Nicole LaMarre. Encyclopedia of Gender and Society. Editor: Jodi O’Brien. Volume 2. Sage Publications, 2009.
The term sexual identity has a long and varied history in the study of gender and society. Psychologists and, eventually, sexologists, used the term to describe individuals’ sex characteristics—the biological body, female or male, with which individuals identify. Sexologists in particular have researched the different processes by which individuals form their sexual identity. In this sense, sexual identity addresses the inner psychological state of male or female of individuals. Today, sexual identity primarily refers to sexual orientation, either “gay” (homosexual), “bi” (bisexual) or “straight” (heterosexual). Researchers often examine sexual identity in correlation with gender identity, which addresses the social regulation of sexes based on assigning roles to each gender through assumptions of the natural, innate abilities or differences within one sex or the other (such as femininity in women and masculinity in men). Sexual identity, however, works outside of gender identities (but sometimes in conjunction with gender issues).
Sexual identities in the United States and abroad are increasingly of concern in public political debate. Some Western European nations, including Spain and the United Kingdom, have begun legalizing same-sex marriages and unions for the first time in contemporary society. The civil rights issues of same-sex couples have received increasing media coverage, as more and more political and celebrity figures divulge their same-sex partnerships. Political debates about sexual identity in contemporary society make it especially important to understand the historical contexts of sexual identities, how views on sexual identity in contemporary cultural contexts are changing, and why these changes are happening now. This entry includes an examination of sexual identity in the United States, various approaches to studying sexual identity, and contemporary theoretical and political debates surrounding sexual identity.
Heteronormativity and Compulsory Heterosexuality
Modern theorists argue that U.S. definitions of sexual identities operate within a binary system that consists of homosexuals/bisexuals and heterosexuals. The naturalness of masculinity/femininity in male/female relationships is an assumed part of individual sexual identities. This naturalization of gender binaries, called heteronormativity, is the foundation of sexual identities in society. Heteronormative definitions of sexuality shape social institutions. This binary system assumes that desire, behavior, and identity are the same and that sexual desires and behaviors match up with overall sexual identity categories. For example, masculine men desire and have sex with feminine women, and feminine women who have sex with men are heterosexual. Identities that stray from the gendered ordering of sexual identities are known socially as homosexual.
Historically, the stated rationale behind heterosexuality has been the successful operation of required reproduction, because women could not reproduce without men, the most suitable relationships were considered to be between men and women. The institution of marriage furthered the goal of controlling individual sexualities by providing a way for governments to motivate couples to reproduce and build worker populations that would drive national economies and help secure economic competitiveness. Many have attributed a biological basis to heterosexuality and the commonsense rationale of female/male partnerships: Sexuality is natural; everyone has a need to reproduce. This assumed “natural” heterosexuality and its accompanying institutions have been a unifying force behind building heterosexual identities.
However, many social scientists and theorists have questioned this naturalness, arguing that the cultural norms governing heterosexuality have changed greatly over time. This change suggests that, rather than being a biological drive that is inherent in the human populations, sexual identity is more intricately and socially produced. Furthermore, scholars argue that heterosexuality has become compulsory in U.S. society. Individuals are socially compelled to adhere to the norms that govern heterosexuality, so they continually reproduce heterosexual expectations through their representations of their inner sexual identity. This compulsion drives the assumptions of heterosexuality in U.S. society. All people are assumed to be heterosexual until they “come out of the closet” and disclose their identity to be outside heterosexual expectations. Feminist and sociological scholars have looked into the functions of compulsory heterosexuality as producing the continual marginalization and oppression of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) communities.
Studies done on intimate sexual behaviors, personal identifications of sexuality (homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual), and sexual desires have shown sexual identity to be more complex than individual assertions of identity might suggest. Even though people may define themselves as heterosexual, they may have had same-sex relationships or intimacies in the past. Likewise, individuals who may sleep with the other sex can have erotic fantasies about people of the same sex. This has led to the development of the social constructionist approach to sexual identities. Some social construction theories assert that sexual identities are unique products of specific historical and cultural moments that are themselves continually changing.
Social Construction and Sexual Identity
In sociology, the explanation of how sexuality and gender become culturally defined is called social construction theory. Social construction theory addresses the reciprocal relationship between individuals and the social environments in which they live. In the case of sexuality, people continually form their sexual identities within the specific cultural definitions of their environment. Currently, social constructionism is widely recognized in academia as fundamental to individual sexual identities. In U.S. society, the binary definitions of sexuality limit the fluidity of sexualities by recognizing only those behaviors that fall within heterosexual or homosexual definitions and gendered desires. Any relationship that is not heterosexual (opposite sexed and monogamous) belongs to the category of homosexual. Rather than being an identity by itself, homosexuality has become a label that adheres to any sexual behaviors that fall outside of the normative definitions of heterosexuality, including bondage, sadomasochism, and polyamorous communities.
Within studies of sexuality, there remains a division in how the social construction theory applies to sexual identity. Many theorists (including some sexologists and psychologists) have asserted that all individuals are born with innate, biological, and natural sexualities. Heterosexuality becomes the dominant sexual category because it is based on physical drives to procreate. However, these naturalized sexualities are socially constructed by the culturally distinct norms that govern their practices. For example, social norms determine which sexual acts are appropriate for heterosexuals, and which are appropriate for homosexuals and bisexuals. Sodomy laws, aimed at regulating and controlling homosexual behaviors, reflect and enforce these constructed norms. Similarly, late 19th- and early 20th-centuries laws that deemed nonheterosexual cohabitation illegal (and therefore deviant) similarly participate in this construction. Race, ethnicity, and age are also at issue in notions of appropriate sexual identities. These norms are enforced through formal and informal sanctions. For example, in the early 20th century, black and white women and men were not able to legally wed. Sodomy laws also regulated what sexual acts were legitimate and suitable to partake in.
Moral issues and religious beliefs have shaped informal controls and constructions of sexual identities. Sexual identities are inextricably linked moral parts of individuals. Heterosexuals are validated in U.S. society as being wholesome, natural, and integral to a moral society with strict and necessary limitations on sexual behaviors. Homosexuals and bisexuals continue to be viewed in the larger society as immoral. Michel Foucault argues that historically, these changing norms have produced both internal and external sanctions for individuals to mold their own sexual identities to the acceptable moral models that have been presented by societies and academia as natural.
Modern theorists have worked against this initial social constructionist view of sexual identity, questioning the presumed natural state of sexuality. Queer theorists in particular have asserted that there are no natural gender or sexual identities. These theorists argue that individuals are not born with predetermined sexual preferences or gendered selves. Rather, humans have an endless potential for experiencing sexual pleasure and attraction. Sexual identities are formed in social interactions, where individuals learn what constitutes their sexuality and how sexual experiences are bounded. Through these interactions, people learn what is sexual and sensual; they also learn to attach moral meanings to sexual behaviors and practices. Individuals become pressured to conform to categories that have specific meanings rather than viewing sexuality as part of a fluid human experience. Sexuality, in this sense, is not part of individual identities at all but, rather, involves individual pleasurable experiences that do not imply morality on individual characters.
Sexuality has socially been linked to identity through social construction. Today, and throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, sexual identities are portrayed as revealing an inner truth about individuals based on their sexual identity of homosexuality or heterosexuality. Much as gender has been argued to attach expected behaviors and types (feminine and masculine) to women and men respectively, sexuality has become used as an indicator of femininity and masculinity in women and men. Bisexuality has been viewed as being indecisive and sexually confused, whereas homosexuals are stereotyped as masculine women (in the case of butch identities) and feminine men (such as “sissy boys”). The deconstruction of sexual identities has disproved these stereotypical associations and asserts that sexual desires and behaviors fail to suggest anything about individual identities. What follows is a presentation of different theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of gender and sexual identities in society, and the different role heteronormativity and compulsory heterosexuality has been theorized to play in the formation of sexual identity.
Gender and Sexuality
Feminist and queer theorists have long examined the relationship between sexuality and gender. For both theoretical frameworks, gender and sexuality are politicized and policed by the larger U.S. culture. The naturalness of the masculinity/femininity, male/female binaries is an assumed part of U.S. culture. This naturalization of gender binaries, or heteronormativity, is at the foundation of society and has come to shape expectations of individual behavior. One of the difficulties for queer and feminist theory has been effectively fighting heteronormative discourses to make spaces for new identities that can operate outside female/male binaries.
Some theorists have asserted that gender binaries continue to be pervasive in definitions of sexual identities because compulsory heterosexuality has been able to continually reproduce male/female binaries despite changing cultural normative sexual behaviors. This idea has been a common thread among gender and sexuality theorists. Gender and sexuality are argued as being highly regulated through the biased lens of compulsory heterosexuality, where social institutions present a rigid set of expected behaviors and appropriate roles for women/men and homosexuals/heterosexuals. However, there are variations among feminists and queer theorists about the relationship between sex, sexuality, and gender, and the usefulness of each category in challenging the status quo of sexual identity in contemporary society.
Feminist Perspectives
Monique Wittig, a French feminist, condensed gender into the category of sex (gender as referring to the social meanings of being female and male; that is, masculine behaviors are the gender of men, and feminine behaviors are attached to the gender of women). Sex is argued to function as an ordered language, where male and a naturalized hierarchy of difference orders female social roles. These oppositional sex categories become the basis of a relationship for the oppressed (women) and the oppressors (men). Sex becomes politicized by its ability to socially define dominant society as heterosexual. Many feminists conceptualize sex as a by-product of compulsory heterosexuality. Furthermore, their associations in the domestic realm define women by the assumption of being caregivers based on biological reasoning.
Stevi Jackson, a materialist feminist, went further to make distinctions between gender and sexuality. Materialist feminism argues that heteronormativity has become a way of life in contemporary culture. Gender and sexuality are governed by normative compulsory heterosexuality. These normative expectations are interwoven with the institutionalization and evolving meaning, practices, and accepted roles within heterosexuality. In this argument, cultural distinctions between men and women are at the core of differentiating gender. Gender is bounded by roles, yet becomes experientially different in the social division among class, race, and ethnicities. Sex, then, refers to sexuality and the realm of eroticism; its fluidity becomes limited by what is socially defined as acceptable. It is theorized that sexuality exists within social life, but it is not bounded by binary distinctions of gender. The role of compulsory heterosexuality is in orienting meanings of sexuality. Although it does structure social roles, compulsory heterosexuality is involved in the formation of the self. Heteronormativity attaches meanings to different sexual identities and stigmatizes individuals to create socially deviant sexual identities.
One of the critiques to these feminist perspectives has been that they assume gender identities to be fixed within society and that they fix gender categories not in historical frameworks, but in preexisting biological differentiations. However, feminists have continually argued the importance of studying and understanding sexuality outside the regulating powers of gender. Eve Sedgwick, for example, has theorized that reducing sexuality to gender is dangerous because sexuality, although regulated by gender norms, varies within personal experiences. Other feminist scholars argue that sexual identity is culturally based on genitalia. It has further been asserted that sexuality in society is unique because of the myriad experiences of sexuality within gendered constraints
U.S. culture, in particular, has had a pervasive definition of sexualities based on the gender of object-choice; heterosexual women desire and have intimate relations with men, bisexual women desire and have intimate relations with women and men, and homosexual women desire and have intimate relations with women. Feminist scholars have sought, with different reasoning, to challenge this cookie-cutter image through the renegotiation of gender in ways that it becomes less reinforcing of heteronormativity. Feminist examinations of the role of gender in sexual identities have put forth the idea that nonnormative sexual identities can be used to deconstruct cultural definitions of gender by creating new ways to experience gender relations through intimate practices.
Queer Theory Perspective
In stark contrast to feminist theories of gender, sexuality, and identity, queer theorists have moved from local, physical distinctions of gender binaries to thinking about social constructions of differences and markings of human types through discourses. Queer theorists have sought to explain the dissonances in sexual identities, desires, and behaviors through the performative aspects of gender norms. Judith Butler argues that if key practices define people as homosexual or heterosexual, then there must be key practices that become primary indicators of sexuality. Coming out, for example, proclaims the dominant sexual attraction to people of the same sex. Even though there may be discrepancies between sexual acts and sexual identification, the practices that are repeated the most categorize individuals as homosexual or heterosexual.
Queer theory understanding of identities based on repetitive practices point to the diversity in sexual experiences despite the usage of rigid binary sexual categories. Primary practices, such as gender preference, become the basis for sexual identification. Other theorists in this field have sought to examine the alignments between sexual identity and gender identity. They argue that compulsory heterosexuality creates gendered social and cultural practices through social coercion. That is, by adhering to normative expectations of gender and sexual practices, people are allowed access to social and political privileges (such as marriage and certain social, economic, and political advantages that are denied to homosexuals and bisexuals by discrimination). Compulsory heterosexuality is argued to assign and create individual gendered and sexual identities by enforcing and pressuring individuals to partake in repeated, normalized gender acts that are recognized as legitimate in U.S. society.
Gender and sexuality are separate identities, but the cultural coding of behaviors as female or male leads sexuality to be closely linked with gender because different genders are expected to have different sexual roles. This is evidenced by the dissonances in sexual identities. Queer theorists who utilize performative arguments of sexuality and gender assert that such slippages deconstruct the natural assumptions of sexuality with the argument that if gender and sexual categories were natural, there would be no need for individuals to partake in the repeated practices that mark individuals as innately heterosexual or homosexual.
Riki Wilchins has also deconstructed feminist definitions of gender, sex, and sexual identity. Genderqueer theorists have examined how gender is interrelated to both sex and sexuality and theorized that normative (or expected) behaviors of women and men define and oppress individuals who fall outside these social norms (such as masculine women and homosexual men). The specifically coded practices of gender are behind individual sexual identities of homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual. Gender behaviors are an integral part of the aesthetics and eroticism behind intimate relations. Perceived femininity, masculinity, or androgyny (individuals who are not identifiable as completely female/male or feminine/masculine) is argued to provide the erotic basis for individual desires. Individuals become attracted to one another based on the femininity/masculinity, or combination of these associated characteristics (androgyny). Sexuality, in these theories, becomes inextricable from gender, both regarding attraction and in the actual categorization of sexual identities on the basis of gender.
Other theorists have explored the role of femininity and masculinity in sexual identities. Judith Halberstam explores expressions of masculinity outside of the male body and argues in part for a sexual discourse that addresses the myriad of acts that have come to make up genderqueer identities. Theories that explore sexual identity from the standpoint of masculinities and femininities assert that the discrepancies between intimate desires, behaviors, and self-identification based on gender preference hide and silence the fluidity of individual sexuality on the basis of naturalizing masculine associations with only men, and feminine associations with only women. This argument is focused on the standpoint that once recognized and legitimated (instead of being medicalized and deviated by social and medical institutions), identities that function between masculine and feminine can create new spaces for sexual practices and identities. Sexual identities that encompasses both master traits of femininity and masculinity (such as the “stone butch”) have been pointed to as a way to function outside heteronormative discourses of gender binaries and to open sexual identities to new expressions and experiences that do not depend on binary definitions of gender or sexual identity.
Gender Experience in Sexual Identity
Other queer theorists have examined the different ways lesbians and gay men have come to explain their sexual identities. Vera Whisman found that there were three separate rationales for the basis of homosexuality among men and women. The rationales included homosexuality as a choice, homosexuality as a natural born condition, and narratives that were mixed between the two. Biological explanations for homosexuality were found predominately among men, and acted to legitimize homosexuality by accounting for same-sex desires as a naturalized condition. In U.S. society, there are several different accounts of homosexuality. For example, some argue that homosexuality is based in biology, and that people are born heterosexual or homosexual. These views are called determinative explanations of sexuality. Others, including psychologists, have asserted that outside factors and life experiences shape sexual identities by affecting individual attraction. Some psychologists argue that people who have negative associations with men may be more likely to be attracted to women. Queer theorists argue that there are no natural genders or sexualities. Instead, individuals become pressured to adhere to being heterosexual and ascribe to their particular genders by social coercions and societal expectations. Feminists point toward the role of heteronormative society (and its repetition through compulsory heterosexuality) in creating these categories that have become marginalizing factors to women and homosexuals.
Experiences in sexual identity vary among racial, class, and gendered lines. A common thread is that individuals are forced to legitimize their sexuality by conforming to social ideals of natural sexual identities. Still, different gendered sexual experiences have led feminist scholars to hypothesize that homosexual/bisexual women face added marginalization on the basis of their gender, which defines their sexuality as deviant and underscores their subordinate status to men. Women are argued to experience more fluidity in their sexuality than men do. Some claim that this research indicates that female homosexuality is in some ways less threatening and more acceptable than male homosexuality is. This has been supported by assertions that male homosexuality is more threatening to concepts of masculinity than female homosexuality is to concepts of femininity.
This has led to the theories that the increased discontinuity in sexual experiences by women further marginalizes and negates the legitimacy of same-sex female relationships. The loss of legitimacy in female same-sex relationships has forced many homosexual women to name their desires (for other women) to be considered “real lesbians” at all (as opposed to openly exploring different attractions). Others have argued that female homosexuality bypasses patriarchal control entirely by its nonreliance on men. For some theorists, same-sex relationships among women have become the ultimate form of feminist ideals and virtues. Still, other academics see the flexibility of lesbian identities as indicating that women have more control over their sexual experiences because they are socially based on desires rather than on biological attributes.
Male homosexuals often experience more violence and severe reactions from same-sex relationships. Although collectively, individuals in same-sex relationship experience more risk of violence, suicide, and drug and alcohol abuse from the marginality of their position in society, men face increased stereotypes of being less masculine based on their attraction to other men. This has created additional barriers for homosexual and bisexual men to be accepted in society. Related is the increased rate of men to explain their same-sex attraction as biological, and therefore not as a choice. Added social pressures on men have created different explanations by men for their homosexuality/bisexuality.
Just as experiences among women and men differ, two particularly oppressed communities, racial minorities and gender-variant community members have faced added increases in violent behaviors and stigmatization based on their sexual identities. Different racial communities have faced different stereotypical sexual traits such as increased libidos, “size,” and bestial depictions of sexual identities. In early films, black women were portrayed as being loose and sexually manipulative, but men were portrayed as having sexual prowess. These stereotypes have made it harder for the queer racial communities to gain recognition within the queer and heterosexual community and gain equal access to civil rights.
Similarly, the gender-variant community has faced increased difficulties in the acceptance of sexual identities. At first, some sociological and gender theorists argued that transgender individuals reinforced normative sexualities by continuing to observe heterosexual expectations after reassigning gender identities. However, today, it is widely recognized that the gender-variant community has a myriad of sexual identities and experiences. Just because an individual changes gender and sex identity from male to female (MTF) does not ensure that individual will only be attracted to men, just as female to males (FTM) do not necessarily have relations only with other women.
Contemporary sexuality and gender theorists have hopes that sexuality identity will eventually be socially defined by unique individual experiences, desires, and practices, rather than by gender makeup of relationships. Some argue that by focusing on sexual acts and varying desires, sexual identities will be seen as less rigid, and therefore more encompassing and welcoming of varying expressions. This, in turn, works against strict binary definitions that oppress and marginalize homosexual and bisexual communities. Many stress the need for social and legal recognition of the plurality of sexual experiences and lifestyles, so that no sexual identity is more right or wrong than another in the eyes of state and federal laws. Many have called for additional studies into the slippages in desires, pleasures, sexual acts, and self-identifications to unmask the role that social discourses of sexuality have in regulating sexualities on an individual basis.
Sexual Identity and Politics
Opposition to homosexuals and bisexuals in modern society has stemmed from religious arguments of the immorality of same-sex relationships. As mentioned earlier, this view uses the natural role of heterosexuality for reproductive purposes. This argument has become widely politicized in the current cultural debates of same-sex marriages. In 2001, the Netherlands was the first country to legalize same-sex marriages, with Belgium (2003), Spain and Canada (2005), and South Africa (2006) soon following. As of 2008, Massachusetts and California were the only two states in the United States to perform legalized same-sex marriages. Three other states have civil unions: Vermont, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
Although civil unions have been proclaimed by many to be a step toward sexual identity equality, LGBT political organizations in the United States have pointed to civil unions as affording a second-class citizenship to same-sex partnerships by denying full and equal rights that heterosexuals have. More than being seen as providing rewards for being heterosexual, marriage has been argued by religious institutions to maintain its sanctity only between women and men, despite the various religious affiliations that fully support same-sex marriage. Supporters of same-sex marriage argue that marriage goes beyond religious affiliations and is an institution recognized outside of the church that should be open to all U.S. citizens, regardless of the gender of individuals in sexual partnerships and relationships.
Civil unions differ from marriage in several ways. Civil unions afford legal protection for couples at a state-recognized level. They omit the federal protections and benefits of marriage and are not recognized outside state borders. Specifically, more than 500 state benefits are awarded to civil union partnerships, whereas marriage awards these same state benefits along with the 1,138 federal benefits, including tax breaks and recognition of partnerships nationwide. Many couples obtaining civil unions take the precaution of obtaining other legal paperwork to allow for hospital visitation rights and power of attorney across state lines. Marriage is not the only politicized debate surrounding sexual identity. Adoption is also widely debated. A viable option for many same-sex couples to start a family involves adopting children. Not all states allow adoption to same-sex couples, and many couples face further discrimination in the children they are awarded custody of. Children with severe behavioral problems are often specifically given to same-sex couples, rather than the choices that heterosexual couples are given when adopting.
Queer theorists have begun examining discrimination in public policies regarding citizenship. The gender-variant community, in particular, faces discrimination from U.S. legal institutions. To change birth certificates and driver’s licenses, two important documents needed to claim citizenship and necessary to obtain jobs, insurance, and passports, female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs) and male-to-female transsexuals (MTFs) are required to document full sexual reassignment surgery. However, because of the discriminations the gender-variant community faces in society, it is often impossible to pay for these surgeries, which insurances do not cover. Similarly, to proceed with surgery, they need psychological permission to go through with their choice to change their sex physically. Much like same-sex couples and marriage rights, the gender variant faces additional challenges in being fully recognized in the eyes of the U.S. government.
States have provided protections against discrimination on the basis sexual orientations and sexual identities in employment, and many are now facing pending decisions on gender nondiscrimination clauses that would provide protections for the gender-variant community in job and public discrimination lawsuits. Although these issues have only become widely debated since the 1990s, today the widespread recognition of inequality, and the strong backlash from religious sectors of society against the unnaturalness of sexual and gender identities that stray from normative conceptions of heterosexuality, has become mainstream in its political debates and has been an important issue for political candidates to address.
Conclusion
Discrimination based on sexual identity may only be experienced by one of the smallest populations in the United States, but it is important to remember that although heterosexuality has historically been assumed as natural and predetermined, there are many other explanations for the development of binary definitions of sexuality. These include, but are not limited to, the assertion that sexual identities are formed not from biological factors, but have become socially defined across various historical periods and cultures worldwide. Acceptance rates of homosexual relationships have been indicated to be rising in U.S. society, along with media representations and portrayals that acknowledge “alternative” lifestyles. However, violence against same-sex couples and discrimination based on sexual and gender orientation continue to pervade contemporary society.