WOMEN’S BODIES: WHAT IS SEXUALITY?
When I asked a group of medical students this question a number of years ago, there was such a variety of answers that we decided to look the word up in the dictionary. It wasn’t there (The Concise Oxford Dictionary, published mid-1960s)! Yes, sexuality is a term that has slipped into common use only during the past 30 or so years. Many people still seem uncertain of its exact meaning. This isn’t surprising: newer dictionaries include the word but still define it vaguely.
My newest Macquarie Dictionary gives the meanings ’1. sexual character; possession of sex. 2.
the recognition or emphasising of sexual matters’. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary adds ‘possession of sexual powers, or capability of sexual feelings’. Still unsure? So am I. Let’s assume that, in this book, sexuality means sexual character: everything about a person’s body, thoughts and actions that expresses the fact that she or he is a sexual person.
Sex and society
During the past 40 years we have seen dramatic changes in how society views sexuality. Research into sexual function in the 1950s; the advent of the Pill, the women’s movement and gay liberation in the 1960s; the demise of sexual censorship; acceptance of single parents and the rise of casual sex in the 1970s; the AIDS scare in the 1980s; changes in sex-role stereotypes: these are just some of the things that have led to the great shake-up.
Openness about sex
If you were born after about 1955, it may be hard for you to grasp just how different things were when your parents were young. Open discussion of anything to do with sex was totally taboo. Private conversations were mainly embarrassed pleas for information or the sharing of smutty jokes. It was very difficult to find information about contraception or sex and those who looked for it were generally considered prurient. Any information available was usually inadequate, inaccurate, biased and presented in confusingly veiled language. Little wonder there are so many enduring myths about sex.
How things have changed! The first issue of CLEO magazine, published in November 1972, contained (as well as the usual stuff on dieting and fashion) articles about how to keep a sexy household, how to give your man a massage, contraception, the pros and cons of living together (rather than marrying), life insurance for women, ‘Men are Proper Bastards’ and a centrefold of Jack Thompson nude (genitals coyly concealed). These things are in a women’s magazine? Outrage and uproar! Needless to say, the issue was a sellout. Twice as many copies were printed the next month, and also sold out.
Today most general magazines for women, men and adolescents feature sex. Even the traditional women’s magazines contain articles (decorous of course) on sexual matters, and Mills & Boon have opened the bedroom door, though just a chink. My local newsagent has a whole rack of ‘girly’ magazines that would surely bring blushes to the cheeks of readers of the mild (though audacious in its time) MAN magazine of the 40s, which at most printed drawings (no photographs!) of women showing a bit of leg and cleavage.
In radio, television and film there are just about no holds barred when it comes to sexual matters. There have been radio and TV sex programmes. Most ‘soapies’ include a sexual crisis in every episode. However, broadcasting of language or images of an ‘explicitly sexual nature’ is usually preceded by a warning, so you have a choice.
No doubt the greater openness is generally for the better, but not all the changes are welcome. Many people are disturbed or affronted by open discussion of sexual matters in the media. Less censorship has given us ‘blue’ films and videos and a mass of pornographic literature that portray sex as violent, degrading or mechanical, which are hardly beneficial.
*87/31/5*
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