Gender binary and intersectionality

Sexual pleasure is important for overall health, but research often has a gender binary bias. The book "Ability and Wicked Thoughts" focuses on cisgender heteronormative pleasure and ignores those who don't fit into that binary. Porn and cultural stereotypes shape our expectations and can negatively impact self-views and orgasm experiences. Gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, and religion all influence sexual pleasure. Biology and culture are intertwined and both shape who we are. It's crucial to understand how they work together. Sexual education should be more inclusive and reflect the diversity of experiences. Hello, everyone. My name is Alexis Bradley and I'm going to be discussing sexual pleasure. So sexual pleasure is a very crucial aspect to our overall health. It is so important to understand why we are the way we are and why we are attracted to things we are attracted to and so on. Have you ever really thought about why people like to watch porn or why some people like to have sex with the same sex? Why do certain things turn people on? There is a lot of controversy surrounding this topic. Some people believe we are born a certain way and should continue to act that way throughout life and some believe that there's cultural aspects that portray to who we are. For instance, people who are born with vaginas should identify as male, have attraction towards male, and act very feminine. This biological idea that we are born the way we are is extremely engraved into our society creating a discriminatory and gender binary atmosphere. Although there has been tons of research on the topic of sexual pleasure, a lot of this research has a very gender binary view. Ogie Ogis and Sai Gaddam's book, Ability and Wicked Thoughts, What the Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships, is an example of this biased view in sexual pleasure research. Although they do a great job of discussing cisgender heteronormative sexual pleasure, they leave out anyone who does not fit into this standard gender binary. The book discusses the sexual fantasies that people have while they are online and proposes an evolutionary psychological explanation for them. The book's most significant finding is that men and women have fundamentally distinct sexualities because they are biologically wired differently. Don't get me wrong, it is a great resource to get a basic understanding of the differences straight men and women possess, but it is definitely very gender binary biased. Having this gender binary approach really sets the tone for homophobic and transphobic beliefs that women should be attracted to certain things and men should be attracted to certain things and we should all act this certain way that we are born biologically. A huge portion of Ogis and Gaddam's book discusses porn. Men and women have very different sexual cues, they are into different things, but as humans we all tend to compare ourselves and one another. The type of porn that men are usually into according to Ogis and Gaddam is girls with big boobs and butts, with a tiny waist, domination of the woman, rough aggressive sex with loud moaning, which puts this pressure on women to act or look like the girls in porn. Now, women are more likely to read erotic books about sex, which often contains a big strong protective man who is tall and chiseled and head over heels, would do anything for the woman type stories, but neither of these depictions in porn or erotic books are realistic, but it can have a negative effect on how we view ourselves sexually and what we will think expected of us, also what we expect of others. Porn is extremely gender biased, let's be real, no one sounds or looks like that in real life. Sarah B. Chadwick's article, when orgasms do not equal pleasure, accounts of bad orgasm experiences during consensual sexual encounters, explains how gender and or sexual identity shape people's orgasm experiences. Specifically, their research participants often explained how gendered sexual scripts and stereotypes, like we see in porn, about their sexual orientation contributed to their experience in a negative and or positive way. Porn is a huge cause for this. Like I said, we tend to put these expectations on ourselves and on others. We think that we have to act or look like the people in porn, which creates these negative self views. This also affects how people experience orgasms. Are women supposed to get super wet? What if I can't squirt? Do you have to have an orgasm for sex to still be pleasurable? Chadwick's research shows that people's identities and the expectations surrounding them shape their orgasm experiences, but these expectations are not the only thing that shape our sexual experiences. Gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity, and religion all have a huge impact on how we see and experience sexual pleasure. Ellen Lan and colleagues' research article in Pursuit of Pleasure, a biopsychosocial perspective on sexual pleasure and gender, discusses how men and women differ in their experience of sexual pleasure, emphasizing that differences between women and men regarding sex are influenced by cultural factors, which can impact our sexual development in daily sexual encounters, reinforcing gender distinctions, especially for those who are attracted to individuals of the opposite gender. Lan's article emphasizes the importance of including diversity in terms of genders and sexual orientations in a comprehensive sexuality education, which OGIS did not do very well. This is so necessary to address and minimize the negative effects of heteronormativity, the expectations of sexual intercourse, challenges faced by girls in expressing desire, and societal expectations that enforce different sexual standards for men and women, placing women in a passive role and men in an active role, like we see in the book. So, Lan highlights how gender differences and experience sexual pleasure are not a biological given, but OGIS focuses on how sexual pleasure is a biological given. Let's unpack this. I have my bachelor's in anthropology, cultural anthropology to be precise, so I can sort of understand both of their views. Culture and biology have evolved together. They influence one another and concurrently shape behavior, affect, cognition, and development. The things we desire, how we act, etc., are not shaped from just a cultural aspect or just a biological aspect. Biology and culture are intertwined to make us who we are. I think this is a huge issue in sexual health research, as people either tend to focus on either the biological aspect or the cultural aspect, not on how they work together to create who we are. I mean, don't get me wrong, both the article and book offer an excellent opportunity for individuals to gain a deeper comprehension of distinct characteristics of male and female brains, but I think it's very crucial to understand how biology and culture both shape us. If individuals possess a comprehensive understanding of these distinctions, there might be altered or diminished anticipations for individuals predicated on their gender. Yes, there's some biological reasoning behind what we find pleasurable, but this shouldn't bind us to the idea that we are biologically wired to be a certain way. Also, with culture, there's certain things that people believe that culture shapes us or teaches us to be, and you might not really fit into that binary either. So, really taking in how culture and biology both affect us is extremely important. The main thing with Oguz and Gadam's view is that it only talks about how people are biologically. They have this very, very gender binary approach, excluding anyone who is anything other than straight and cisgender. I mean, yes, they do discuss gay men, but they only really use that in one chapter to compare it to the desires of straight women. Both articles dispute the idea of gender being the end-all, be-all to how you desire sex. Pleasure isn't just black and white. People aren't born to have a foot kink or enjoy Harry Potter foreplay. There are so many different cultural aspects that play into sexual pleasure, and Oguz and Gadam completely ignored this. I mean, yes, the book is from 2012, so it was written 12 years ago. Things have obviously changed, and people's thoughts have changed. People realize that there is more to us than just what we are biologically, and I would honestly love to see how both Oguz and Gadam's opinions and beliefs have changed as we move forward. Oguz and Gadam's opinions and beliefs have changed after more recent research with a more intersectional approach. This whole idea that we are who we are strictly because of biology is honestly one of the main issues in today's society. Just working as a bartender who is studying sexual health, I mean, I come across a lot of conversations of people not understanding transgender individuals because I'm in North Carolina, so everybody's very country here, and they have these very old ways of thinking that you're born with a penis, so you should act like a man, and all of this, which is honestly just... I don't understand it, but anyways, the idea that if you're born with a penis, you should act like a man, how I come across, that's what I deal with a lot, or if you're a woman, you should only, or if you're born with a vagina, you should only be with men, this even relates to sexual education. Majority of the time, sexual education, especially for middle school to high school age kids, has a very, very gender binary approach. It focuses on the penis and the vagina and heterosexual relations, so what about the people who don't fit into the gender binary? I can remember when I was in eighth grade, my sexual education, Mr. Popik, my eighth grade science teacher, we went, it was literally a two-day thing that we went over for an hour, talking about how to put on a condom, how to make a baby, how to avoid pregnancy and STDs, and that was basically it, so as a lesbian woman, what about me, you know? Do people who don't fit into this gender binary not deserve an equal chance for sexual education? I mean, obviously, there are a lot of things that we biologically have, yes, and yes, a lot of people have, with vaginas, have sex with people with penises, and a lot of people with penises have sex with people with vaginas, but that doesn't mean that's how it always is, especially today, times have changed, people are being themselves more freely, so it really is time for sexual education and research to catch up and become more gender inclusive. I honestly don't think a lot of people understand that gender and sexuality are two completely different aspects. You can be a trans man who was attracted to females before transitioning and later on is attracted to males, I mean, my roommate is, for instance. You can be a cis woman who is attracted to other cis women. You can be any gender and be attracted to any gender. Gender and sexuality are completely fluid aspects. We all change over time, so why is it so hard for people to understand that gender and sexuality can change as well? Okay, so now let's discuss intersectionality. So, sexual experiences are determined by an individual's experience, and intersectionality plays a key role in those experiences. The article, Supporting the Sexual Rights of Women Living with HIV, a Critical Analysis of Sexual Satisfaction and Pleasure Across Five Relationship Types, by Carter and colleagues, discusses how social status and mental health are related to sexual satisfaction and pleasure. This gets me thinking about the connections between societal determinants of health. Many factors such as race, environment, policy, economic stability, and community can have an impact on one's health and sexual health. The intersectionality of these factors can influence and compound an individual's experience. Sexual pleasure and happiness are eventually shaped by these encounters. All things are interconnected, whether directly or indirectly. This is why an intersectional perspective is necessary when examining sexual pleasure and intimacy. We cannot and should not presume that everyone experiences pleasure in the same manner. Everybody has multiple social identities that are multiplicative rather than additive to one another. They interact and intertwine rather than merely just building up on one another. It's very necessary to include this style of thinking into all we do in order to address disparities that exist within sexual fulfillment and pleasure. Having this intersectional approach, especially with sexual research, acknowledges that people who share one or more groups of identities can have different experiences without presuming their experiences. I mean, every black trans woman is not going to have the same exact experience, you know, just because they shared the fact that they're black and trans and a woman does not mean that they're going to have the same life and have the same outcomes. It's critically, intersectionality critically examines differences in social class, status, race, and most importantly, privilege that inevitably vary both within and between groups. So, with that being said, I thank you all so much for listening and I hope that we can shed some light to the gender binary and sexual pleasure research and how a more intersectional approach is necessary to really understand sexual pleasure. Again, my name is Alexis Bradley and if any of you guys have any questions at all, feel free to reach out. I will leave my email somewhere with this link and look forward to listening to the rest of your guys' podcasts.