Response Post Feb. 24

Leila Rupp’s article provides the best points of argument I’ve seen for understanding our concepts of “normal” sexuality as completely constructed. She breaks down the idea of any “natural” sense of sexuality by exploring sexual politics across the world and across time. She introduces some useful vocabulary such as “different-gender sexuality” to refer to alike-genital partners that view themselves as a different gender than defined by their anatomy. But Rupp’s most interesting contribution is her ability to make us question what exactly constitute “sexuality” or “sexual acts.” We get so caught up in categorizing sexual behaviors we have failed to really question what makes a relationship sexual and whether or not that line may be different for different people.

It happens on a smaller, more acceptable scale if you really think about it. Any person who has kissed more than one person or even just kissed more than one time can tell you that the act means different things and can mean more or less on different occasions. The same is even acceptable for sex. We all know people (like Samantha on Sex and the City) who engage in sex casually. And we all know people that view sex as a monumentally important act. This fact should be a hint that there are no clear definitions of a sexual-relationship or sexual acts, and we need to develop a broader understanding of what these wide range of relationships mean to people on an emotional level. Our society has a tendency to define things by purely physical facts rather than by what the situation means to the individuals involved. In my opinion, this Western mentality is the source of our stereotyping and judging habits.

I’ve always been slightly confused by Adrienne Rich’s arguments on feminism, unable to wrap my head around her view of everything as an institution aimed at oppression. I know that it is her intention, but I find her writing to be too confrontational and too much of an accusation. But reading these articles together seems to bring them into some kind of agreement and makes Rich slightly more approachable for me. They support one another and the concept that we need to question everything and constantly take into consideration our social and historical context.