Human Sexuality

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer maintains that the role of gender and sexuality is certainly not fixed, as suggested by Darwin. Instead, the writer claims that many aspects of femininity and masculinity are related to power. Furthermore, power can impact the role of gender both inside and outside of personal relationships. The writer notes, as an example, that economic power over slaves resulted in the development of puritanical sexual mores in modern-day Jamaicans. However, the writer points out that economic power by Western tourists has resulted in a female sex tourist industry in that same country. Therefore, the writer concludes that researchers who attempt to study issues surrounding sexuality and gender must be careful to guard against their own bias, and also be aware of the various cultures that have previously interacted with the subjects of their studies.

From the Paper:

"Furthermore, it is important to realize that researchers in disciplines like sociology and anthropology are rarely documenting solely naturally-occurring phenomenon. On the contrary, the very presence of the researcher changes the social situation. For many years, the presence of researchers was thought to have minimal impact on the people being studied, as long as the researchers made conscious efforts to avoid impacting and changing the studied society. However, this idea is patently false. The very presence of people from other cultures has an impact on a society. Furthermore, one need only watch a reality television show and the outrageous behavior displayed on such programs to understand that the knowledge that one's behavior is being documented and recorded can have an impact on that behavior. Therefore, it is important for one to understand that even a perfectly neutral researcher is going to have some impact on the behavior of the people that he or she is studying; it is simply impossible to introduce an outside observer to a situation without impacting that situation in some manner. Furthermore, whether the researcher's impact is significant or insignificant is something that the researcher cannot determine, because they have only observed the studied population after introducing themselves to the situation. In that way, one must concede that there is no organic modern anthropological research, but that it has all been tainted, in varying degrees, by the presence of the researchers studying it."

Sample of Sources Used:

• LaFont, S. (2001). Very straight sex: the development of sexual mores in Jamaica. Journal of colonialism and colonial history, 2(3). Project Muse http://muse.jhu.edu
• Lancaster, R. (1994). Life is hard: machismo, danger, and the intimacy of power in Nicaragua. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Lancaster, R. (1999). 'That we should all turn queer?' Homosexual stigma in the making of manhood and the breaking of a revolution in Nicaragua. In R. Parker & P. Aggleton (Ed.), Culture, society and sexuality: a reader (pp. 97-118). New York: Routledge, Taylor, & Francis Group.
• Lancaster, R. (2003). The trouble with nature: sex and science in popular culture. Berkeley:University of California Press.
• Priest, R.J. (2001). Missionary positions: Christian, modernist, postmodernist. Current anthropology, 42(1), 29-68.

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