Sex really came into its own in the 20th century. The work of the sexologists of the late 19th century (people such as Krafft-Ebbing and Havelock Ellis) fed into the revolution led by Sigmund Freud, who proposed sexual development as the crucible of the neuroses, and, since everyone is neurotic to a degree, that means all of us are shaped by our sexuality.
By the mid-1980s, a new revolution in the study of sexuality kicked off with the publication of Michel Foucault’s highly influential The History of Sexuality. The debate about whether sexual identities are inborn or constructed by social forces began in earnest, and sexuality as a field of study opened up like a new frontier.
And that was just the thinkers.
The past century was also the one in which women in many parts of the world began to free themselves from the biological determinism that had confined them to the kitchen and the bedroom for centuries.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in many countries. For scholars such as Camille Paglia, the upfront sexiness of pornography, rock’n’roll and Hollywood movies represented a return of the repressed — for instance, the United States now produces 11 000 porn movies a year.
Sexuality and Power in Southern Africa is a new course for honours and MA students at Wits’s Graduate School of the Humanities and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (Wiser) that aims to encompass this burgeoning field.
The long-term goal is to develop this course into a ‘fully-fledged inter-disciplinary MA programme” in sexuality studies.
Its coordinators, Graeme Reid and Liz Walker, responded to a series of e-mail questions about the course.
What is the thinking behind this new MA course?
This course forms part of an overall programme on sexuality convened by the Graduate School for the Humanities and Wiser.
Firstly, we initiated an extended seminar series entitled On the Subject of Sex, which ran for a year. This culminated in the Sex and Secrecy Conference held at Wits last month.
The conference brought together 300 academic and NGO participants from as far afield as Vietnam and Peru, with a strong African presence. Sexuality studies is a relatively new arena in South Africa, and Wits is one of the few places where sexuality, as distinct from gender, is the focus of enquiry.
The link with Wiser provides a strong research dimension to the development of a comprehensive sexuality programme at Wits.
Why are issues around sexuality so prominent, now, in academic discourse?
In the past two decades sexuality has become an increasingly important sphere of study in the social sciences. This represents a move away from the more bio-medical sexology that became prominent through the work of Kinsey and Masters and Johnson, for example.
Anthropology, through its focus on cross-cultural differences in attitudes, practices and the meanings associated with sexuality played an important part in developing an understanding of sexuality in specific social and cultural contexts. Foucault’s work on sexuality is perhaps the most famous, offering as he did a history discourse about sexuality in the Western world.
Scholars are paying renewed attention to what a study of sexuality reveals about society more generally. Such a study is inevitably also a study of deep-rooted cultural beliefs and social practices.
Why is this relevant to South Africa today?
Sex is a barometer of social change. Power struggles and political conflicts around matters of sexuality often reveal wider social anxieties. In South Africa, issues such as gender-based violence and responses to HIV/Aids are examples. HIV/Aids has given a new urgency to the study of sexuality. Social scientists are asking: What are the cultural ideas and meanings associated with sex?
South Africa is uniquely placed in the region because of its positive stance on sexual orientation. The homophobic rhetoric heard in the region is in stark contrast to our Constitution.
What does the course contain?
It begins with an introduction to the history of the study of sexuality — looking at both global and local trends. We look closely at some of the more important developments in the study of sexuality, including sexology.
The theory of sexuality component encompasses a wide range of prominent authors from Freud to Foucault. The contributions of queer theory and feminist studies are also dealt with.
We try to provide a balance between theory and empirical work, so we have included a lot of case studies and ethnographies from various parts of the world. We would also like the course to be varied, fun and stimulating — we have included films and a ‘bedside reading” component alongside the more standard academic readings.