Gender - week 6
Sex to orgasm
sex is highly patterned -common sense version of how heterosex happens kinsey's six stages
Two sides
-idea of equality is good -also another layer of sexual expectation and obligation for women and men
foucault's history of sexuaity
looks at victorian period where sex was suppposed to be repressed and found it was actually expanded -through confessionals peopel developd a language for talking about sex -family and women were heavily sexualized
under discourse of reciprocity
-female orgasmm remains less essential than male orgasm -women need to be assertive -if women don't have an orgasm this needs accounting for -male anxieties competence construction fo a good lover
repciprocity discourse
-nota s liberatory as it seems men hae more freedom in how they grant aan orgasm is this discourse challenging heterosex or reinscribinng old norms?
non reciprocal sex
in order to feel good about one's own orgasm partenr needs one too -they would feel they were using her - exploting her - not a fair deal or they failed in some way
How is sex talked about
through our talk, cultural imperatives are silently upheld -through language wae activley construct noraml sex thus lmiting sex -the ways the ways that sex is representedhas implications for sex as it happens
heterosexual practices are infleuced by cultural values
discourses of reciprocity in heterosex -equality -give and take -how does this discourse promote certain norms for hterosex?
What is discourse
-an institutionalized way of thinking, a soical boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic -discourse are shared ideas, images, terminology that are created and that limit how we know about certain topics
entitlement or obligation
-discourse of reciprocity could produce certain obligations -women not only entitlte d to an orgasm they are expected to have one if she doesn't she is positoned as not normal (lets her pardner down - reflects badly on his performance)
reciprocity
-giving and receivng pleasure the exchange of orgasms has led to an orgasm imperative her orgasm for the promise of his -what is the golden standard
coital imperative
-what is the significance of hte coital imperiative -why does coitus -= natural why does sex mena intercourse in whose interest? who benefits most?
What is Sex
Sex is socioloculturally produced -the meanigns associates with experience -what counts a s sex
have/hold discourse
women want love, care affection more than an orgasm
Other costraints
-woen's orgasm ian obligation to establish sexual normality and reinforce partners expertise =have one but dont' take toolong, still based on androcentric understanding/script of heterosex (fakging) -entitltement of ma to orgasm after women do compromises women's choice to have intercourse
Post structuralist theory
michael foucalult loks at history thoruhg discourses -looks at what is left out of stories -analyzes how discourses change thorugh time thus proving they are socialy constructed (ancient greece, rome, freud, victoiran era)
