Read complete books and articles on: History of Sex

Sex - term used to refer both to the two groups distinguished as males and females, and to the anatomical and physiological characteristics associated with maleness and femaleness. Sex relates to the type of reproduction in which specialized reproductive cells (gametes) form and, when united by fertilization, produce a zygote (fertilized egg) that develops into a new individual. The female

Sexual Differentiation

Differentiation into two sexes appears in some members of all divisions of the plant and animal kingdoms. Even in species where little or no sexual difference has occurred anatomically, an implied separation exists in forms in which conjugation occurs (e.g., among different strains in paramecia and between plus and minus strains in molds). Many lower forms reproduce within the one individual two different kinds of cell that unite to form a new individual; in others, male and female cells form in different individuals. Among the vertebrates, the sexes are usually readily distinguishable by their primary sexual characteristics, i.e., the structure of their reproductive organs. In the highest group of plants, the seed-bearing plants, the female organ is the pistil and the male organ is the stamen. The stamens and pistil may appear in the same flower, in different flowers of the same plant, or in the flowers of separate plants. Secondary sexual characteristics include the bright coloration of many male birds and fish, the antlers of male deer, the beard and deepened voice of human males, and the mammary glands of female mammals. In higher animals, hormones released by the sexual organs under stimulation from the pituitary hormones play a dominant role in the control of sexual characteristics and the sexual processes of reproduction (see pituitary gland).

Genetic Basis of Sex and Sex-linked Traits

The modern science of genetics has provided a scientific explanation about how an offspring becomes either female or male. Based on the discovery that among the chromosomes present in the body cells, a special pair of sex chromosomes exist that bear the genes determining the sex of the offspring. In the human female, these chromosomes are identical and are called X chromosomes (indicated by XX). The male has one X chromosome and one smaller Y chromosome, which is dominant for maleness. During the process of producing reproductive cells (see meiosis), each of these chromosomes is segregated into a different gamete. Thus, when fertilization occurs, according to Mendelian law, 50% of the offspring will be XX (female) and 50% XY (male). Deviations from this rule do occur, but it is generally true.

The rule also helps to explain the inheritance of sex-linked characteristics such as hemophilia (a blood clotting disorder) and red-green color blindness, since the X chromosome also carries some genes for nonsexual traits. The Y chromosome carries very few genes for nonsexual traits; these few (including one for hairy ears) are called holandric genes. Certain inherited characteristics comprise X-linked traits, so called because a single X chromosome occurs in males. A recessive characteristic, e.g., when a gene leads to the expression of a disease such as hemophilia, may locate on the X sex chromosome in males and thus appear in that family.

Genetic Variability

Because of the myriad genes in the nucleus of every parent cell, the probability of two individuals inheriting identical characteristics is almost zero; thus, innumerable new variations (see mutation) constantly undergo testing for survival advantages in the individual's environment. The evolutionary flexibility that results from sexuality at some stage of the reproductive cycle seems not only beneficial but necessary in maintaining the adaptability of the species. The Human Genome Project is mapping and sequencing the approximately 30,000 human genes. The goal of this international scientific effort focuses on discovering the genetic basis for diseases in order to help humans avoid having children with severe or fatal genetic disorders.

Bibliography

See study by J. Maynard-Smith (1978).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: History of Sex

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Science in the Bedroom: A History of Sex Research » Read Now
by Vern L. Bullough. 376 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library
2.

Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality » Read Now
by Bruce S. Thornton. 288 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Bruce Thornton's sweeping and comprehensive account of ancient sexuality is refreshingly free of currently fashionable jargon. He challenges the distortions of much recent scholarship on Greek sexuality and their attitudes to family, love and sex.
3.

Sexual Practices & the Medieval Church » Read Now
by James Brundage, Vern L. Bullough. 296 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
4.

The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice » Read Now
by Guido Ruggiero. 223 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
5.

Alcohol, Sex and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe » Read Now
by A. Lynn Martin. 200 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This text examines the effects of alcohol on gender relations in traditional Europe, focusing on England, France, and Italy in the late medieval and early modern periods, c1300 to 1700. Sexual activity and violence both increased due to drinking.
6.

Sex in Middlesex: Popular Mores in a Massachusetts County, 1649-1699 » Read Now
by Roger Thompson. 252 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
7.

The Making of Victorian Sexuality » Read Now
by Michael Mason. 338 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

We tend to think of the Victorians as the personification of prudery and puritanism, a people whose sexual attitudes, practices, and knowledge differed greatly from our own, to their detriment. Indeed, even in the midst of the AIDS crisis and our growing concern about safe sex, the Victorians hardly...
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We tend to think of the Victorians as the personification of prudery and puritanism, a people whose sexual attitudes, practices, and knowledge differed greatly from our own, to their detriment. Indeed, even in the midst of the AIDS crisis and our growing concern about safe sex, the Victorians hardly seem an appealing role model of sexual behavior. But is this image really very accurate? What did the Victorians really think about sex? What were their sex lives like? And what wider concepts--biological, political, religious--shaped their sexuality? The Making of Victorian Sexuality directly confronts one of the most persistent cliches of modern times. Drawing on a wealth of sources from medical and scientific texts, to popular fiction, evangelical writing, and the work of radicals such as Godwin and Mill, Michael Mason shows how much of our perception of nineteenth-century sexual culture is simply wrong. Covering such topics as premarital sex, marriage, prostitution, women's sexuality, and male masturbation, Mason shows that, far from being a license for prudery and hypocrisy, Victorian sexuality was guided by a humane and progressive vision of society's future. Mason reveals that the average Victorian man was not necessarily the church-going, tyrannical, secretly lecherous, bourgeois pater familias of modern-day legend, but often an agnostic, radical-minded, sexually continent citizen, with a deliberately restricted number of children. He paints a society in which husbands and wives knew full well about female orgasm and women's sexuality; where if some specialists believed that nervous disorders in women, ranging from epilepsy to schizophrenia, were due to masturbation, most experts emphatically denied the connection; and where the extensive use of birth control devices first began (pioneered oddly enough by the bottom of the middle class: shop-owners, hotel-keepers, and other nonmanual but nonprofessional and nonmanagerial workers). Furthermore, he points out that Victorians were the first to concern themselves about sex education for children, the quality of urban nightlife, commuter marriages, the competing claims of pleasure and procreation in married sex, and the rationale of divorce. Persuasively arguing that there is much in Victorian sexual moralism of interest to the late twentieth century, this lively and fascinating study offers a radical challenge to one of the most enduring myths of our age.
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8.

The Other Americans: Sexual Variance in the National Past » Read Now
by Charles O. Jackson. 256 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

This is a combination of essays from several disciplines with incisive commentary by the editor. This volume provides a unique perspective on sexual variance as a dimension of the larger social history of the United States.
9.

The Horrors of the Half-Known Life: Male Attitudes toward Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America » Read Now
by G. J. Barker-Benfield. 352 pgs.

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Now a classic in the field, The Horrors of the Half-Known Life is an important foundational text in the construction of masculinity, female identity, and the history of midwivery.
10.

In Defense of Honor: Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early-Twentieth-Century Brazil » Read Now
by Sueann Caulfield. 312 pgs.

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11.

Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America » Read Now
by Asunción Lavrin. 352 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
12.

An Ordered Love: Sex Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Utopias: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community » Read Now
by Louis J. Kern. 430 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...4 Library of Congress Cataloging...States -- History -- 19th century. 2. Sex customs...century. 3. Sex role. 4. Shakers...States -- History. 5. Mormons...The Problem of the...
13.

Sex, Disease, and Society: A Comparative History of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific » Read Now
by Milton Lewis, Scott Bamber, Michael Waugh. 304 pgs.

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This work identifies significant factors influencing, on the one hand, the historical pattern of sexually acquired diseases in 12 countries in Asia and the Pacific and, on the other hand, factors shaping the government and community responses to that pattern. Contributors analyze the role of...
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This work identifies significant factors influencing, on the one hand, the historical pattern of sexually acquired diseases in 12 countries in Asia and the Pacific and, on the other hand, factors shaping the government and community responses to that pattern. Contributors analyze the role of supranational forces such as colonialism and economic modernization as well as distinctive national factors. The geographic scope is wide, extending from India in the west, to China in the east, to Australia in the south. The chronological scope is equally ambitious and contributors review two centuries or more of history, while also addressing the effect of the AIDS pandemic in a region of great social and economic dynamism. A number of factors including gender and economic inequality, as well as colonialism and economic growth, have been identified as important to the historical spread of sexually transmitted diseases and to the collective response of the spread. Quantitative data on disease incidence and mortality are used extensively throughout the book as are demographic, economic, and social statistics.
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14.

Swinging Single: Representing Sexuality in the 1960s » Read Now
by Moya Luckett, Hilary Radner. 378 pgs.

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15.

Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965 » Read Now
by Nan Alamilla Boyd. 321 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

"A smart, insightful, readable book. Boyd expertly outlines the political, economic, and legal contours of San Francisco's queer history. With a rich array of sources, she reconstructs the nightclubs and bars where customers, workers, and owners fought for the right to public assembly and helped...
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"A smart, insightful, readable book. Boyd expertly outlines the political, economic, and legal contours of San Francisco's queer history. With a rich array of sources, she reconstructs the nightclubs and bars where customers, workers, and owners fought for the right to public assembly and helped inaugurate a movement for gay and lesbian civil rights."--Joanne Meyerowitz, author of "How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States
"An outstanding book, a major contribution to U.S. gay, lesbian, and queer history. Nan Boyd has produced a fascinating account that helps us to understand why and how San Francisco has come to occupy such pride of place in the queer imagination. Traversing the complicated geography, the multiple gender and sexual cultures, and the multi-layered politics of a great metropolis, Wide-Open Town is a must-read for historians, students and scholars of sex, gender, and sexuality, and all those who have ever left their hearts in San Francisco."--Marc Stein, author of "City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia, 1945-1972
"Boyd spins out a fascinating story of a unique community and in the process informs our understanding of the development of gay/lesbian communities and activism in places beyond San Francisco. She does this by showing the links between and relationship of cultural resistance and various forms of political organizing, and by rethinking the ways that major events in U.S. history, such as Prohibition and the Second World War, have shaped gay/lesbian history."--Leila J. Rupp, author of "A Desired Past
"Nan Boyd has excavated a queer pre-history of gay liberation movements in San Francisco. By highlightingsex and race tourism as well as the centrality of gender transgression to the creation of gay communities, she sheds new light on the formation of sexual identities in the twentieth century. Both insightful and highly readable
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16.

Sexuality and Society: An Introduction (Chap. 2 "History") » Read Now
by Gargi Bhattacharyya. 193 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

In this broad-ranging introduction to the study of sexuality, Gargi Bhattacharyya guides students through the key theoretical debates in the area from the early history of sexology, through Foucault's technologies of self to Judith Butler on the performance of identity. Bhattacharyya shows how these...
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In this broad-ranging introduction to the study of sexuality, Gargi Bhattacharyya guides students through the key theoretical debates in the area from the early history of sexology, through Foucault's technologies of self to Judith Butler on the performance of identity. Bhattacharyya shows how these theoretical positions apply to sexuality as it is experienced in contemporary society, and covers key topics such as: * the ideology of heterosexuality * sex and the state * sex, race and 'the exotic' * age and sexuality * sex education and pornography. The book argues that the study of sexuality is an essential part of broader debates on gender, race, citizenship and community. Topical and original, it provides a systematic overview of theory combined with up-to-the minute discussion of social and race issues. It gives students a lucid map of the terrain, and an exciting starting point for their own investigations.
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