SOC 345 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Social Constructionism, Heterosexuality, Essentialism
Document Summary
Social constructionism - key ideas (text, xi) the idea of nature is used both to help us understand sexualities and to serve as a standard of sexual morality. If heterosexuality is natural then homosexuality is unnatural. Homosexuality went from sodomy to deviant individual identity, to positive social identity. Once something is identified as natural it can be used to built an hierarchy. Hierarchy - a system/organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. Padgug states that sex is not a thing . Heterosexuality is an institution because society is organized around heterosexuality. Compare this to the church as an institution, society"s behaviors, laws, norms are based off of rules from the church. Using fear as a response to manipulate society as a scapegoat for real issues. Many politicians can use fear of, almost unimportant things to avoid addressing the real issues.
