Sexual orientation

The term sexual orientation refers to the gender of a person's preferred sexual partner. (Some prefer the term affectional orientation as it includes elements of romance and affection.)

In the latter half of the 20th century, opinion was divided into those who believed sexual orientation is either:

1. fixed at birth, or

1. a complex function of inherited predisposition, early childhood upbringing, and conscious choice, or

1. purely a matter of choice

Gay rights advocates generally believe that sexual orientation is fixed at birth and vigorously deny that it is amenable to deliberate change. Often they argue that since homosexuals don't choose to be gay, the only alternative is that their sexual orientation is inherited. On these grounds, they declare homosexuality normal and acceptable.

Much religious teaching maintains that sexual behavior should conform to moral and religious codes, while sometimes falling short of calling homosexual desire sinful per se. For example, the Catholic Church prescribes chastity for homosexuals.

Sexual Orientation in Western Society

Many people in Western societies today speak of "sexual orientation " as a unified and actual thing. Over the past thirty years anthropologists, historians, and literary critics have pointed out that it in fact comprises a variety of different things, including a specific object of erotic desire, and forms of erotic fulfilment (i.e. sexual behaviors). Many scholars have argued that "sexual orientation" and specific sexual orientations are historical and social constructions. In 1976 the historian Michel Foucault argued that homosexuality did not exist as such in the 18th century; that people instead spoke of "sodomy" (which involved specific erotic acts regardless of the sex of the actors) as a crime that was often ignored but sometimes punished severely. He further argued that it was in the 19th century that "homosexuality" came into existence as practicioners of emerging sciences as well as arts sought to classify and analyze different forms of sexual "perversion". Finally, Foucault argues that it was this emerging discourse that allowed some to claim that homosexuality is natural, and therefore a legitimate "sexual orientation."

Foucault's suggestions about Western sexuality led other historians and anthropolosts to abandon the 19th century project of classifying different forms of "sexual" behavior or "sexual" orientation" to a new project that asks "what is "sexuality" and how do people in different places and at different times understand their bodies and desires? For example, they have argued that the famous case of some Melanesian societies in which adult men and pre-pubescent and adolescent boys engage in oral sex is not comparable to similar acts in the United States or Europe; that Melanesians do not understand or explain such acts in terms of sexual desire or as a sexual behavior, and that it in fact reflects a culture with a very different notion of sex, sexuality, and gender. Some historians have made similar claims about so-called homosexuality in ancient Greece; that behaviors that appear to be homosexual in modern Western societies may have been understood by ancient Greeks in entirely different ways.

Two Major Viewpoints

At stake in these new views are two different points. One is the claim that human sexuality is extraordinarily plastic, and that specific notions about the body and sexuality are socially constructed. The other is the fundamentally anthropological claim of cultural relativism: that human behavior should be interpreted in the context of its cultural environment, and that the language of one culture is often inappropriate for describing practices or beliefs in another culture. A number of contemporary scholars who have come to reject Foucault's specific arguments about Western sexuality nevertheless have accepted these basic theoretical and methodological points.

See: causes of sexual orientation, sexual behavior, bisexuality, reparative therapy

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