Sex, Sexuality and Gender:

Basic Concepts
From Advancing Sexuality Studies:
a short course on sexuality theory and
research methodologies

The International
Resource Network
 Developed by:
The Caribbean International Resource Network
Presented in collaboration with:
The Institute for Gender & Development Studies at the
University of the West Indies, St. Augustine
(Trinidad & Tobago)
With funding from The Ford Foundation & the
International Association for the Study of Sexuality,
Culture and Society (IASSCS)
Available under an Attribution, Non-Commercial,
Share Alike licence from Creative Commons
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 Schedule
Learning activity Time allowed
Introduction & aims 10 mins
Session 1. Challenging biological determinism and 160 mins
defining sex, sexuality and gender
Group work & lecture (x2) 130 mins
Reading images 20 mins
Session wrap-up 10 mins
Session 2. Heteronormativity and sexual stratification 100 mins
Introduction and lecture 30 mins
Group work 20 mins
Lecture & group work 50 mins
Session 3. Understanding sexuality as historically & 80 mins
socially constructed
or Transgender issues in cross-cultural perspective
Guided reading and group work 80 mins
Conclusion & personal reflection 45 mins
Total 395 mins

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 Module aims
To:
Introduce and critique biologically determinist understandings of
sex, gender and sexuality
Introduce Critical Sexuality Studies definitions of sex, sexuality
and gender and examine the history of the construction of
sexuality
Examine the relationships between sex, sexuality and gender
through consideration of heteronormativity and sexual/gendered
inequity

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 Participants will:
Critique biologically determinist constructions of sex and
sexuality
Identify key theorists and concepts in the study of sexual
inequality
Think critically about the relationships between sex, sexuality
and gender
Reflect on the effects of normative constructions of sex,
sexuality and gender as these are relevant to their own
sociocultural and research settings

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 Session 1.
Challenging biological
determinism and defining sex,
sexuality and gender

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 Group work
Divide into two groups
Group 1
List differences between women and men and consider:
On what are these perceived differences based? (e.g. biological, social,
cultural or religious beliefs)
Group 2
List similarities between women and men and consider:
On what are the perceived similarities based? (e.g. biological, social,
cultural or religious beliefs) (10 mins)

Feedback (10 mins)

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 Discussion
All participants to consider together:
What are the effects of highlighting differences rather than
similarities between men and women?
To what extent do assumptions about biologically determined sex
differences between women and men influence popular culture,
sayings or beliefs in the Caribbean? (10 mins)

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 Biological determinism,
sex and sexuality

Biologically determinist theories of various kinds reduce

social organisation and social complexity to an
effect of biology or nature
Biological determinists include sociobiologists, some
geneticists, psychologists and pop psychology
writers

Complex, socially embedded behaviours have

all been explained as an effect of evolutionary
reproductive strategies
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 In the biologically determinist school of thought:
Biological facts of sex are thought to constitute natural
differences between men and women
Heterosexuality is considered a natural outcome of this sex
difference due to the drive to reproduce the species

Key assumption driving biological determinism:

The primary function and goal of all human
sexual activity is the reproduction of the species
Humans have sex because we must reproduce
Homosexuality becomes explained as an unnatural
genetic deviation

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 The gay gene
Geneticists search for a gay gene to prove there is a
biological basis for, and explanation of, male homosexuality
Small differences found between the post-mortem brains of
heterosexual and homosexual young men (LeVay, 1991)
Research on pairs of homosexual brothers found that some had
similar markers on the X chromosome, indicating a genetic basis
for sexuality (Hamer et al. 1993)

LeVays work proved difficult to replicate

Hamer et al.s work has been refuted
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 Challenging determinism
If reproductive differences between the sexes naturally
drive individual behaviour, why do we need social
institutions that police and set moral guidelines for sexual
behaviour?
The family, religion, government, the military

The research evidence for many biologically determinist

claims simply does not hold up
Sex difference research may be popular, but it masks a great
deal of evidence for sex similarities
Differences are often context-specific
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 Despite continuing interest in a genetic basis for sexuality,
no gay or heterosexual gene yet found
Most sex is not reproductive
Human sexuality more complicated than survival of the species
or of ones gene pool

Biological drive arguments are political

Often used to resist social change and legitimate an unequal,
gendered and sexualised social order
Institutionalised power relations affect understandings of sex,
gender, and sexuality
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 Definitions
Write down your own definitions of the terms sex, sexuality,
and gender (5 mins)

Compare your definitions with those of the person next to

you (5 mins)

Each pair to report back to whole group (10 mins)

Brief group discussion (10 mins)

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Complexities of sex & gender
Is there a difference? Yes, on one level
Sex is biological male, female, also intersex (reproductive
differences based on genitalia, chromosomes, hormones)
Also refers to sexual acts, as in having sex

Gender is the structure of social relations that centres on the

reproductive arena, and the set of practices that bring
reproductive distinctions into social processes (Connell 2002: 10)
Gender underlies assumptions regarding masculine or feminine
behaviour

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Hijra in India Caster Semenya, South A Tom in Thailand
African athlete

Trinidadian
Jowelle De Souza
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 Temptation to make an absolute distinction between sex
and gender:
Nature vs nurture or essentialism vs social constructionism

Understanding of the sexed body as natural can sustain

social inequity between men and women
Butler (1990) argued that gender determines sex
Sex is not natural but a social construction
Knowledge systems used to describe and reinforce sex
differences already gendered by the language used to express
ideas about the body

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 Cannot neatly separate the sexed body from the gendered
body
Mutually constituted through sociocultural processes

Biological science is a social construction, expressed

through language which is gendered and value-laden
In Critical Sexuality Studies, the natural body is political

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Bodies cannot be understood as just the objects of
social processthey are active participants in social
process...
They participate through their capacities, development
and needs through the direction set by their
pleasures and skills.
Bodies must be seen as sharing social agency.
(Connell 2002: 40)

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 Discussion
Bodies have physical capacities and limitations
These influence how bodies can be socially experienced or
intervened with

In Critical Sexuality Studies:

Sex, sexuality and gender necessarily involve various dimensions
of bodily and social capacities and phenomena
These will be expressed differently in different sociocultural
settings

Discussion (5 mins)

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 What is sexuality?
Quite a new term
Came into English, French and German usage at the end of the
18th century
Usually meant reproduction through sexual activity among plants and
animals
Used in relation to love and sex matters in European discourse in
the 1830s

What does it mean according to the dictionary?

Depends on which dictionary you read
Mirriam Webster (2013): The quality or state of being sexual

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 Four intertwining strands of sexuality:
Sexual desire or attraction
To whom (or in some cases what) someone is attracted (physically and
emotionally)
Sexual activity or behaviour
What a person does or likes to do sexually (intercourse, masturbation, oral
sex, sexual fetishes)
Sexual identity
How someone describes their sense of self as a sexual being (e.g.
heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, homosexual)
Sexual experience
Observations of others sexualities; education or training related to
sexuality; experiences that may not have been consensual

No clear boundaries!
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The sexuality matrix

Desire

Behavior Identity

Experience

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General theoretical definition
Sexuality [is] an historical construction which brings
together a host of different biological and mental
possibilities, and cultural forms gender identity, bodily
differences, reproductive capacities, needs, desires,
fantasies, erotic practices, institutions and values which
need not be linked together, and in other societies have not
been.
Weeks, J (2003: 7) Sexuality: Second Edition, Routledge

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 Caribbean theoretical
definition
Caribbean sexuality is characterized by diversity and
involves embodied sexual practices, identities, knowledge,
and strategies of resistance of the colonized and
postcolonial subject (2004: 2).
Kempadoo, K (2004: 2) Sexing the Caribbean, Routledge

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 Are these images of sex, sexuality or gender?
What would we need to know in order to make sense of this
question? (5 mins + 5 mins feedback)
Images by Rodell Warner from the Photobooth series (2009-2011)
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 Are these images of sex, sexuality or gender?
What would we need to know in order to make sense of this
question? (5 mins + 10 mins feedback)

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 Session summary
Review the notes made at the start of the session on
definitions of sex, sexuality and gender and consider:
To what extent do they equate with working definitions so far?
(5 mins)

Final questions or comments about this session?

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 Session 2.
Heteronormativity and
sexual stratification

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Like gender, sexuality is political. It is organised into
systems of power, which reward and encourage some
individuals and activities, while punishing and suppressing
others.
Gayle Rubin (1984: 309)

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 Lecture
Heteronormativity
the institutions, structures of understanding and practical
orientations that make heterosexuality seem not only coherent
that is, organized as a sexuality but also privileged.
(Berlant and Warner (2000: 312))

Heteropatriarchy
the systems that support the combination of heteronormativity
and patriarchy (male dominance)
Maintained and perpetuated by social institutions
e.g. media, education, law, family, religion, healthcare systems
usually through exclusion and marginalisation
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 Brainstorm
Can you think of examples of heteronormative assumptions
that are present in the Caribbean? (5 mins)

Theories of sexual stratification:

Adrienne Rich and Gayle Rubin
Offer opportunities for reconfiguring heteronormativity
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 Adrienne Rich
Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian
existence (1980)
Womens Liberation era theorist and poet whose work was
influential in the development of lesbian and gay studies

Heterosexuality is not a natural outcome of sex difference

It is a social institution maintained by a series of inducements and
punishments for women
Key question: What social forces stop women from expressing
their sexual and emotional attraction to other women?

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Inducements & punishments
Inducements Material
The marriage contract (legalised sexual subordination of women)
Financial and material support (husband)
Sphere of influence (the domestic)
Stay-at home child allowance for women
Reduced earning capacity for women compared with their male partners
Symbolic or ideological
Romance and love made complete with a man (heterocoupling)
Female beauty as an ideal of female worth
Motherhood within marriage as female self-fulfilment
Women valued only insofar as they are valuable to men
Punishments Social ostracism for unmarried mothers, women who leave their husbands and
financially independent women
Women who are sexually independent labelled as loose, skettels, sluts
Criminalisation, pathologisation and abuse of lesbians and women who are not
exclusively heterosexual
A system of gendered sexual violence that keeps women (and their sexuality) in its
proper place

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 Group work
Divide into groups
Using the handout supplied on Richs work re: inducements
and punishments, consider the following focus questions:
Is this model of inducements and punishments relevant in the
Caribbean historically and/or in the 21st century? If not, can it
be rewritten?
Can this table be rewritten to apply to men? (10 mins)

Feedback (10 mins)

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 Gayle Rubin
Thinking Sex (1984)
Hierarchies of sexual value
People and practices high in the hierarchy rewarded with a range of
benefits, those low in the hierarchy punished and vilified
Heterosexual couples who are married, monogamous and of the same
generation accrue more benefits than those who are not married and/or
who engage in more marginalised sexual practices

What is more important:

The sexual categories people fit into and the kinds of sex they have, or
Democratic sexual morality: how people treat each other, their level of
mutual consideration and the presence or absence of harm and coercion?
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 Rubins charmed circle
Form small groups
Read the handout provided, and
share your understandings (5 mins)
Discuss Rubins diagram in
relation to the sexual cultures,
identities and practices
relevant or currently topical
in the Caribbean
Can you redraw the model to
fit our local setting? (15 mins)
Feedback (10 mins)

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 Charmed circle: summary
Diagram not intended to be a fixed representation of how
heteronormativity works at all times, in all places
The inner circle boundary line can shift over time, and from place-to-
place, for instance:
Homosexuality was never illegal in French colonies but was criminalised
by the British in all of its colonies; today, same-sex marriage is technically
legal in the Dutch Caribbean territories that remain part of the Kingdom of
the Netherlands, but very few have been performed.
Polygamy is illegal in Caribbean territories, but it is commonly practiced.
Intergenerational sex between males was permitted in Ancient Greece but
is illegal in Greece now.
Whoever controls the boundary determines what is normal and
abnormal, and controls the system of rewards and punishment
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 Session 3.
Either: Understanding
Caribbean sexualities as
historically and socially
constructed
or: Transgender identities in a
Caribbean context
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 Session 3, Option 1.
Understanding Caribbean
sexualities as historically and
socially constructed

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 Guided reading
Read G. Wekker Whats Identity Got to Do with it:
Rethinking Identity in light of the Mati Work in
Suriname. (2005)
Or
J. Alexander Erotic Autonomy as a Politics of
Decolonization: Feminism, Tourism, and State in
the Bahamas and Trinidad and Tobago
(30 mins)

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 Focus questions
(30 mins reading, 15 mins discussion, 30 mins feedback)
Alexander (2005):
According to Alexander, what is the
relationship between sexuality and
citizenship in the Bahamas and
Trinidad and Tobago?
What is her concept of erotic
autonomy, and how can it be useful in
thinking about Caribbean sexuality?
How is tourism implicated in
heteronormativy and heteropatriarchy?
Wekker (1999):
How would you describe mati to
someone who had never heard of
the practice?
How are mati and lesbians
different? Why is it important to
Wekker not to label mati as lesbians
or bisexuals?
How might mati work challenge
heteronormativity? How might it
reinforce heteronormativity?
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 Session 3, Option 2.
Transgender issues in
a Caribbean context

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 Guided reading
Read Caricco (2012) Collateral Damage:
the Social Impact of Laws Affecting LGBT
Persons in Guayana

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 Guided reading
Focus questions:
How do Guyanese legal and cultural systems affect transgender people?
What (if anything) in the reading is particular to the Caribbean and local
understandings of gender and sexuality?
How can transgender identities challenge heteronormativity? How might they
reinforce heteronormativity?
What challenges do transgender individuals present for biological determinists?

Discuss in small groups, and consider:

Can you add case studies of your own to support the argument that
sexuality is historically and culturally constructed? (15 mins)

Feedback (30 mins)

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 Conclusion
In Critical Sexuality Studies, human sexuality is understood
as:
Diverse
Dynamic and
Deeply inventive

The field challenges fixed notions of sex, gender and

sexuality
It grounds the interrelationship between these concepts in
specific social, historical, cultural contexts
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 Critical Sexuality Studies challenges the notion that sex
and sexuality are biologically determined, but:
This does not mean the body or biological limitations/capacities
are irrelevant
Sex, sexuality and gender are invariably linked to power
relationsinstitutional and interpersonaland to systems
of regulation and reward
Heteronormativity and heteropatriarchy exist across the
world, but take variable forms

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 Personal reflection
In pairs: discuss the aspect of the module that you
personally found to be the most thought-provoking (5 mins)

Individually: note down any ways in which this module

might influence future research or work you undertake
(5 mins)

In pairs: discuss your notes on the possible future influence

of the module on your work or research (10 mins)

Reflection sharing (10 mins)

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Module adapted for the Anglophone Caribbean by:
Dr. Rosamond S. King, The Caribbean International Resource
Network
Original module created by:
Dr Deb Dempsey, Swinburne University of Technology and Mr William Leonard,
Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society with supporting material from
Professor Gary W. Dowsett, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society
Caribbean short course developed by:
The Caribbean International Resource Network
with the Institute for Gender & Development Studies, The University of
the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago
Original short course developed by:
The Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe
University, Melbourne, Australia and The International Association for
the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS)

With funding from The Ford Foundation

Available under an Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike licence
from Creative Commons

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