Sociology Now, Census Update

OF ALL OUR EXPERIENCES, sex may be the most private. One common synonym is “inti-

macy,” which gives you a pretty good idea of how private we think it is. We rarely discuss

our sexual experiences honestly with family and friends. We consider our drives and desires

to be irrational, out-of-control impulses, anarchic and unruly. Many of our desires we con-

sider too shameful to even utter.

And yet sex is everywhere we look. We are constantly bombarded with sexual images.

Advertisers work from the motto “sex sells.” References to sex and the sexual body are sprin-

kled liberally through our daily conversations. Sex is online, in books and magazines, on TV,

and in movies and music.

We think of our sexual identity as fixed and permanent, something we are, not some-

thing we become. It’s a biological drive; something in our bodies just takes over, and we can

barely control it.

And yet we worry about gay or

lesbian teachers luring unsuspecting

heterosexual children toward a

“homosexual lifestyle.” We offer

therapies of various kinds to help gays and lesbians “convert” to heterosexuality.

Sex is as private and individual, and sex is everywhere we look. Sexuality is fixed at

birth, and we can change our sexual orientation by learning a new one. Well, which is it?

To the sociologist, sex is both. It’s private and public. Sex is a central part of our iden-

tity and it evolves and changes

over the course of our lives.

What we desire, what we do,

and what we think about what

we do are all social. What we

learn is sexy other cultures

might find disgusting—and we

might find what they do a turnoff as well. We learn sex in our culture—how to do it, why,

with whom, and in what ways. It turns out that there are few things in our lives that are

moresocial than sex.

Sexuality

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Sex is a central part of our identity and

it evolves and changes over the course

of our lives.... It turns out that there

are few things moresocial than sex.