“One begins to need more and more intense stimuli in order to produce the same type of arousal It creates a greater appetite for more bizarre, more deviant types of sexual images. ”Sexual deviance refers to sexual behaviors that are considered not normal to society. This is a complicated issue because you have to find out what makes sexual behavior so deviant. Our attitude towards sex has changed over the past several years. The sexual acts that were considered deviant twenty or thirty years ago could be acceptable and considered normal now.
The first thing comes to mind when sexual deviance is heard is any type of perversion. For example, zoophilia, necrophilia, pedophiles, etc. Doing the research and reading “Deviant Behavior” and “Readings in Deviant Behavior” I know now that sexual deviance is what people believe to be outside of the norm. One person may think that cross dressing or autoerotic asphyxia may be deviant and another may not. It is just a behavior that society thinks is offensive in some way. This paper will examine the types of sexual deviance and the perspective about sexual deviance from a constructionist and a positivist. When deviance from a group’s expectations is profound, the person who violates the norm can come to have what the sociologist Erving Goffman called a stigma”. (Thio, Calhoun, Conyers, p. 207) Growing up in a public and private school I was taught that anyone who engages in any out of the ordinary sexual behavior meant you will be stigmatized, just because it is not normal. Of course, that is truly wrong but that is what society taught me growing up. Sexual behavior is dictated by our culture and society. For something to be qualified as deviant, all it needs is to be condemned by a certain social circle.
A sexual encounter between a man and a woman means two different things. Even though the man and woman are both two individuals involved in the same act, the consequences for the woman will be different for the man. For example, a 15 year old boy and girl that are both very promiscuous for their age. The girl will be condemned before the boy because people will believe that the girl is too young in age and girls are not supposed to be promiscuous. She would be considered a sexual deviant before the boy would be.
When discussing this behavior, it just refers to the disapproved acts that society believes to be wrong. In this case society would be her peers, family, or friends. “The different types of “sexual deviants” include: prostitutes, streetwalkers; bar girls; adolescent females; adolescent males, typically by unplanned meeting, peer-delinquent subculture, hustling network, gay subculture; “road whores” at labor camps, conventions, truck stops; massage parlor and photo shop attendants; escort services; business office “party girls”, “mistresses” and “career climbers”; house prostitutes; and call girls (Keel). Living in a society that tells you who to love and what behaviors you can and cannot do can be frustrating. Society has this vision that sex is only for procreation. So any other type of sex is considered not normal. This is another reason why kinky sex is such a stigma. Being secretive with our personal information and sex life is what our society has taught us. So hearing about a persons kinky sex life is out of the norm regardless if we do the same thing behind close doors. By a process of socialization whereby society dictates behavioral expectations to people and mainly due to moral and religious mores, normal sex, came to be understood as penile-vaginal intercourse probably because of the procreation attached to it. ” Sexual deviance to a constructionist and positivist or essentialist can be believed to be two different things. A constructionist looks at sex as just another act that has been constructed by society. “We are sexual because we are social. ”(p. 00) They believe that sex did not come from our own nature or instinct, but it arose because of our culture. “Constructionists insist that behaviors or phenomena that are superficially, mechanically, and outwardly the same—that might seem formally the same to an external observer—can have radically different meanings to the participants. ”(p. 200) A positivist sees sexuality as an instinct. It is an unconscious drive that every human has. They believe that sex has always been there even before human acknowledged it. “Everyone knows what sex is; Sex is sex is sex. (Goode, P. 199) They view that sex is just here. “Why is the sex of one’s partners such crucial part of our identity? Why do we divide humanity into “straight” and “gay”? Why is such a division so much more important for us into “egg eaters” and “people who don’t eat eggs”? ”(Goode, p. 201) Even though gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or transgendered people are starting to gain the rights that they are suppose to have, our society still looks down upon anyone who is homosexual. The main argument that is thrown in the mix is the bible says homosexuality is wrong.
The bible also says you are not suppose to judge one another or eat shellfish but people still do these things. Sexual deviance is not a problem that has an answer. This behavior is defined by society and culture. So this means that the definition of sexual deviance will always change, depending on society. What is deviant in China at one point in time could be normal behavior in Africa, so there is nothing that concrete to define sexual deviance as a problem. It is not possible to isolate a certain behavior and call it deviant because it just depends on the time and place.
In this paper I discussed some types of sexual deviance and the perspective about sexual deviance from a constructionist and a positivist. Works Cited Keel, Robert O. “Heterosexual Deviance. ” A5 Nov. 2004. 15 Mar. 2005. <http://www. umsl. edu/~rkeel/200/hetsex. html> “Sexual Deviance. ” 12 April. 2011. 15 Apr. 2011. http://www. medindia. net/patients/patientinfo/sexual-deviance. htm> Goode, Erich. “Deviant Behavior. ” Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice 2011. Print Thio, Alex, Thomas C. Calhoun, and Addrain Conyers. “Readings in Deviant Behavior. ” Boston Allyn & Bacon 2010. Print
