July 23rd: Social Construction of Sexuality

Hybrid Day Plan

I have some material and definitions for you to review before moving onto your prompts for today. We're getting into theories of sexuality, so I have a couple terms to consider. Also, because your critical media analysis essay is comming up, I have a brief discussion on a heteronormative "gay" show that examines how Will & Grace is really a heterosexual show that conforms to dominant heterosexual values the media often reproduce. After that, I have some major points from your readings and then the prompts, which continue our conversation from last night class on images of women in the media and the role of women and ideas of sexuality and consumerism.

Queer Theory and Deconstruction

Queer theory: critical theory emerging in the 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies; critiques or provides "queer readings" of texts to question/challenge the idea that gender is part of the essential self; the theory uncovers socially constructed views of sex, gneder, sexuality, and identities.

• Queer theorist Michael Warner: [commenting on the institutions that appear to be just given...] "The dawning realization that themes of homophobia and heterosexism may be read in almost any document of our culture means that we are only beginning to have an idea of how widespread those institutions and accounts are."
  

Deconstruction: critical theory that examines the historical traditions (often mediated by ideology) that create meaning--specifically in words but useful for cultural studies.

Will & Grace and Jack & Karen

I don't like being so direct with my views on the media we discuss because my goal isn't to present my ideas as better or "truth"; instead, I want introduce ideas and interpretations as a way to have us think differently than we might normally have given our culturally constructed lenses. That being said...

Will & Grace is a heteronormative TV show. On the surface, the show is about a gay man, Will, and his heterosexual best friend, Grace. The show also shows viewers--on the surface--two other friends--Jack, a gay man, and Karen, a heterosexual woman. While the two sets of couples have extra relationships, those are peripheral--the show focuses on Will & Grace and Jack & Karen as if they were two couples. Will and Grace live together (even when dating others), and Jack and Karen are seen together so often viewers would assume they're married except for Jack's flamboyancy and Karen's talk of her convict husband (who's always off camera).

Gayness Sanitized

The gayness of the show is sanitized for "polite" middle-American society watching this show on prime time TV. Male-to-male affection is never the same as male-to-female affection, and, interestingly, Grace and Karen touch each other in more sexual ways than Will and Jack ever touch their romantic interests...I'll leave that to your critical thinking selves.

While the show might be consider more gay than previous sitcoms, the antics of Will and Grace--living together, planning to have a baby together, planning to raise a baby together, hugging and kissing all the time--show them to be a heterosexual couple. Unconsciously, America accepts Will & Grace because the show is not too gay; it doesn't offend heterosexist paradigms. That fact was underscored in the series finale when {spoiler alert...don't keep reading if you don't want to know the ending} we learn Will's baby--with his husband, Ben--and Grace's baby--with her husband, Leo--are to fulfill Will & Grace's destiny--to make a heterosexual union happen. Will & Grace's kids meet in college and eventually get married...what's next? Exactly, potential for a baby to be born. Will & Grace fulfill their destiny in "proper" heterosexual fashion by producing children who marry.

How is that a gay show?

Vance's "Social Construction Theory and Sexuality"

Vance points out that "social construction theory" comes from the work of several disciplines. Like the other critical theories we've used to look at new media and, therefore, re/think about culture, social construction theory is impossible to "get" in the short time we're devoting to it. However, haven't we discussed social construction throughout the semester? Because culture mediates how we experience the world, I argue that nearly all epistemologies (the study of knowledge or ways of knowing) can be thought of a socially constructed ideologies that are governed or just influenced by Ideology--the overall set of beliefs and values of an entire culture.

Below are some key points from Vance's article, which is more a review of literature than argument:

• p. 38: "theories which used reproduction to link gender with sexuality."
• p. 38: male domination of science "provided ideological support for current social relations." In other words, 'he who had the power over science used it to explain woman's place in the world.'
• p. 38: feminist struggle "to separate sexuality from reproduction and women's gendered roles as wives and mothers."
• p. 39: members of a culture see sexuality "as natural, seamless, and organic."
• p. 40: homosexual behavior and homosexual identity...universal and culturally specific, respectively.
• p. 42: "sexuality is mediated by historical and cultural factors."
• p. 42: no universal meaning for sexual acts or sexualities.
• p. 43: What about the point that sexual desire is "constructed by culture and history from the energies and capacities of the body"?
• p. 48: "reproductive sexuality constitutes a small portion of the larger sexual universe."
• p. 48: the hegemonic view of sexuality--essentialism.

Seidman, Steven. "Sex Work."

Seidman's argument, while more nuanced, can be boiled down to a simple statement--all work is similar to prostitution. What do you think?

Below are some key points from Seidman's article:

• p. 114: "Sex work raises a boundary dispute over the relationship between sex and commerce." If we permit porn, why not selling sexual acts?
• p. 118: "Is sex work different from other types of work? In many jobs, workers exchange the use of their bodies for wages."
• p. 119: "sex as a form of pleasure and self-expression."
• p. 121: "Women become sex workers...in part because of a culture that already values them for their sexual attractiveness."
• p. 121: "Many of our work choices are constrained and are not self-fulfilling."
• p. 121-122: "sex work is exploitative to the extent that it is women who do the sex work while the men control the industry."

Moodle Discussion Posts

Go back to yesterday's page to the section on "The Role of Women in the Media." Read over the information and watch the two videos. of

Remember, besides the prompts I ask you to respond to, I want you to respond to a post from another classmate from July 18th's posts. You can respond to whomever you'd like (in at leas 250 words). Of course, you're supposed to be thoughtful and critically reflective. You aren't trying to necessarily go against (or be for) what your classmate wrote. Instead, you're trying to show you're reflecting on his or her post.

Head on over to moodle for discussion prompts.

Future Reading

Toreka will lead class discussion on Mulvey's article for tomorrow.

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