Reflection

New perspectives on understanding of sexuality, gender, intimacies

Studying this module has opened up new perspectives in my understanding of sexuality,

gender, health, social change and intimacies. For instance, I have learned that while the

expression of sexuality in humans may begin in biological sciences, it is significantly

influenced by culture. The influence of culture on sexual expression happens in relation to

behaviour, desire as well as meaning, and it is manifested in gender and norms related to

gender. By taking the cross-cultural perspective, this course has greatly enhanced my

understanding of how sexuality is related to culture and how it is expressed in gender.

Growing up, my only understanding of sexuality and gender was the assignment of gender

roles to male and female, which I believe is defined by the social and cultural context.

However, going through the anthropology of sexuality has shown me that there are various

theories of sexuality as an area of human experience and that certain sexual acts, relations and

desires can be located in certain cultural and historical contexts. For example, Victorian

sexuality, just like Victorian anthropology, was male biased and only concentrated on the

views of men about women by men (Fee, 1973). It is also clear to me that class divisions end

up producing different sexual cultures and that society structures as well as restricts sexual

expression, just like the institutions and individuals that we interact with daily and they have

a vested interest in our sexuality. An example is the ways in which the ideas of pleasure and

danger in sexuality have drastically changed since the first appearance of HIV/AIDS as well

as other sexually transmitted infections. I believe that from this module, I have gained

knowledge regarding gender based structures of social classification in a global context and

consequently developed a critical understanding of the way the lives of women and men are

represented in ethnography.

New insights on your main degree discipline

One of the reasons I chose to undertake this module was to learn how to make analytical

relations between the study of sexuality and subject matter and also with wider social

scientific themes, such as in connection with social relatedness, economic change, kinship,

modernity and uncertain social reactions to modernity. In addition, I also wanted to be able to

relate ethnographic research on the daily intimate lives to an evaluation of an extensive

selection of social issues. These aspects of the module, I believe greatly contribute to my

main degree discipline, especially when it comes to enhancing my critical thinking regarding

theories as well as implementation practices framework and practices that are presently being

applied in this field. Furthermore, through this module, I have been able to develop a

comparative appreciation regarding cultural diversity based on different contemporary case

studies and many others in a historical context. I am also able to communicate efficiently in

different written and oral formats on issues regarding anthropological studies of sexuality and

gender. To this regard, I can commend this module as one that has created a better

understanding of my degree and it has also provided key insights on what appertains to my

field of study. For example, if I were to work on a research project, I would be able to

effectively adjust research methods to the specificity of the research question on sexuality

issues and also be able to compare the research experiences and findings of researchers on

different social and cultural contexts.

Understanding life experiences

One of the things I have grasped from this module is that social constructs are real, and this

helps in my understanding of my own life experiences regarding sexuality around me. Things

like gender, class and race are all social constructions and based on this, they have significant

impacts on people’s lives in a particular society. Having gone through an anthropological tour

of different times and places in history, it is clear that the concepts of sexuality and gender

are not only a social construction but also an aspect of our daily lives that influence what we
do and how we respond to certain situations. For instance, sex is defined as observable

physical traits that differentiate between humans as female and male, required for

reproduction. Based on this, sex is typically acknowledged as dimorphic, although

understanding the sex difference in humans would not be complete without gender or as

suggested by Lavenda and Schultz (2013), the cultural construction of beliefs as well as

behaviours that are considered proper for each sex. As I had mentioned earlier, in every

society, we grow up into a system with socially constructed gender roles based on our sex

hence end up behaving in a particular manner because that is the norm. To this regard, this

course had not only deepened my understanding of the influences of social and cultural

context on my sexuality, but it has also helped me to place the origins of gendered human

sexual experience.

Texts/readings

Class material for this module has greatly driven my understanding of the anthropology of

sexuality and to enhance this, I also read different book on the subject. I discovered that

different authors prefer to approach the topic of sexuality from different angles although the

objective of providing more knowledge and also to present their understanding remains the

same. Using sexual experiences, Donnan and Magowan (2010) show that sex is both

productive as well as reproductive of resulting social identities that, in turn, are limited by

formal and informal sexual norms and beliefs. According to the author, practices that

surround sexual embodiments are at some point, considered in terms of political, social,

physiological and emotional aspects. This perspective informs my understanding that sexual
cultures vary widely and that ways in which different sexual practices are connected.

Lancaster and Di Leonardo (1997) also agree with the idea that aspects of sexual embodiment

belong to the changing world of cultural meanings and a variety of social practices. Based on

ethnographic research presented in this text, I learned that humans articulate particularly

varied concepts of sexuality and that these understandings are significantly interconnected

within compact cultural fabrics.

References

Donnan, H. and Magowan, F., 2010. The anthropology of sex. Berg.

Fee, E., 1973. The sexual politics of Victorian social anthropology. Feminist Studies, 1(3/4),

pp.23-39.

Lancaster, R.N. and Di Leonardo, M. eds., 1997. The gender/sexuality reader: culture,

history, political economy. Psychology Press.

Lavenda, R.H. and Schultz, E.A., 2013. Anthropology: What does it mean to be human?.

Oxford University Press.