Historical perspectives on Female Sexuality

I Changing paradigms in the control of women's bodies

a. Medical views on female passionlessness (early 19th century)
b. Early 19th century attitudes towards women's relationships
C. Rise of sexology
d. The heterosexualization of women: 1920s
e. Emergence of a lesbian identity

II Sexual politics in the first wave of feminism (1860s-1920s)

a. Significance of prostitution
b. Challenges to double standard
c. Feminist social purity?
d. Age of consent and incest legislation
e. Beginning of birth control campaign

questions:

1. *If* sexuality can be theorized and historicized, *if* we can talk about sexuality being constructed (in much the same way that we've discussed gender being constructed) -- how might you describe your own sexuality? What factors have shaped it? What influences? How might *this* historical moment be a factor? Be sure to think about gender, race, class, disabilities etc.. here, too. If you don't think your sexuality is constructed through outside forces, what is your argument?

2. what does it mean to say that only with the emergence of a lesbian identity can one speak of a heterosexual identity?

3. Have there always been lesbians? If not, how was love and or sex between women conceptualized?

4. Vicinus quotes: "Each society seems to have a limited range of potential storylines for its sexual scripts.... it may be that we're all acting out scripts -- but most of us seem to be typecast. to paraphrase Marx, people make their own identities, but they do not make them just as they please" Can you give some concrete examples? Do you ever feel you're typecast in terms of your sexuality?

5. Do you think that the heterosexual revolution of the 1920s was liberating for women, or not?