are conceptualized, categorized, deployed, and ultimately regulated through the social institutions and practices of different societies. Although sociology's historical silence on sexuality served to reinforce an essentialist and normative understanding of sexuality, contemporary sociologists of sexuality, while acknowledging the importance of biology, produce socially situated accounts of sexuality. Furthermore, sociology offers a critical analysis of essentialism. A diverse range of approaches are used to account for the social organization of sexuality, including, the sociology of homosexuality, feminist understandings of sexuality, queer theory, and an examination of the relationship between masculinity and sexuality. While each approach highlights different aspects of the debate on sexuality, there are many similarities and connections between the different perspectives. Furthermore, attention is paid to the interaction of sexual identity with other salient social identities, such as gender, race and ethnicity, class, age, and nationality.