sexuality

sexuality

[‚sek·shə′wal·əd·ē]

(biology)

The sum of a person's sexual attributes, behavior, and tendencies.

The psychological and physiological sexual impulses whose satisfaction affords pleasure.

(psychology)

The quality of being sexual, or the degree of a person's sexual attributes, attractiveness, and drives.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

sexuality

1. (common usage) a natural or essential property of the individual which finds expression through sexual activities and relationships.
2. an object of physiological, psychological and sociological investigation first established in the 19th-century by sexologists such as Havelock Ellis and Krafft-Ebing and the psychoanalyst FREUD, and continued by many others, e.g. Kinsey et al. (1948).
3. an area of social and cultural behaviour subject to state regulation and control, particularly in the context of prostitution and HOMOSEXUALITY.
4. (general sociological usage) personal and interpersonal expression of those socially constructed qualities, desires, roles and identities which have to do with sexual behaviour and activity
5. a social process involving both institutional and experiential dimensions of sexual relationships.
6. a normative set of expectations concerning sexual practices.
7. preference for, or an orientation towards, specific forms of sexual expression and desire.

Sociological usages of the term frequently stress the social and cultural relativity of norms surrounding sexual behaviour and the sociohistorical construction of sexual identities and roles. In doing so, it contrasts with common usage which regards sexuality as a property largely intrinsic to the individual or as something which is determined by the early psychosexual experiences of the child (see FREUD). Writers such as FOUCAULT (1979) and Weeks (1985) have challenged naturalistic and essentialist arguments, referring to the way in which cultural definitions of sexuality and the control of the BODY are exercised ‘among other ways’ by the medium of systematic knowledge. Desire and the objects of desire are seen as being shaped by social forces (see also EROTICISM). Sexuality and its social constructions have featured in debates within feminist and gay politics, where androcentric and heterosexist definitions of sexuality are seen to be inimical to the interests of women and gays.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

Sexuality

Flowers of Evil, The

thoroughly explore the possibilities of vice, depravity, and sin. [Fr. Poetry: Baudelaire The Flowers of Evil in Magill III, 399]

Hite Report

surveys men’s sexual habits and performance. [Amer. Pop. Cult.: Misc.]

Ideal Marriage

Van de Velde study of the physiology and technique of marital sex. [Pop. Cult.: Misc.]

Joy of Sex, The

popular 20th-century sex manual. [Misc.: Dr. Alex Comfort The Joy of Sex in Weiss, 239]

Kinsey reports

pioneer explorations of sexual behavior based on interviews with 100,000 men and women. [Pop. Cult.: Misc.]

Masters and Johnson

published a study of sexual performance under laboratory conditions. [Sexology: Masters and Johnson Human Sexual Response in Weiss, 214]

Morel, Paul

his Oedipus complex makes erotic fulfillment impossible. [Br. Lit.: D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers in Magill I, 913]

Psychology of Sex, The

seven-volume Ellis work revolutionized attitudes toward sex and sexual problems. [Pop. Cult.: Misc.]

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.