Sexual Deviance
“One begins to need more and more intense stimuli in order to produce the same type of arousal It creates a greater appetite for more bizarre, more deviant types of sexual images.” Colleen Taylor |
Sexual deviance refers to sexual behaviors that are considered not normal to society. This is a complicated issue because you have to find out what makes sexual behavior so deviant. Our attitude towards sex has changed over the past several years. The sexual acts that were considered deviant twenty or thirty years ago could be acceptable and considered normal now. The first thing comes to mind when sexual deviance is heard is any type of perversion. For example, zoophilia, necrophilia, pedophiles, etc. Doing the research and reading “Deviant Behavior” and “Readings in Deviant Behavior” I know now that sexual deviance is what people believe to be outside of the norm. One person may think that cross dressing or autoerotic asphyxia may be deviant and another may not. It is just a behavior that society thinks is offensive in some way. This paper will examine the types of sexual deviance and the perspective about sexual deviance from a constructionist and a positivist.
“When deviance from a group’s expectations is profound, the person who violates the norm can come to have what the sociologist Erving Goffman called a stigma”. (Thio, Calhoun, Conyers, p.207) Growing up in a public and private school I was taught that anyone who engages in any out of the ordinary sexual behavior meant you will be stigmatized, just because it is not normal. Of course, that is truly wrong but that is what society taught me growing up. Sexual behavior is dictated by our culture and society. For something to be qualified as deviant, all it needs is to be condemned by a certain social circle. A sexual encounter between a man and a woman means two different things. Even though the man and woman are both two individuals involved in the same act, the consequences for the woman will
Sexual deviance refers to sexual behaviors that are considered not normal to society. This is a complicated issue because you have to find out what makes sexual behavior so deviant. Our attitude towards sex has changed over the past several years. The sexual acts that were considered deviant twenty or thirty years ago could be acceptable and considered normal now. The first thing comes to mind when sexual deviance is heard is any type of perversion. For example, zoophilia, necrophilia, pedophiles, etc. Doing the research and reading “Deviant Behavior” and “Readings in Deviant Behavior” I know now that sexual deviance is what people believe to be outside of the norm. One person may think that cross dressing or autoerotic asphyxia may be deviant and another may not. It is just a behavior that society thinks is offensive in some way. This paper will examine the types of sexual deviance and the perspective about sexual deviance from a constructionist and a positivist.
“When deviance from a group’s expectations is profound, the person who violates the norm can come to have what the sociologist Erving Goffman called a stigma”. (Thio, Calhoun, Conyers, p.207) Growing up in a public and private school I was taught that anyone who engages in any out of the ordinary sexual behavior meant you will be stigmatized, just because it is not normal. Of course, that is truly wrong but that is what society taught me growing up. Sexual behavior is dictated by our culture and society. For something to be qualified as deviant, all it needs is to be condemned by a certain social circle. A sexual encounter between a man and a woman means two different things. Even though the man and woman are both two individuals involved in the same act, the consequences for the woman will
Cited: Keel, Robert O. “Heterosexual Deviance.” A5 Nov. 2004. 15 Mar. 2005. <http://www.umsl.edu/~rkeel/200/hetsex.html> “Sexual Deviance.” 12 April. 2011. 15 Apr. 2011. http://www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/sexual-deviance.htm> Goode, Erich. “Deviant Behavior.” Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice 2011. Print Thio, Alex, Thomas C. Calhoun, and Addrain Conyers. “Readings in Deviant Behavior.” Boston Allyn & Bacon 2010. Print