Page 386 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

sex and sexuality 1687

We find that the sexual instinct, when disappointed and
unappeased, frequently seeks and finds a substitute in
religion. • Richard von Krafft-Ebing
(1840–1902)

(and thus produce children who can inherit property), the because the sexual activities of elite women are the most
definition and consequences of adultery and incest, the closely monitored in nearly all societies. Thus socially
steps necessary for a divorce, and the consequences of defined categories of difference such as race, nation, eth-
various types of sexual assault. Contemporary national, nicity, caste, noble status, and social class are maintained
state, and local law codes do the same. by sexual restrictions, for if they are not, those distinctions
Encounters between cultures may have taken the form literally disappear. These restrictions are gendered, with
of military campaigns or voyages of trade, but permanent women’s experience different from that of men.
contact often brought laws regulating sexual relationships
between groups.The Manchus who conquered China in Cultural Variation in Sexual
the seventeenth century and set up the Qing dynasty pro- Categories and Norms
hibited intermarriage between Manchus and Han Chi- Sexual issues are thus central to world history, and, like
nese. At about the same time in colonial Virginia, every other facet of human life, sexuality is also histori-
according to a state statute of 1691, “English or other cally and culturally variable. Some cultures, including
white” people were prohibited from marrying anyone modern Western culture, categorize sexuality primarily in
who was “negroe, mulatto, or Indian.” Sexual relation- terms of “object choice”—if a person desires or has sex-
ships that ignored or defied those laws, particularly ual relations with individuals regarded as of one’s own
between men from the dominant group and women from sex, that person is “homosexual”; if those individuals are
the conquered or subordinate group, were common in sit- of the opposite sex, the person is “heterosexual.” Other
uations of conquest, colonialism, or occupation, but cultures categorized sexuality primarily in terms of the
these were generally not regarded as marriage. role a man took in sexual intercourse. If he inserted
Laws and norms regarding marriage and other sexual something—usually his penis—in another’s bodily ori-
contacts work to keep groups distinct from one another, fice, he was taking the superior “active” role, no matter
and also to preserve hierarchies within cultures, which what the gender of the other person, whose role was
depend on those in power marrying people which that viewed as “passive,” and thus inferior.
society defines as “like themselves.” In Tokugawa Japan Both sets of categorizations—homosexual and het-
(1600–1868), the four legal status groups—samurai, erosexual, active and passive—are dichotomous, but
merchant, peasant, burakumin (an outcast minority group many cultures around the world had, and sometimes con-
who usually did tasks regarded as unclean, such as han- tinue to have, more complex systems of gender and sex-
dling the dead and butchering)—were prohibited from ual classification. In Australia, Siberia, North America, the
intermarrying, and in many countries of Europe, rulers (at Amazon region, Oceania, Central and South Asia,
least in theory) lost their claim to the throne if they mar- Alaska, and the Sudan, certain individuals were regarded
ried commoners.Along with explicit laws, sexual relations as neither men nor women, or as both men and women,
between groups have been restricted through the estab- or in some other way as transcending dichotomous gen-
lishment and fostering of traditions and other forms of der and sexual classifications. In some cases these indi-
internalized mechanisms of control. If children are taught viduals appear to have been physically hermaphroditic,
very early who is unthinkable as a marriage partner, and either from birth or as the result of castration, though in
unattractive as a sexual partner, the preservation of cultural others their distinctiveness or androgyny was purely cul-
boundaries will not depend on laws or force alone. Soci- tural. In some cultures such individuals engaged in sex-
eties sometimes allow elite men to marry or (more often) ual activities or had permanent or temporary sexual
to have nonmarital sexual relationships with non-elite relationships, while in others they did not.
women, though they place various restrictions on the chil- The gender and sexuality of such individuals is com-
dren of those unions. The reverse case is much rarer, plicated and highly variable, but they generally had