Essay on Our Understanding of Sexuality and Family Formation

Our Understanding of Sexuality and Family Formation The investigations in the determinants of gender and sexuality are ongoing; some are biologically orientated while others believe that they are socially constructed. This essay will discuss the idea that our understanding of sexuality and gender is linked to our understanding of family formations. It will highlight the diversities and the relationships of sexuality, gender and the family. It will also draw attention to the theory of how gender is biologically determined and fixed and the family has no influence on gender, but on the other hand the belief that gender is socially constructed, fluid and subject to change and we have to learn†¦show more content†¦This account has been questioned, as it does not account for the range of masculinities and femininities over time, culture and from person to person. Giddens (1998: 92) draws attention to a case where, through an accident, the sex of an infant had to be changed and they subsequently grew up in the ‘newâ₠¬â„¢ gender not knowing their past. Evidence such as this stresses that it is not only biological factors that account for gender and gender is not fixed, it can be changed. Anne Oakley (1972: 156) states, ‘the chief importance of biological sex is in providing a universal and obvious division around which other distinctions can be made’. This underlines what Bilton et al (2002: 134) describes as the ‘sex/gender distinction’, they state, ‘Sex is said to be rooted in nature; it [physically] distinguishes males from females. Gender on the other hand refers to the socially constructed and infinitely variable categories of masculine and feminine’. Sexuality is defined as, ‘someone’s ability to experience or express sexual feelings’ (Cambridge University Press 2004). 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