Posted on 04/20/2006 11:57:34 AM PDT by DBeers
More than 100 leading sex researchers and students from a broad range of disciplines gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico in late March for "States of Sexuality," a three-day summit held to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Sexuality Research Fellowship Program.
The program, sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and funded in part by the Ford Foundation, has provided support for more than 200 fellows and claims to have "cultivated new generations of scholars who address the complex nature of human sexuality and make contributions to a more thorough understanding of human sexuality."
A highlight of the meeting was a plenary panel on March 31 looking at the future of the sex research field. During a conference call with reporters, four prominent researchers "gazed into the crystal ball" to project what sex research would look like in the year 2016.
"The need for sexuality studies will become even more urgent," predicted George Chauncey, director of the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project at the University of Chicago.
"We have seen the kind of role scholarship can play in informing judges and other public policymakers," he said, noting his own involvement as a historical expert in recent U.S. Supreme Court cases including Romer v. Evans (Colorado's Amendment 2) and Lawrence v. Texas. "The court cases show the degree to which the Christian right depends on ignorance of the history of gay and lesbian lives and experiences."
Chauncey added that the increased visibility of transgender issues has been "a striking development in the past 10 years," along with "young peoples growing sense that they can transform their gender."
Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington who has written numerous books including Everything You Know About Love and Sex is Wrong, agreed that notions of gender and sexuality had become more fluid. "There's been an extraordinary change among the youth of this country," she said. "They are no longer tied to sexual identity."
But, she wondered, is this a fad? Will young people desire more labels as they grow older? Even if so, she suggested, "It's good to have a nice flexible beginning. There's no need to fear that there will be no more sexual identities some people will always want these. There always will be a politics of identity, but it might have a little more leeway, and I think that's a good thing."
Schwartz foresees more study of intimate relationships, both homosexual and heterosexual. Other issues she thinks will occupy sex researchers in the coming years include more global understandings of sexuality, changing norms of monogamy, and the sex lives of the aging "baby boom" generation.
Kinsey Institute director Julia Heiman added a few more themes for the future: pharmaceutical interventions beyond Viagra; the effects of environmental toxins on anatomy, physiology, and fertility; tolerance for sexual violence in a nation at war; and the impact of new technology such as the potential ability to create virtual partners in cyberspace on in-person relationships.
All four panelists agreed that the current cultural debates about issues related to sex and sexuality will not abate anytime soon.
"A religious vision of sexuality arose, like a phoenix rising from the ashes," in reaction to the changes of the 1970s, said John Gagnon, professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. "My sense is that we are engaged in a struggle for what kind of place the U.S. is going to be in terms of sex, gender, and reproductive rights. The cutting edge of the religious movement has a vision of what a good America is. This is opposed by many other people who see it as a place of choice and diversity ... neither side is going to give up."
Chauncey added that the current debates over same-sex marriage are only the most recent in a series of struggles prompted by broad social transformations including feminism, gay rights, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He said he hoped researchers would devote "more attention to religious and faith-based understandings of sexuality," since this is "one area where we see fundamental conflicts playing out in society."
But in terms of LGBT issues, he said, "I am fairly optimistic. A new generation is growing up that has seen gay people treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. Polls show people ages 18-30 are four times more likely to support gay marriage than their grandparents. This is why the right is working so vociferously, trying to subvert the democratic process by shutting down debate."
"There are strong lobbies [on both sides] trying to determine what people's sex lives will look like," Schwarz concurred. "Sex researchers really want to be on the side of information, individual choices, and sex as a positive aspect of people's lives."
"We have seen the kind of role scholarship can play in informing judges and other public policymakers," he said, noting his own involvement as a historical expert in recent U.S. Supreme Court cases including Romer v. Evans (Colorado's Amendment 2) and Lawrence v. Texas. "The court cases show the degree to which the Christian right depends on ignorance of the history of gay and lesbian lives and experiences."
Scholarship? More like junk science premised propaganda financed by the Ford Foundation!
Another one for the BIZARRO file... ROTFLMAO
"hey babe-ee I'm a sex researcher"
This is the ultimate irony. Sexuality and parenthood are inextricably linked; two sides of a single coin.
For those who, by definition, can never be parents in the normal natural sense, for them to discuss "sexuality" is, well... mind-boggling.
Tolerance is one thing, and was the only goal early on for the deviants.
For them to continue pretending that they are as normal as heterosexuals, the other 97% of human beings is... well, also mind-boggling. I suppose we can no longer assume we can ignore them and they will go away? The "muslims" of human sexuality?
Yes. Today, teenagers use the words "gay/homosexual/fagot" to represent things that are weird, ugly, distasteful, or dysfunctional. If you call a fellow student "gay", you'll pay for it. It's one of the worst thing you can call them.
There are a few social losers who refer to themselves as "gay" occupying space in the schools who think being queer is still cool, but their days are numbered. They're quickly becoming freaks in the eyes of normal school kids.
This is a good thing, and parents have to keep working toward it until "gay" is as bad as smoking. Both are just as deadly, even though one destroys from the top and the other through the bottom.
Sheesh.............How in the Sam Hill did our ancestors ever survive and have children without sex researches telling them what to do?
How did our ancestors figure out the mysteries of sex? How did they figure out how to make it all work? They must have since we were all conceived and born. They did figure things out.
It's either butt covering chastity belts for kids or school choice. Choose thou.
No, they cannot transform their gender.
They might be able to transform their sense of gender but not their gender.
The homosexuals will ALWAYS be trying to indoctrinate the children, because adults won't stand for it
Where there's innocent kids, you'll find homosexuals.
Hence the expression: Prick up your ears.
A "sexy" ping.
I guess you can get funding for anything these days!
There are FAR more heterosexual child molesters than otherwise, so one could easily say "Where there's innocent kids, you'll find heterosexuals."
Your logic.
I'd love to be a "sex researcher." Can you just imagine the lab work?
I wonder which NAMBLA member it belonged to.
Just don't go there.
I disagree. Not only are the homosexuals where the children are, but they're demanding the legal right to easy access to them - in the name of tolerance , of course. Heterosexuals aren't out there waving flags are screamimg "let us in" like the homosexuals. The queers are blatant about their agenda.
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