There are, however, challenges to this mechanistic, biological view of sex. Alternative perspectives described below suggest that the postnatal environment makes a huge contribution to one’s gender identity and subsequent sexuality. The focus is on the social context of behavior and suggests that women and men are essentially alike, except in basic reproductive functions (menstruation, impregnation, ejaculation, lactation, etc.). Socialization accounts for all other differences. This point of view examines sexuality in terms of power differentials, and how hierarchical social arrangements between women and men define sexual behavior.
Margaret Mead’s (1961) work challenged traditional scientific constructions by arguing that cultural arrangements were powerful enough to alter sexual preferences across different life stages. Studies of congenital hermaphrodites with similar degrees of hermaphrodism who were assigned different sexes are used to support the claim of the importance of environmental over genetic and hormonal influences (Money, 1970). Money and Ehrhardt (1972), for example, in discussing a genetic male hermaphrodite reared as a girl, concluded that the eroticization of gender developed independently of biological influences. In its extreme form, this perspective assumes that all aspects of sexuality are imposed on individuals, suggesting that if socialization practices were different, sexual arrangements could look very different from what is considered normal in Western culture. As another example, Adrienne Rich (1980) problematizes heterosexuality by proposing that heterosexuality is not due to nature but due to social arrangements in which heterosexuality is compulsory, demanded by men in a male-dominated, autocratic system.
Leonore Tiefer (1995) has argued compellingly that sex is not a natural act; rather, it is socially constructed and repeatedly negotiated. Tiefer’s assertion challenges the traditional biological approach to understanding human sexuality and is supported by a number of phenomena. In some cases, these phenomena offer evidence directly contradictory to natural biological models of sexuality derived from traditional science approaches; in other cases the model of a homogeneous natural sexuality is shown to be inadequate for dealing with applied problems. The socially negotiated nature of sexuality is illustrated in the following five examples that were chosen to highlight cross-cultural issues, transgenderism within gender differences, historical concerns, class and ethnic diversity, and sexually transmitted diseases.