1. Sexuality and Society Chapter 8 Klemp-North

2. Sex: A Biological Issue
The biological distinctions between females and males
Primary sex characteristics
Organs used for reproduction
Secondary sex characteristics
Bodily development that distinguishes mature males and females

3. Sex and the Body Intersexual people (hermaphrodites) Transsexuals
Possessing some combination of female and male genitalia
Transsexuals
People who feel emotionally linked to one sex, but are biologically the other
Often expressed feeling is “trapped in the body of the wrong sex”
Disregard conventional ideas about how males and females look and behave

4. Sex: A Cultural Issue Cultural variation The incest taboo
Showing affection and sexual position
Notions of modesty
Restrictions placed upon openness
The incest taboo
Found in every society
The norm forbidding sexual relations between certain relatives

5. National Map 8.1 First-Cousin Marriage Laws across the United States

6. The Sexual Revolution 1960s: A new openness toward sexuality
Birth-control pills
Double standard challenged
Premarital and extramarital sex
Men and women are almost equal in the percent reporting premarital sex.
American youth broadly accept premarital sex.
75% of men and 90% of women remain faithful during marriage.

7. The Sexual Revolution Sex between adults Sex over the life course
1/3 have sex a few times a year or not at all
1/3 have sex once to a few times a month
1/3 have sex with a partner two or more times a week
Sex over the life course
Patterns of change with age.
Males are sexually active by age 16, females by age 17.
Age 60: 85% of men and 60% of women say they've been sexually active in the past year.
Sexual activity is a normal part of life for most older adults.

8. Figure 8.1 The Sexual Revolution: Closing the Double Standard

9. Sexual Attitudes in the US
The sexual counterrevolution
The return to sexual responsibility
Limited partners
STDs
Premarital sex

10. Global Map 8.1 Contraceptive Use in Global Perspective

11. Table 8.1 How We View Premarital and Extramarital Sex

12. Romantic and emotional attraction to another person
Sexual Orientation
Romantic and emotional attraction to another person
Heterosexuality
“Hetero:” the other of two
Homosexuality
“Homo:” the same
Bisexuality
Strong attraction to both sexes
Asexuality
No sexual attraction
Roots of sexual orientation
Mounting biological evidence for genetics
Can’t discount social influences

13. Figure 8.2 Four Sexual Orientations A person’s level of same-sex attraction and opposite-sex attraction are two distinct dimensions that combine in various ways to produce four major sexual orientations. Source: Adapted from Storms (1980).

14. Figure 8.3a Sexual Orientation in the United States: Survey Data (a) How Many Gay People? The percentage of people who are classified as having a homosexual orientation depends on how this concept is operationalized. Research suggests that 2.8% of adult men and 1.4% of adult women claim a homosexual identity. Source: Adapted from Laumann et al. (1994).

15. Figure 8.3b Sexual Orientation in the United States (b) Attitudes toward Homosexual Relations, Between 1990 and 2002, the percentage of U.S. adults who disapprove of homosexual relations went down. Between 2002 and 2004, however, it rose slightly and now stands at about 60 percent. Source: NORC (2005)

16. Figure Opposition to Homosexual Relationships: Attitudes of First-Year College Students,

17. Sexual Controversies Teen pregnancy
Highest rates of other high-income countries
Sex education in schools: solution or problem?

18. National Map 8.2 Teenage Pregnancy Rates across the United States

19. Pornography Sexually explicit material that causes sexual arousal
Supreme Court gives local communities the power to decide what violates “community standards.”
Criticized for moral and political reasons
American Porn

20. The selling of sexual services.
Prostitution
The selling of sexual services.
Social and cultural ties
Strongest in low-income countries where:
patriarchy is strong.
opportunities to earn a living are restricted.
Types of prostitution
“Call girls”
Workers in controlled parlors
“Street walkers”
A “victimless crime?”
Police stage only occasional crackdowns.
Law enforcement is likely to target “Johns” who attempt to buy sex.

21. Global Map 8.2 Prostitution in Global Perspective

22. Sexual Violence and Abuse
A culture of rape
Sexual violence includes verbal abuse, rape, and assault.
Rape
A violent act that uses sex to hurt, humiliate, or control another person
Date rape (or acquaintance rape)
Forcible sexual violence against women by men they know
Myths about rape
Rape always involves strangers.
Women provoke their attackers.
Rape is simply sex.

23. Theoretical Analysis Structural-functional analysis
Need to regulate sexual behavior
Latent function
Symbolic-interaction analysis
The social construction of sexuality
Sexual practices vary from culture to culture.
Social-conflict analysis
Highlights dimensions of inequality
Shows how sexuality reflects patterns of social inequality and helps perpetuate them.
Queer theory–Research findings that challenge the heterosexual bias in US society.

24. Applying Theory Sexuality

25. The Abortion Controversy
The deliberate termination of a pregnancy
Roe v.Wade (1973)
Established legal access to abortion
Pro-choice
Support a woman’s right to choose abortion
Pro-life
Abortion is morally wrong
Circumstances of the pregnancy
Makes a big difference in how people see this issue

26. Controversy and Debate When Should the Law Allow a Woman to Choose Abortion? Source: NORC (2005)

27. The Last Abortion Clinic
Frontline Special

28. The recognized violation of cultural norms
Deviance
The recognized violation of cultural norms

29. The recognized violation of cultural norms
Deviance
The recognized violation of cultural norms
Norms guide almost all human activities
Most familiar examples are negative instances of rule-breaking.
Especially righteous people also might be called “deviant.”
“Different” or “unexpected” are often used to describe deviance from a sociological perspective.
Crime (laws)
Violation of a society’s formal criminal law
Criminal deviance spans a wide range of behaviors

30. The attempts a society makes at regulating thought and behavior
Social Control
The attempts a society makes at regulating thought and behavior
Criminal justice system
A formal response by police, courts, and prison officials to alleged violations of the law.
Biological context
Biological factors might have a real but modest effect on whether a person becomes a criminal.
Personality factors
Deviance is viewed as unsuccessful “socialization.”

31. Karl Menninger
“The inescapable conclusion is that society secretly wants crime and needs crime.”

32. Social Foundations of Deviance
Deviance varies according to cultural norms.
No thought or action is inherently deviant.
People become deviant as others define them that way.
How others perceive and label us
Both norms and the way people define rule-breaking involve social power.
Rule-makers, rule-breakers, and rule-enforcers
Norms and applying them are linked to social position.

33. Deviance and Culture
To Polynesians tattoos are symbols of high social standing. How are tattoos regarded in our society?

34. Durkheim's Basic Insight
Deviance affirms cultural values and norms.
There can be no good without evil and no justice without crime.
Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.
People draw a boundary between right and wrong.
Responding to deviance brings people together.
People typically react to serious deviance with shared outrage.
Deviance encourages social change.
Deviant people push a society’s moral boundaries.

35. Merton’s Strain Theory
Conformity
Pursuing conventional goals through normal means
Innovation
Unconventional means to achieve approved goals
Ritualism
Accept institutional means; reject goals
Rebellion
Define new goals and means to achieve goals

36. Merton
“It is the conflict between culturally accepted values and the socially structured difficulties of living up to these values which exerts pressure toward deviant behavior and disruption of the normative system”

37. Figure Merton’s Strain Theory of Deviance Combining a person’s view of cultural goals and the conventional means to obtain them allowed Robert Merton to identify various types of deviance. Source: Merton (1968).

38. Deviant Subcultures Cloward and Ohlin Cohen Miller Anderson
Extended Merton’s theory
Cohen
Delinquency is most common among lower-class youths because they have the least opportunity for conventional success.
Miller
Delinquent subcultures: trouble, toughness, smartness, need for excitement, belief in fate, desire for freedom
Anderson
In poor urban neighborhoods, most people conform to conventional values.

39. Labeling Deviance Symbolic-interaction analysis Primary deviance
The assertion that deviance and conformity result not so much from what people do as from how others respond to those actions.
Primary deviance
Norm violations that most people take part in with little harm to self-concept
Secondary deviance
When people “make something” of another’s deviant behavior
Stigma
Powerful negative label that greatly changes a person’s self-concept and social identity

40. Labeling Deviance Retrospective labeling Projective labeling
Re-interpreting someone’s past in light of present deviance
Projective labeling
Predicts future deviant behavior
Medicalization of deviance
Transform moral and legal deviance into a medical condition
How people respond
Personal competence of the deviant person

41. Sutherland’s Differential Association
Deviant behavior is learned.
Frequency of association is central to the development of deviance.
If associates are prone to violation of norms, then one is also more likely to take part.
Conformity reaps rewards while the lack of it reaps punishment.

42. Hirschi’s Control Theory
Attachment
Strong social attachments encourage conformity.
Opportunity
The greater the access to legitimate opportunity, the greater the advantages of conformity.
Involvement
Extensive involvement in legitimate activities inhibits deviance.
Belief
Strong belief in conventional morality and respect for authority controls deviance.

43. Social-Conflict Analysis Deviance and Power
Norms or laws reflect interests of rich and powerful.
Powerful have resources to resist deviant labels.
Belief that norms and laws are natural and good masks political character

44. Deviance and Capitalism
Steven Spitzer’s likely targets of labeling
People who interfere with capitalism.
People who cannot or will not work.
People who resist authority.
Anyone who directly challenges the status quo
White-collar crime
Those committed by people of high social position in the course of their occupations
Corporate crime
Illegal actions of a corporation or people acting on its behalf
Organized crime
A business supplying illegal goods or services

45. Deviance, Race, and Gender
Hate crime
A criminal act against a person or person’s property by an offender motivated by racial or other bias
Gender
The world applies more stringent normative controls to women.
Strain due to reality of gender-based inequality
Judge the behavior of women and men differently
Why do women commit fewer crimes than men?

46. Applying Theory Deviance

47. Crime The act itself Criminal intent Direct violence or threat of it
The violation of criminal laws enacted by a locality, state, or the federal government
Two elements
The act itself
Criminal intent
Crimes against the person
Direct violence or threat of it
Crimes against property
Involves theft of property
Criminal statistics
Victimization surveys: Crime rate is two to four times higher than official reports

48. National Map 9.1 The Risk of Violent Crime across the United States

49. The Street Criminal: A Profile
Ages 15-24
14% of population
39.7% of arrests for violent crime, 45% of property crimes
Gender
Males commit 67.4% of property crimes and 82% of violent crimes
Social class
Violent crimes committed by a few in poor neighborhoods
White-collar and corporate crime committed by more affluent
Race and ethnicity
69.8% of arrests involve white people
People of color are over-criminalized

50. Figure 9.2 Crime Rates in the United States, The graphs show the rates for various violent crimes and property crimes during recent decades. Since about 1990, the trend has been downward. Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006)

51. Crime in Global Perspective
United States
The US crime rate is high by world standards.
The rate of US violent crime is several times higher than in Europe.
Elliott Currie: Crime stems from our culture’s emphasis on individual economic success, frequently at the expense of strong families and neighborhoods.
Other countries
Crime rates are high in some of the world’s largest cities, which have rapid population growth and millions of poor.
The traditional character of low-income societies and their strong families allow informal crime control outside of big cities.
Different countries have different strategies for dealing with crime.

52. US Criminal Justice System Due Process
The criminal justice system must operate according to law.
This principle is grounded in the Bill of Rights.
Anyone charged with a crime must receive:
Fair notice of the proceedings
A hearing on the charges conducted according to law and with the ability to present a defense,
A judge or jury that weighs evidence impartially

53. US Criminal Justice System Due Process
Police: Primary point of contact between population and criminal justice system
The police maintain public order by enforcing the law.
Officers quickly size up situations in terms of six factors.
Gravity of situation
Victim’s wishes
Cooperation of suspect
Has suspect been arrested before?
Presence of observers increases chances of arrest
Officers are more likely to arrest people of color.

54. Global Map 9.1 Capital Punishment in Global Perspective

55. US Criminal Justice System Courts
Plea bargaining: A legal negotiation in which a prosecutor reduces a charge in exchange for a defendant’s guilty plea.
Widespread because it spares the system the time and expense of trials.
Pressures defendants to plead guilty.
Undercuts both the adversarial process and the rights of defendants

56. Justifications for Punishment
Retribution
An act of moral vengeance by which society makes the offender suffer as much as the suffering caused by the crime
Deterrence
The attempt to discourage criminality through the use of punishment
Rehabilitation
A program for reforming the offender to prevent later offenses
Societal protection
Rendering an offender incapable of further offenses temporarily through imprisonment or permanently by execution.
Restorative
Restore the community and individual to the state prior to the act.

57. Summing Up Four Justifications for Punishment

58. Community-Based Corrections
Correctional programs operating within society at large rather than behind prison walls.
Probation
A policy permitting a convicted offender to remain in the community under conditions imposed by a court
Shock probation
When a judge orders a convicted offender to prison for a short time, then suspends the remainder of the sentence.
Parole
Releasing inmates from prison to serve the remainder of their sentences in the community.

59. Violent Crime Is Down Reduction in youth population
Changes in policing
More prisons
Better economy
Declining drug trade