Sex research focuses on the conduct (mostly) and subjective experience (somewhat) of individuals, whether revealed through survey, questionnaire, interview, observation, or measurement. This is an exceptionally important element of the sexological model that is invisible, never discussed, completely taken for granted, and can be considered an aspect of our psychological century’s focus on (some may say construction of) the individual (Giddens, 1991). Sexuality has come to be construed as an aspect of an individual, like intelligence. That is not to say that a culture’s sexuality cannot be described, or that a couple’s sexuality cannot be described, but most sex research assumes that an individual has sexuality that can be studied and theorized.
This individual quality, sexuality, can be aroused, satisfied, weak or strong, normal or abnormal, expressed or inhibited. Various behavioral and psychological phenomena are linked into a person’s sexuality by biologists and psychoanalysts. Activities having to do with the genitalia or breasts, for example, are thought to be psychologically connected together (possibly through dependency or preverbal symbolism) into important components of sexuality. Likewise, one’s psychological sense of self as a man or woman comes through sexuality in terms of preferences for activities, roles, or partners.
The dangers of such psychological generalizations can be shown by a brief discussion of kissing (Tiefer, 1995). Kissing can be extremely erotic in some cultures, especially European and North American cultures, which have produced much sexological research and theory. The desire for and enjoyment of erotic kissing has been generalized to all humans, and attributed to sequelae of important early experiences with breast-feeding together with the rich neurological innervation of the mouth and tongue. But, it turns out, erotic kissing is unknown in many cultures, and, what’s more, kissing is regarded as a dirty (germ-transmitting) act in many others. Thus, what seems like a statement about sexuality based on presumably universal psychobiological processes can be a cultural expression mistakenly generalized.
Ultimately, the emphasis of the sexological model on the individual is its core element and the proof of its essential modernity. The 20th century invention of sexuality as a quality of personality, as “something each of us ‘has,’” something “endowed with vast causal processes” (Giddens, 1992, pp. 15, 21), paves the way for all other contemporary developments, including political sexual identity rights movements, media and commercial sexuality elaboration and exploitation, and the consolidation of a research focus on sexuality within psychology.
Although this sexual individualism is often traced to Sigmund Freud, viewing sexuality as an individual quality must be seen as part of the development of the modem idea of the self, which itself is a consequence of the industrial revolution, late capitalism, a technological society, and the transformation of family life (e. g., D’Emilio, 1983). Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, as goods formerly made in the home could increasingly be purchased, the family, losing the functions that had held it together as an economic unity, became transformed into an emotional entity for the nurture of children and the personal satisfactions of its members. Children were no longer needed for economic reasons, birth rates declined steadily, and procreation was replaced as a prime motive in sexual life. The growth of cities, travel, literacy, urban amusements, and media created a social context in which a new kind of personal life could develop. These irreversible social transformations created a space for new social constructions of sexuality as elements of the self. Sex researchers and psychologists have intentionally or unwittingly played an active role in fashioning such constructions.