Sexuality and Hetero, Homo, Bi, etc

Sexuliaty is defined by DNA.  It’s called the genotype in comparison to phenotype defines appearance.  There’s an X and Y Chromosome.  XX is female. XY is male.  There are rare exceptions.  XO is a female person and XXY is a male person.  Hormones subsequently affect the phenotypic expression of the genes.  These changes occur at adolescence.  Pre pubescent children are considered before child bearing age.  Pubescence is the biological shift to adulthood.  

Hermaphrodites exist but are also rare.  Without testosterone, an XY genetic individual will remain appearing XX female.  Hermaphroditism and Medical Invention of Sex by Alice Domurst Dreger is the essential primer or any biological discussion of sexuality and gender .  Gender is another term for the phenotypic expression of sex and sexuality. 

Child bearing was normal, natural and desired until the last hundred years or more or less.  Children were the workforce and force for war.  More children, more wealth and more success in defense and war.  

The Central unit of society especially Indo European was the ‘family’ , father and mother and children.  Alternatively other societies and cultures preferred the ‘big chief’ where successful men had multiple wives and concubines and slaves.  The family unit was not as central to many Asian and African and tribal societies.  To appreciate the variety in this regard one should read anthropology.  Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Society and the World Until Yesterday , What Can We Learn from Traditional Society’s consider be considered the essential primer regarding family, society, reproduction and sexuality from a social perspective.

Heterosexuality refers to sexual coupling between male and female with the possibility of reproduction.  Historically there are questions about when primitive man ‘knew’ that intercourse was associated with pregnancy.  Hunter and gatherer society likely did but might not. There is certainty that herding society did know.  It is wise though not to assume such details.  Anthropomorphism is the tendency to judge others and the past based on our own perspective and experience. It’s rife. Generalization is too.  People commonly extrapolate from their own experience whereas scientists try to be objective as opposed to subjective.  Objectivity is mostly impossible in the social sciences which is not surprising given that the observer can effect the nature of a particle and wave in physics experiments.  The attempt is made and today we benefit from such rigorous researc.

Homosexuality refers to sexual coupling between the same sex individuals. Mostly female to female is called Lesbianism whereas Male to male is called homosexuality.  Reproduction doesn’t occur and that’s essential to understanding morality and social stigma.

Sex and reproduction were related to wealth and defense and acquisition.

There is a great history of the ‘getting’ the prize bull to reproduce.  Aggie students competed seriously with who could get the bull to have sex how many times. Bigger bulls produced bigger cattle so there is always an effort to increase the herd profit with breeding. Bulls may be sexually lazy or unattractive to a ranchers cows. They have real personality.  Bulls were rented by hours and days.  To understand how important this was ranchers eventually chose to masturbate the bull to spread his seed to the cow rather than depend on appearance and attraction.  Today artificial insemination is the norm.  

  Lesbianism isn’t as politically significant as homosexuality simply because women could be forced to have intercourse and reproduce and still are today. Men on the other hand were much more susceptible to ‘interests’. .  

Bisexuality refers to the sexual coupling with either sex.  

Bisexxuliaty is much more common and historically significant in this regard.  Homosexuality wasn’t the issue that exclusivity was.  In society where the king must produce an heir ‘value’ was defined for women in reproductive competence and in men as his ability to ‘sire’ .  The social history we know is often from the upper classes, kings and queens , rather than the peasants 

Today men who prefer sex exclusively with other men is maybe 3 % of the population.  There’s a lot of team switching that goes on.  

Unwanted pregnancies were always a concern given the prescience of ‘chastity belts’ and ‘monogamy’ nad the ruler wanting a son that looks like him not like the gardener.  Also givens heirs and heiress’s the great warrior king didn’t want his wife producing a ‘tiny Tim’ musically gifted child if he couldn’t defend the kingdom.  Abortions are evidenced by a history of means.  Children were always good but not out of wedlock.  Sickly children were killed.  Only in the last generation was the ‘one child’ family even an ‘idea’’

1952 the invention the invention of the birth control pills. Early use of the condom dates back to 3000 BC and King Minos of Crete.  Mutual; masturbation, thigh sex,  Oral and Anal Sex, and rhythm method were all ancient means to avoid reproduction.  Slave girls and boys and servants were also available. 

All of this changed with industrialization in the 19ths century.  Industrialization resulted in profits being made by machines rather than by people.  The very concept of ‘overpopulation’ is a 19th century concept.  Malthus pointed out that populations were kept in cheque by starvation , disease and war.  With industrialization smaller families were more successful.  

Today identity ias defined for some by their sexual preference as might a person who teaches be called a ‘teacher’ regardless of whether that person only teaches or always teaches.   Sexuality became a political unit with the legalization and illegalization of sex..

Pierre Trudeau famously said that the State has no place in the bedrooms of the citizens which result in the legal system and court jumping in to take up the space once decided by democracy or whatever.  Sex is the great industry of the legal system.  Today Sex is business.  

Transexualism is the most recent of variations.  Transexualism refers to ‘phenotype’ not genotype.  Male to female is an XY who presents as XX but every cell in the body remains XY even with hormones.  

Cross dressing  and transvestism is ancient.  There are references to female warriors in Viking times and boudache,femine men in tribal society.  Today 90% or more cross dressers are heterosexual . It’s a ‘kink’ or ‘fetish’.  

Transexuals are different from ‘drag queens’. Drag queens ‘mock’ females whereas MtoF could be seen as ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Psychologically there’s many factors involved.  

The biggest shift prior to Transexualsim was the shift from family to ‘individualissm’. Individuals today make ‘choices’ and the unit of much of society is the ‘individual’ rather than the family or ‘tribe’.