Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
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D Pilbeam (1970) The Evolution of Man. Thames and Hudson, London
Sexual behaviour is sexually dimorphic, in the sense that certain activities are typical of one sex, rather than the other…..However, use of the term sexually dimorphic behaviour does not imply that a pattern occurs exclusively in one sex…..In monkeys and apes both sexes may employ hindquarter presentation and mounting postures as part of sociosexual communication. Such heterotypical behaviour has been described in many vertebrates. Sexual dimorphism in behaviour is a question of degree, therefore, rather than absolute differences between males and females.
Alan F Dixson (19998) Primate Sexuality. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[There is] a substantial body of evidence for the role(s) played by
“biological” or “inborn” forces directing
erotic interest to males or females and promoting the conviction that
one is a man or a woman. Some writers, identified as social
constructionists, ignore these “biological”
influences and cite, to the exclusion of the biological, socialization
experiences and massive cultural influences that impact on psychosexual
development. Biological reductionists, in contrast, ignore
socialization and cultural energy.People are not solely walking containers of DNA and sex steroid molecules. Nor are they solely cultural blotters. A balanced view must be seen.
R Green (2002) Sexual identity and sexual orientation. In: Hormones, Brain And Behavior. Vol 4 pp 463-485 Elsevier Science Press, New York.
The enlarged brain that accompanied the transformation of the simple forest-dweller into a co-operative hunter began to busy itself with technological improvements. The simple tribal dwelling places became great towns and cities. The axe age blossomed into the space age. But what effect did the acquisition of all this gloss and glitter have on the sexual system of the species? Very little, seems to be the answer.
Desmond Morris (1967) The Naked Ape. Jonathan Cape, London.
Perhaps the characteristic of human sexuality which sets it most clearly apart from that of most animals is its relative separation from reproduction. Sex has obviously come to play a much wider sociobiological function than the production of offspring…..If human sexuality has a wider function than in most other species, it is because there are fewer biological constraints. Hence the need for social constraints.
J Bancroft (1989) Human Sexuality And Its Problems. Churchill Livingstone. Edinburgh.
There was a boy in Alabama, I think, they raised never to see a girl till he was twenty-one – they was kind of ‘xperimenting. He was raised by mens. So when he was twenty-one his daddy carried him to where the high school children would pass by……And he seen them from the windows coming along so pretty, with their ribbons and long hair…..,and smiling and playing. And he said, ‘Daddy, Daddy, come here. Looky looky, what are those?’ ‘Those are ducks.’ Give me one, Daddy.’ ‘Which one do you want?’ ‘It don’t make no difference, Daddy, any one.’
So it’s better to let them grow up with each other, so they can pick a little.
Angela Carter (editor) (1991) The Boy Who Had Never Seen Women. The Virago book of fairy tales. Virago , London.
Three girls pile out of the train and clack down the icy stairs. Three waiting men greet them and they all pair off. It is biting cold. The girls have red lips and their legs whisper to each other through silk stockings. The red lips and the silk flash power. A power they will exchange for the right to be overcome, penetrated. The men
at their side love it because, in the end, they will reach in, get
back behind that power, grab it, and keep it still. Toni Morrison (1992) Jazz. Chatto and Windus, London.
It is customary in this age to attribute a comprehensive and quite unanalysed causality to the ‘sexual urges’. These obscure forces, sometimes thought of as particular historical springs, sometimes as more general and universal destinies, are credited with the power to make of us, delinquents, neurotics, lunatics, fanatics, martyrs, heroes, saints, or more exceptionally, integrated fathers, fulfilled mothers, placid human animals, and the like.
Iris Murdoch (1973) The Black Prince. Chatto and Windus, London
Of course Freud’s immediate reception in America was not auspicious. A few professional alienists [psychiatrists] understood his importance, but to most of the public he appeared as some kind of German sexologist, an exponent of free love who used big words to talk about dirty things. At least a decade would pass before Freud would have his revenge and see his ideas begin to destroy sex in America forever.
E L Doctorow (1976) Ragtime. Pan Books, London
Men who returned home, having evaded capture or been released early from prison camps, seem to have frozen emotionally on hearing that their wife or fiancee had been raped in their absence. ….They found the idea of the violation of their women very hard to accept. ….[An] anonymous diarist recounted to her former lover…the experiences which the inhabitants of the building had survived. ‘You’ve turned into shameless bitches,’ he burst out. ‘Every one of you. I can’t bear to listen to these stories…’ She then gave him her diary to read….. when he found that she had written about being raped….He left a couple of days later, saying he was off to search for food. She never saw him again..
Antony Beevor (2002) Berlin. The Downfall 1945. Viking Books, London.