LECTURE 7:1


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Sex


Main Question: Sexual behaviour. What is sex?

Introductory Terms | References

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Introductory Terms

Coitus: Act of sexual intercourse
Masturbation: Sexual self-stimulation, by male or female
Bestiality: Sexual intercourse with a non-human creature
Homosexuality: Sexual relations between persons of the same sex
Lesbianism: Sexual relations between females
Sodomy: Sexual relations between males, leading to coitus
Incest: "Sexual intercourse between individuals related in certain prohibited degrees of kinship" (Fox)
Universality of Incest: (1) "It is an axiom of Anthropology that nothing arouses a greater horror than the breach of this prohibition" (Malinowski)
(2) "In human societies generally such conduct (i.e. incest) is regarded as unthinkable, something that could not possibly occur, and the idea of it arouses a strong emotional reaction of repugnance, disgust, or horror" (Radcliffe-Brown)
(3) "If social organization had a beginning, this could only have consisted in the incest prohibition… it is there, and only there, that we find a passage from nature to culture, from animal to human life…" (Levi-Strauss)
Nuclear Family Incest: Father-daughter=electra; mother-son=oedipus; bro-sis=sibling
Rape: "Act of taking anything by force; taking away a woman by force; violation or ravishing a woman" (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)
Adultery: "Violation of the marriage bed: sexual relations of a married person with one who is not his or her lawful wife, whether unmarried (single adultery)" (Dictionary)
Bastardy: "The critical meaning of bastardy is not that the child has low status, but rather that he lacks any positions and status in his society" (Winch)

Reference

Ford, C. & Beach, F., Patterns of Sexual Behaviour
Fox, R., Ch.2, "The Incest Problem" in Kinship & Marriage, Penguin
Goody, J. (1956) "A Comparative Approach to Incest and Adultery", Brit. Jnl. Soc., 7, reprinted in Goody, J., Comparative Studies in Kinship, and partially reprinted in Goody, J., Ch.5, (eds) Kinship, Penguin
Murdock, G.P., Ch.9, "The Regulation of Sex" in Social Structure