Overanalyzing Sexual Behavior

In this 2007 news clip from CNN, the host investigates the binary of “Nature vs. Nurture” as it relates to the development of homosexuals in American society. Paula Zahn introduces research studies that attempt to answer the controversial question of how homosexually identified people “become” that way- whether it happens at birth or is a result of learned behavior. The first research study shown involves the observation of children’s behavior in home videos and the subjective estimation by the researchers of the subjects’ present sexual orientation, years after the studied footage. Another more scientifically based study examines the sexual orientation of young adults who qualify as fraternal twins, identical twins, or adopted siblings. The historic and present search for scientific solutions to pertinent issues relating to sex and gender is a theme in both the assigned articles for this week and CNN’s broadcast.

The apt title “Fluid Sexes” by Jennifer Terry corresponds to the enlightened idea that “sex anatomy, gender roles, and sexual practice” deserve reconceptualization (Terry 161).  Predominant views in Western society tend to stigmatize certain groups that fall outside of the strict dichotomy of heteronormative organization with a derogative label like “cultural deviants” (Terry 166). Terry cites the work of scholars from multiple disciplines. Each examined homosexuality in an attempt to either discredit it as a genetic abnormality or to find indisputable evidence that legitimized the behavior of undervalued members of society.

Like the scientists on CNN’s news segment who searched for genetic markers, endocrinologists in the early 20^th century used hormone research to clearly differentiate between males and females. This incited the creation of a continuum with “normal males concentrated on one side and normal females on the other”, which translated to the accepted heterosexual members of society (Terry 162). Structural violence against homosexuals ensued when scientists carried out experiments to normalize them by injecting hormones of the opposite sex into each subject in an effort to cure them of their socially misguided sexual orientation.

Not surprisingly, the discrimination does not stop at the homosexual population. Killing two undervalued birds with one prejudiced stone, the same dominant sector in society also oppresses women. In trying to determine how women’s reproductive anatomy contributes to conception, male scholars clumsily stumbled over concepts like the frequency of ovulation and the purported absence of female sexual desire in “Discovery of Sexes” by Thomas Lacqueur. He continues themes from the previously assigned article “New Science, One Flesh” by providing copious examples of anatomical sketches and chauvinistic quotations that express the woman’s primary role as the inferior-to-male child bearer.

While so many controversial quotes abound in Lacqueur’s article, Victor Joze’s opening passage describes a woman as “neither equal nor inferior nor superior to a man, that she is a being apart, another thing, endowed with other functions by nature than the man with whom she has no business competing in public life… A woman exists only through her ovaries” (Lacqueur 149). In Joze’s opinion the woman deserves due credit for her reproductive capabilities but any additional demands for social status or equality will fall on deaf ears. Lacqueur provides a fascinating juxtaposition to Joze’s initial statement. The only role that women fulfill and Renaissance scholars appreciate seems to be the very trait that lessens their status next to men. “What matters is the superior strength of men or, more important, the frequent incapacity of women because of their reproductive functions”, Hobbes opines about the weak biological function females serve (Lacqueur 157).

Those in power historically maintain it by the continued oppression of vulnerable groups. Attempts to medicalize female sexual desire and conception resulted in scientific experiments with harmful implications, both physically and socially. Surgeons removed thousands of ovaries before their physiological function was even understood. Lacqueur likens the women subjects to “humans worked like that ubiquitous experimental creature of the nineteenth century, the rabbit” (Lacqueur 187). Even as women endured pain to help science progress, males perpetuated their lowly social status, “many women are apt to imagine, out of hope or fear, that they have conceived- their reports on this matter are not to be trusted and can be of no practical concern” (Lacqueur 185).

Science can serve to legitimize homosexuality such as the study in CNN that identifies heritable traits that a homosexual person may possess like left-handedness or “hair that whirls in a counter-clockwise direction” (Nature). Terry summarizes Margaret Meads’ findings from her research in the South Pacific, “since there was no natural dictate as to how the sexes should be organized, there should be greater tolerance of variations”, an eloquent appeal for tolerance (Terry 165). However, the endocrinologists used scientific means to create a heteronormative scale that excluded homosexuals as dysfunctional and sexually aberrant.

The medicalization of homosexuality could potentially pave the way for its constitutional acceptance but alternatively, could allow power-preserving groups to use “science” to discredit it.  

Bibliography:

Lacqueur, Thomas. "Discovery of the Sexes." Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990. 149-92. Print.

"Nature vs. Nurture." Paula Zahn Now. CNN. June-July 2007. Veoh. Veoh Networks Inc. Web.

Terry, Jennifer. "Fluid Sexes." An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1999. 159-77. Print.