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 meeting.
Prior to the early 1900s, dating as it is now known was known as calling. The process of calling, as we shall see in the process of dating, manifested various power structures among men, women and the parents of women, particularly the mother. Courtship in this era occurred in the private sphere, typically the home of the female. Calling was a social interaction under close parental supervision of a male and female. The social interaction had a firm set of guidelines and establ...