Over the past few decades, various feminist movements as well as the more recent movements in queer politics have fought for access to rights for marginalized individuals. The strides that have been made toward visibility and sexual freedom have not only been important for individuals within these groups, but have the potential to benefit all individuals. Cultural norms around sexuality do not only affect those who identify outside of the mainstream, but every individual regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identification. Strict guidelines for sexual behavior that a given culture mandates can prohibit exploration, inhibiting many from experiencing their fullest expression of sexual identity. This is a phenomenon that for many is difficult to perceive from within cultural confines, but can perhaps be understood more clearly by comparing and contrasting sexual practices across various times and locations.
Depending on someone’s cultural identification or indoctrination, an individual might have a strikingly different attitude toward sexuality than someone else of another age group, religious or political affiliation, or gender, or residing in another city, country, or time period. A given culture’s sexual norms influence the perception of sexual practices as natural or unnatural, and certain sexual interests might be endorsed while others might be censured1. Through common understandings and shared beliefs, ideas about sexuality are socially constructed and collectively reinforced through cultural standards2.
The concept of social constructionism gives us a means to understand the way attitudes and beliefs about sexuality diverge and fluctuate over time and across distance2. When observing a particular culture’s sexuality through a social constructionist lens, it is important to take cultural relativity into account; i.e., to try and understand an individual’s behaviors and beliefs in terms of the cultural group(s) they are a part of, rather than view it through the filter of one’s own cultural perspectives, and run the risk of applying judgment or assigning values that may not apply to the culture in question3.
The shifting behaviors and beliefs surrounding male sexuality provides a rich arena for such an exploration, one that might be a morally discordant mine field without the lens of cultural relativity. Around the world there are widely varying means of sexual development and expression among males; for example, the Mangaia in the Cook Islands teach sexual proficiency to adolescents, are expected to be sexually prolific prior to marriage, and experience a decline in sexual desire in early adulthood, while the Dani in western New Guinea confine sexual activity to reproduction, and abstain from sex for five years following childbirth1. Young Sambian males in Papua New Guinea begin by being sexually active with older males and ingesting semen as a means of sexual mentorship and development, then incorporate sexual activity with females in adolescence, then become exclusively sexually active with females in adulthood1. In ancient Greece, sex between males was lauded, and sexual gratification was sought either with males of the same age, with adolescent males, or female prostitutes or slaves; when males were sexually active with their wives it was primarily for procreation1. These practices might seem questionable to those of us who have an understanding based in Western culture about how sexuality should be learned and expressed, just as our way of experiencing sexuality might seem equally as foreign to the cultures mentioned above.
Different points in time have an effect on collective views of sexuality as well. For example, Victorian America was similar to ancient Greece in the portrayal of females as being all but devoid of their own sexuality. Overtly sexually active females were pathologized, while males were portrayed as constantly sexually voracious1. Beginning in the 1960s in America, the sexual revolution became a platform for critiquing and deconstructing unfounded historical social constructs of sexuality and gender roles1. Though there has been considerable progress, Western culture remains confined by traditional definitions of sexuality4.
What tends to link most cultures in terms of sexuality is reproduction2,1. Furthermore, in much of modern history, sexual activity unrelated to reproduction (e.g., oral and anal sex, same-sex interactions) has been illegal and severely punishable5; for example, sodomy currently remains against the law in 12 American states, despite being overturned nationwide by the Supreme Court in 2003. The American hierarchy of sexual bodies and behaviors continues to be phallocentric, i.e., focused on the penis as the most important sexual body part, and the penetration of the vagina by the penis as the most important sexual act2. Using the lens of cultural relativity, it is possible to understand this persisting perspective as a result of predominant social forces. There are individuals who acknowledge that sex can be about reproduction, but also about power and control, expressing love, or a rite of passage2. However, males continue to be sexually socialized in a way that promotes patriarchy by discouraging non-mainstream male sexual behavior, which is reinforced with the threat of violence,4,6.
Anti-sodomy laws are typically thought to be homophobic, because male receptive anal sex is regarded as a homosexual act, and mainstream male sexual socialization requires that males engage in heterosexual acts4. This tendency to assign this particular act to specific sexual orientations regardless of the genders involved distorts and conflates the very individual meanings of gender identification and sexual orientation. In all genders, most of the sexual pleasure during anal sex is derived from nerve endings in the external and internal anal sphincters (though males have additional potential for pleasure on and around the prostate)1. Though a male may have the potential for pleasure from receptive anal sex, this does not mean he will be able to experience pleasure with another male in the insertive role. American culture has constructed a nearly impenetrable perspective against heterosexual males who enjoy receptive anal sex, and as a result there remains an egregious gap in the discussion and understanding of male sexuality7.
An example of this resistance can be found in the appropriation of the term “pegging”—which was arguably first used by the earliest known writer of literature, Enheduanna, a woman who wrote poems begging the Goddess Inanna to “peg” her vulva4. Today the word “pegging” is used to refer to males who are anally penetrated by females7, coined in 2001 via a contest held by author Dan Savage to make up for the lack of a specific term. The creation of a new term for the act of receptive anal intercourse that separates heterosexual males from females and non-heterosexual males raises interesting questions about the need to compartmentalize sexuality. For example, it is interesting to consider whether this cognitive separation is indicative of internalized homophobia and heterosexism, and a desire to dissociate from atypical, gender role violating acts2,8,9. Using the term pegging to refer to an act enjoyable by individuals of any gender identification and sexual orientation seems to unnecessarily gender the act of anal sex, and desexualize it by making it sound less erotic, in effect further pathologizing the act.
While society has traditionally protected the boundaries created by a strict definition of heterosexuality, the current movement toward sexual freedom is not necessarily looking to dismantle boundaries or blur identifications. Instead, the goal of most sexual rights advocates is to increase tolerance and celebrate diversity within and among identifications, and to promote self-actualization10. In taking a closer look at atypical heterosexual male behavior outside of current cultural constraints, there exists the potential to reconceptualize heterosexuality, which could contribute to a shift in power inequalities, and to the slow but imperative process of dismantling heterosexism and misogyny9,11,12. The bottom line is that encouraging acceptance of heterosexual males who are anally receptive could very well be a means of entry into dismantling the sexual repression that is inherent in patriarchy, and an important component of promoting sexual freedom regardless of identification.
_____________
1 Yarber, W. L. & Sayad, B. W. (2013). Human sexuality: Diversity in contemporary America (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN-978-0-07-803531-9.
2 Seidman, S., Fisher, N., & Meeks, C. (2011). Introducing the new sexuality studies (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
3 Mcauliffe, G. J., Grothaus, T., Jensen, M., & Michel, R. (2012). Assessing and promoting cultural relativism in students of counseling. International Journal for the Advancement of Counseling, 34(2), 118-135. doi: 10.1007/s10447-011-9142-4
4 Crane, B. & Crane-Seeber, J. (2003). Four boxes of gendered sexuality: Good girl/bad girl and tough guy/sweet guy. In R. Heasley & B. Crane, (Eds.), Sexual lives: A reader on the theories and realities of human sexualities (pp. 196-217). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
5 Lehmiller, J. J. (2013). The psychology of human sexuality. West Sussex, UK: Wiley. Kindle Edition.
6 Heasley, R. (2005). Queer masculinities of straight men: A typology. Men and Masculinities, 7(3), 310-320. doi:10.1177/1097184X04272118
7 Glickman, C. & Emirzian, A. (2013). The ultimate guide to prostate pleasure: Erotic exploration for men and their partners. Berkeley, CA: Cleis Press. Kindle Edition.
8 Ayres, I. & Leudeman, R. (2013). Tops, bottoms, and versatiles: What straight views of penetrative preferences could mean for sexuality claims under Price Waterhouse. The Yale Law Journal, 123(3), 714–768.
9 O’Rourke, M. (2005). On the eve of a queer-straight future: Notes toward an antinormative heteroerotic. Feminism and Psychology, 15(1), 111–116. doi: 10.1177/0959-353505049713
10 Johnson, P. (2004). Haunting heterosexuality: The homo/het binary and intimate love. Sexualities 7(2), 183–200. doi: 10.1177/1363460704042163
11 Hill DB (2007) ‘Feminine’ heterosexual men: Subverting patriarchal scripts? The Journal of Men’s Studies 14(2): 145–159.
12 Hollows, K. (2007). Anodyspareunia: A novel sexual dysfunction? An exploration into anal sexuality. Sexual and Relationship Therapy 22(4), 429–443. doi: 10.1080/14681990701481409
*****