Blog Post #12
12 years ago
Friday, March 11, 2011
Homosexual body hosting heterosexual mind or Heterosexual body hosting homosexual mind?
While I was reading Fausto-Sterling's excerpt "How to build a man?", one statement she made caught my attention and raised my curiosity. She said: ".... a child raised as a female (even if biologically male) who prefers male lovers is psychologically heterosexual, although genetically she is not." For me that statement implies two really different and major concepts depending on the way you think about it. The first one is that you can be born gay or lesbian, and thus, this is something natural, which might have its answer in the human genome. (So we should probably review our definition of masculinity). This concept is not new, and has been a polemical subject for the past decades, so I'm not going to spend too much time on it. However, I just would like to highlight one opinion that we can have from Fausto-Sterling's statement: the way a child is raised, (or his/her socialization) does not play any role in his/her sexual orientation. The other opinion that we can have is, it is because he is raised as a female that he prefers male lovers (as John Money implies it). In that case there is no such thing as being born homosexual. Depending on the way you choose to raise a child you can affect or even totally change his/her sexual orientation. That is a big concept. What does that say about all the homosexuals out there? That their parents didn't raise them in a proper way? That, as it is something that was probably force onto them as they were raised, they can "straighten" their sexual orientation by having a proper socialization and become "normal"? Or even more, as parents, not only will you have the choice of the education you want to give to your child, but you will also have the choice of his/her sexual orientation? The only thing I'm positive about after reading that text is no matter what concept you choose to support the notion of normality, as well as the notion of what it means to be masculine will evolve as Science evolves.
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Your post emphasizes the contradictions embedded in scientific explanations of how sex becomes inscribed in the body and how much of this process is nature and how much is man-made. The example you cite"...a child raised as a female (even if biologically male) who prefers male lovers is psychologically heterosexual, although genetically she is not" undermines everything we are told to believe about the human body and its desires. The quote seems to suggest that nurture -medical and psychological intervention, as well as rearing-is much more effective and produces 'better' or 'normal'men and women rather than nature-some individuals are born as hermaphrodites/intersex, or external or internal 'abnormalities' which do not fit the medical definition of 'male sex' or 'female sex'. But if, as the quote suggests, sexual orientation is psychological, then that suggests it has no bearing on sex and gender. Therefore, as you point out that maybe the definition of masculinity should be revised and the assumption that masculinity is predicated on heterosexuality should be reconsidered?
ReplyDeleteI think that as Miss B stated "maybe the definition of masculinity should be revised". There are alot of inconsistencys and I don't think theres any definite answer because there is no one way to determine your sexuality.
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