Authority, then, refers to the probability that particular definitions of reality and judgments of meaning and value will prevail as valid and true. (Starr, 1982, p. 13)
Authority on sexual matters within dominant culture has been increasingly conferred by mass media and the public on experts with medical or health perspectives. Sexuality is not alone in this, insofar as health seems to be the dominant ideology and source of morality in our time (Barsky, 1988; Lupton, 1994; Wright, 1994). Although the study of sexuality remains beholden to the ideology of healthism, feminists’ attempts to reframe sexuality in light of history, ethics, and humanistic rather than health perspectives will seem incorrect and limited.
Scholars in the new interdisciplinary spheres of women’s and cultural studies, building on the last two decades’ work in social and cultural history, have recently begun to examine centuries of sexual authority from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge (e. g., Laqueur, 1990; Oudshoom, 1994; Porter & Teich, 1994). Past histories of sexuality seemed to assume in their reviews that sexual conduct (e. g., the prevalence of masturbation, kissing, or same-sex activities) might vary among societies or historical periods, but they seemed to assume that sexual experience (e. g., what people experience when they masturbate or kiss) and maybe even sexual motives (e. g., why people masturbate or kiss) were probably pretty much the same. Moreover, there was no attention to the specifics of sexual conduct (what do people do when they kiss or masturbate).
That is, past histories of sexuality ignored issues of how sexual experience is constructed by social trends, meanings, and values apparently because they hadn’t viewed sexuality as constructed at all. Expressions of sexuality were thought to be influenced by culture, but detailed study of those influences was often lacking, and the assumption remained that aspects of sexuality such as identities, drive, and the conduct of intercourse were essentially universal human phenomena.
Some recent histories of sexuality, by contrast, have been based on a “social contructionist perspective which moves the focus of concern from the sexual actions of specific bodies to the cultural and social contexts in which sexuality occurs” (Gagnon & Parker, 1995, p. 12). The social contructionist model rejects sexuality as a universal human phenomenon or natural force in favor of the view that no behavior or identity is intrinsi
cally sexual, and that any aspect of social life or identity can be sexualized (or desexualized) through definition and regulation (Weeks, 1991). The focus is on the specifics of social location and how they define sexuality and establish the expectations and opportunities that will produce sexual experience.
The social constructionist model differs from the sexological model I describe below. Social constructionism specifically directs our attention to how sexual authorities and their claims and depictions create our expectations. It moves us away from a preoccupation with the direct influence of biological or psychological variables.
How and why is marriage sexualized in some cultures, but not others?
Why do some cultures identify adolescence as the most sexual time, while others select later or earlier periods? How is sexual identity defined on the Internet, the marriage license, and the research survey?
How do cultures sexualize men and women differently? Under what social conditions has sexuality been seen as a matter of “health” and how have people’s expectations changed in accordance?
That is, social constructionism directs our attention explicitly toward identifying forces of regulation and how they establish sexual expectations and norms.