Sexuality

One’s personality traits related to being masculine or feminine.

All aspects of a person’s life related to sex, including physical and psychological development, as well as sexual thoughts, fantasy, behavior and activity, attitudes, relationships, gender identity, selection of partners, and reproduction. Sexuality changes throughout life.

The state of having sex; the collective characteristics that mark the differences between the male and the female.

In common usage, the term describing the capacity of humans for sexual behavior, but also used by sociologists in two other ways: either as all those attributes connected with sexual activity appearance, level, desires, roles or as a preference for different forms of sexual activity. This second sociological usage is now becoming common. A version of the nature- nurture debate centers on sexuality: Is a person’s sexuality biologically or socially determined? Sociologists stress that society’s rules for sexual behavior are just that social rules and they point out that what is acceptable in one country, or at one period in history, is unacceptable in another. What was regarded as sexually attractive in Regency or Victorian England is not so today. What are sexually attractive features in a tribe in central Africa or New Guinea are not in Hollywood. Sexual attractiveness in both men and women varies enormously in different cultures and at different times within the same culture.

The current concerns in the West about sexuality are largely focused on homosexuality. Should gays and lesbians be regarded as a normal sexual subculture, tolerated and not penalized in any way? Should gays and lesbians be allowed in the military? Or in the church? Are their practices forbidden by holy writ? Should there be legislation authorizing the legal marriage of homosexual couples, male or female? Although Western countries have become much more tolerant during the 20th century homosexuality is no longer a crime these matters are far from settled.