Sociology Case

1. The biological perspective of sex is defined as biological distinction between females and males. This point of view sees sex as the way that human reproduce. The male sperm and female ovum contain 23 chromosomes which biologically determine the sex of the child. This decision also guides physical development of the child for example whether they need ovaries or testes. I think it is very interesting that the male ultimately determines the sex; the female always gives off a X chromosome while the male can contribute either. I do not only find it interesting that the male decides the sex of the baby, but that it is not the other way around, especially considering females are the ones to carry the child for 9 months.

2. While sexuality does have a biological foundation there is a cultural perspective on it too. Biology shows that there are mating rituals for some animals, but not for humans. This is where culture plays into it, there is no specific ways of being sexual and is different everywhere. For example, when Alfred Kinsley(1948) did research he found that people of the United States had intercourse in one position, face to face, while people of the South Seas never had sex this way and named it the “missionary position” because this was very strange and different to them. Even display of attraction is different all over the world, for example in the United States is culturally acceptable to kiss in public, but in China it is not they only kiss in private. I definitely think that sex is a very cultural thing, it is so different everywhere, even these days.

3. The sexual revolution began in the 1920’s when lots of young people migrated from small towns and farms to cities. Young people were living away from their families and meeting lots of new people in the workplace these young men ad women were enjoying more sexual freedom at this time, making this know as the “Roaring Twenties”. In the 1930’s and 1940’s during WWII and the great depression there was a slowing rate of the sexual revolution, but postwar in 1945 Alfred Kinsley set the stage for the sexual revolution, in 1948 he published the first study of sexuality in the United States. This was a big eye opener for many people, people were studying a subject that was uneasy for people to talk about in private let alone in a public view. These books showed that people of the US were actually far less conventional in sexual matter than most had thought and encouraged a new openness toward sexuality and set the sexual revolution in motion. By the 1960’s the sexual revolution really came of age. The baby boom generation was the first generation to grow up with the idea that sex was a part of life married or not. Technology also played part in this, for example the birth control pill, it made sex more convenient and prevented pregnancy. This showed that now not only men could enjoy spontaneous sex, but women too. Women have always been subject to greater sexual