Let’s talk about sex, but first, we have to start at the very beginning. What began as a study about why the female orgasm became irrelevant to conception, became a deep dive into the dramatic ways sex changed in the western culture.
American Author, Alok V Menon has already done us the pleasure of reading Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud by Dr. Thomas Laqueur, so ill keep it short and sweet.
Pre-Enlighment
Historian Dr.Laqueur traced two millennia of studies on the category of sex and demonstrated how the west transitioned from a “Unisex” to a “binary sex” model. Pre-enlightment, females and males were seen as having the same sex organs; the womb was the scrotum and the ovaries were the testicles. The idea behind this was that everything in the universe had an opposite. Masculine and Feminine. Sun and Moon. Hot and cold. It was believed that the presence of more heat created a male body, and more cold created a female body.
Each body was believed to have a cultural role and the reproductive system was seen as a generous tool of a cosmic byproduct. So the importance was to maintain the universal balance, not create equality. After the enlightenment, politics took full advantage of what was discovered.
Post- Enlightment
A division was created between the male and female body, however, females were considered inferior since their organs were internal and smaller. It was said that nature created the visual blueprint of societal roles. The argument that it was nature that dictated the course of the female body was created by white male scientists. Natural “sex” and cultural “gender” were crucial in fighting the common belief that females were inferior to males and sexual essentialism.
The industrial revolution, the french revolution, religion, and feminism all lead scientists down a rabbit hole of radical rationalizations that justified men denying women’s basic human rights. The perceived differences were enough to make a cultural impact for generations, some of which, many women are still (unequally) paying for today.
So next time, someone responds with “that’s just the nature of things,” question the speaker and their intentions behind the fact stated. Do your own research, and don’t let anyone define what your cultural role is based on your sexual organs.
For more information on breaking sex & gender “norms,” meet Alok V Menon.
Much love y’all…. your very queer friend,
P.S. The post I’ll never stop traveling is a peek into how cultural norms left me battered and bruised but eventually standing in my power regardless of what society expected from me.