Sexology Dialogs Of The Early 1900s

We can view science through a social constructionist lens, particularly during the start of the 1900s. Looking back, we can see how the social climate influences science. With the 1900s came the start of many movements and changes in the US. Because of this, the science of the day focuses on preserving the social hierarchy, to the benefit of the white heteropatriarchy. Evolutionary theory was used to “prove” the inferiority of African Americans, women, and non-heterosexuals. These same tactics are applicable to early sexuality, as Somerville’s essay “Scientific Racism and the Emergence of the Homosexual Body” shows (17).
Somerville’s essay explores the sexology dialogs of the early 1900s using the racial ideologies of the time. She [Somerville] claims that the tools used to distinguish race were also applied to sexology in three key ways (18). The scientific
Sexual differences were the basis of the search for proof of biological differences between races (25). While men were examined, it is in the female body that scientists found differences in sex traits. These studies place black women into the category of abnormal, in comparison to the normal of a white woman (26). This method applies to the sexology studies of the day. Scientists looked for physical differences in the genitalia of homosexual women to categorize them as abnormal. Both lesbians and African American women were thought to have “an abnormally prominent clitoris” (27), and their labia were even compared to men’s testicles (28). While black and lesbian women are classified as abnormal or inferior, the straight white woman is upheld as normal and superior. These “facts” are stereotypes in modern times. Modern pop culture perpetuates the stereotype that black women have larger breasts and buttocks than white women. Black and lesbian women are also seen as inherently sexual and