currently taking a course on sexuality as part of my gender studies minor.
i don't know when exactly i got pulled into the world of gender, masculinity, femininity, .. feminism, equality..
it's frankly the most fascinating thing about my studies, and i think taking (one of my worst-fared courses) Geographies of Social Life, which carried a component of looking at gender in spaces that brought to my attention the many varied ways of thinking gender. all these concepts of "doing gender", gender as "performative", as "becoming" rther than given, the difference between sex and gender..
focusing thus much on gender i tend to naturalise sex a little more than i perhaps ought to. after all, it's biological, right? aside from the initial awareness that sex can be socially constructed too, i didn't give it much thought. hence my current course wakes me up and it took me this long to really question myself- what is sexuality?
i've read only a little on sexuality as an expression of the self, on sexual orientation, sexual desire, etc.
the human is indeed complex, a biologically born female can identify as a male, desire sexual advances from females, yet have an emotional attachment to men. it is possible. we haven't even started on how he expresses himself as male. in action, thoughts, words, behaviour?
anyway, sexuality is interesting, it's a refreshing change on "deconstructing gender" and "social constructionism" and all these things i really really like and i'm quite, not used to, but have been learning about.
so we learn about the basic sex of humans, and in addition, in comparison to other species. the course is called "Sexuality in Comparative Perspective", after all.
Wiki defines sexuality as "the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses" but a search on animal sexuality provides a much more comprehensive understanding on what we might actually be looking at.
what got me thinking was how we look at sexual practices, i was doing a reading on human sexuality from an evolutionary POV, to the practice of bride price and dowry and kinship patterns, the sexual behaviours and practices leading up to it in thr !kung tribe, to a paper on the function of an orgasm.
it's really really a change from all i've been learning about gender so far, and it's a good turning point to explore something so detached yet inherent to the study of gender.
i don't know when exactly i got pulled into the world of gender, masculinity, femininity, .. feminism, equality..
it's frankly the most fascinating thing about my studies, and i think taking (one of my worst-fared courses) Geographies of Social Life, which carried a component of looking at gender in spaces that brought to my attention the many varied ways of thinking gender. all these concepts of "doing gender", gender as "performative", as "becoming" rther than given, the difference between sex and gender..
focusing thus much on gender i tend to naturalise sex a little more than i perhaps ought to. after all, it's biological, right? aside from the initial awareness that sex can be socially constructed too, i didn't give it much thought. hence my current course wakes me up and it took me this long to really question myself- what is sexuality?
i've read only a little on sexuality as an expression of the self, on sexual orientation, sexual desire, etc.
the human is indeed complex, a biologically born female can identify as a male, desire sexual advances from females, yet have an emotional attachment to men. it is possible. we haven't even started on how he expresses himself as male. in action, thoughts, words, behaviour?
anyway, sexuality is interesting, it's a refreshing change on "deconstructing gender" and "social constructionism" and all these things i really really like and i'm quite, not used to, but have been learning about.
so we learn about the basic sex of humans, and in addition, in comparison to other species. the course is called "Sexuality in Comparative Perspective", after all.
Wiki defines sexuality as "the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses" but a search on animal sexuality provides a much more comprehensive understanding on what we might actually be looking at.
what got me thinking was how we look at sexual practices, i was doing a reading on human sexuality from an evolutionary POV, to the practice of bride price and dowry and kinship patterns, the sexual behaviours and practices leading up to it in thr !kung tribe, to a paper on the function of an orgasm.
it's really really a change from all i've been learning about gender so far, and it's a good turning point to explore something so detached yet inherent to the study of gender.
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