Sexuality & Gender
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In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault argues that sexuality and sexual conduct are not natural categories. In other words, they have no basis in reality. Instead, these categories are a product of social construction. They only come into being in the context of a social setting (i.e. society). Sexuality and sexual conduct, being formed by social construct, are to a significant degree influenced by social control: ôBetween the state and individual, sex became an issue, and a public issue no less; a whole web of discourses, special knowledges, analyses, and injunctions settled upon itö (Foucault, 1978, 26). Power relations are instrumental to FoucaultÆs analysis, and in the social control and social construct of sexuality and sexual conduct different power relations emerge. It is this focus of FoucaultÆs that is most in evident in Beth BaileyÆs From Front Porch to Back Seat. BaileyÆs work illustrates the changing modes of gender-relations in courting (i.e. social) structures that developed over the past century. Bailey argues that different social constructs of courting over the past century have evolve from a gracious ritual wherein menÆs and womenÆs roles were clearly defined into a system of exchange that is akin to outright economic exchange. This evolution also transferred power-relations in courting from women to men, changed the courting sphere from the private to the public, and increased the chances of sex on first
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ent, intensification, reorientation, and modification of desire itselfö (23).
At the start of the 20th century, a new form of courtship known as dating began to evolve in America. While calling had been the upper classes reaction to urban-industrial America, dating was the response of the lower-classes. The upper classes could afford to organize calling within the private sphere and thereby shield themselves to some degree from urban-industrial change and chaos. Those among the lower classes who could not isolate themselves from these pressures adapted to new times readily. Slowly but surely the dating process began to emerge into the public sphere. Dance halls, movie theaters, soda shops and other venues became legitimate and respectable for dating. More freedom for women, more mobility due to the automobile, and the anonymity of the public sphere reshaped sexuality and sexual conduct: ôNew sexual norms were emerging with these changes...Sex became the central public symbol of youth culture, a fundamental part of the definition that separated youth from ageö (Bailey, 1989, 80).
However, by moving the process of courtship into the public sphere, two other highly significant changes occurred in the socioeconomic structure o
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Approximate Word count = 1351
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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