Sexuality and Reproduction

Implications of Sexuality and Reproduction

In the United States and elsewhere, sexuality and reproduction are fundamentally gendered. In other words, both are components of a larger social institution of gender: sexual norms, beliefs, and practices structure differential experiences for women and men and systematically privilege men over women.

Although variations to this pattern of sex difference and male privilege exist in the United States, mainstream cultural practices and institutional policies continue to reinforce the idea that women and men are naturally selected into inherently different social spheres and have different natures, desires, and sexual needs. A large portion of the production of sex difference and male privilege is fueled by mainstream cultural practices and institutional policies around sexuality and reproduction.

Sexuality is conceptualized by critical, feminist, and postmodern scholars as a range of desire and body-based actions, thoughts, and sensibilities. Sexuality is viewed as simultaneously shaped by cultural and institutional forces as well as created by individuals as acts of resistance or compliance. Sexuality can be expressed in the physical presence of one or more people, in interaction with others via multimedia technologies, or by oneself. Because critical, feminist, and postmodern theorists tend to view sexuality as constructed within social contexts, these theorists do not search for an intrinsic meaning of sexuality or sexual acts; instead, they ground their sexual ethics in the critical evaluation of the power relations, intentions, and outcomes of any given sexual exchange. In this way, the categories of normative sexuality (e.g., between a married heterosexual couple) and nonnormative sexuality (e.g., between two men) are far less relevant than the degree to which the exchange allows equity, integrity, and a lack of social, cultural, and personal coercion for all parties.

Reproduction, or the act of reproducing human life through the successful connection between an egg and a sperm, is a matter that may or may not overlap with sexual desire or routine bodily practices. Indeed, human reproduction can be completed through a number of configurations including consensual heterosexual penile-vaginal intercourse, coerced penile-vaginal intercourse, inter-uterine and in vitro fertilization, intercourse between cross-sex friends, and intercourse between committed monogamous heterosexuals.

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