The centrality of sexuality in human societies is intriguing because on the one hand it is acknowledged as the centerpiece for societal survival through procreation but at the same time it is also highly regulated and hidden in many societies in the world today. It is almost like an oxymoron because we all "know" that people are sexual beings but at the same time it is a topic that many would rather not talk about especially in conservative societies. One of the most controversial issues that relate to sexuality in many contemporary societies is the question of sexual orientation and the rights associated with individuals who are in a minority group as far as their sexual orientation is concerned. For this post I decided to investigate how the issue of sexuality was dealt with in ancient civilization to understand whether the fascination with sexuality is a new phenomenon that is unique to contemporary societies.
I came across this video, which I must say is very revealing with regard to how sexuality was represented in ancient Egypt and the sensitivity around it's public portrayal. The video is rather graphic and I would caution sensitive viewers but I still felt that it captures the idea of sexuality in the ancient world in a manner that I had not thought about and the representation of gender is also intriguing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjWyCbmc4nQ
For a start, the idea that people in ancient Egypt as well as other civilizations would record sexual images on rocks and other platforms like papyrus shows that sexuality was a very important part of life in those days. The great length to which the society went to protect the dignity of society by not allowing people to see the image of the queen in a compromised sexual position resonates with the view in many communities of the link between a woman's sexuality as a property of society which can determine both dignity and shame depending on how women choose to express their sexuality.
It is also interesting to note the "censorship" or sanitizing of various sculptures and objects depicting sexual organs going on up to Victorian times and even as late as the twentieth century. The idea that a sculpture would have its penis removed to not offend the general public attests to the privacy attached to sexuality in many societies around the world. Having open discussions about sex and sexuality in places like Malawi only started in the 1990s due to the HIV and AIDS pandemic which necessitated discussion around sexuality but such talk was virtually unheard of prior to the HIV pandemic.
Such discussions have evolved from just focusing on HIV and STI prevention to include discussions about marital satisfaction and family planning which are linked to development in the context of having a healthy population that contributes effectively to both production and reproduction components of development.
Chiko,
ReplyDeleteI used to teach undergraduate women's studies courses; without fail, every semester the most contentious week was the one during which we discussed sex and sexuality. The students would often engage each other in heated discussions about the existence of multiple sexualities, about the rights of the LGBTQ community, about whether or not sexual orientation is a "choice" or biological imperative. I was always struck by how controversial the subject matter seemed to be.
I saw this anxiety about sexuality mirrored both in our readings for October 30 and the video you posted above. Sexuality is treated as such a sensitive issue within cultures, and especially within development -- where topics such as teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and sex education are broached somewhat hesitantly and reluctantly (and are usually expedited when the situation devolves into crisis, as you point out). Sheill (2008) notes, for example, that the U.S. has tried to stall the integration of sexual rights into international treatises "by opposing the creation of any 'new' rights, and positional sexual rights as new" (p. 48). Further, the U.S. prefaced their position on the UN HIV/AIDS resolution by "expressing their concern that Commission members had sought action 'on a number of highly controversial and deeply divisive issues relating to sexuality'" (Sheill, 2008, p. 50).
Esiet (2008), describing the development of sexuality education in Nigeria, explains that "many adults refuse to acknowledge that young people are sexual beings and cannot come to terms with the compelling realities of human desire, physical attraction, and sexual pleasure for adolescents" (p. 191). Arguably, many adults also struggle to come to terms with these realities for their fellow adults. As your video demonstrates, throughout history efforts have been made to control sex and sexuality, to regulate who has sex with whom and who is sexually attracted to whom. I wonder if sex and sexuality seem so contentious because they are so primal. Sex(uality) has a certain wildness to it; it can seem dangerous and threatening. For example, Zhou posted a video from iO Tillet Wright who discusses sexuality as a spectrum -- an idea that likely makes a lot of people uncomfortable precisely because it suggests that sex(uality) does not conform to easy categorization (and therefore control). I imagine that one of the reasons sexuality and sex rights have seemed so controversial within development is partly because, as you say, sexuality has personal and cultural ramifications.