Men who have sex with women worry about whether their partners are sexually
satisfied, and they get along relatively well. They have higher birth rates, which is
manageable because they live in a relatively abundant and uncultivated region,
where they can use all the hands they can get to farm their fields and defend
themselves.
American sexual behavior looks something like this: Take the typical American cou-
ple, Mr. and Mrs. Statistical Average. They’re White, middle-aged, heterosexual, and mar-
ried. They have sex once or twice a week, at night, in their bedroom, alone,
with the lights off, in the “missionary position”—the woman on her back,
facing the man who lies on top of her. The encounter—from the “do you
want to?” to kissing, foreplay, and intercourse (always in that order) and
finally to “Goodnight, sweetheart”—lasts about 15 minutes.
Now consider other cultures: Some cultures never have sex outside.
Others believe that having sex indoors would contaminate the food sup-
ply because they live in one large room. Some cultures have sex two or
three times a night, others perhaps once a month—or less. Some cultures
practice almost no foreplay at all but go directly to intercourse; others
prescribe several hours of touching and caressing, in which intercourse is
a necessary but sad end to the proceedings.
While for us, kissing is a virtually universal initiation of sexual con-
tact—“first base,” as it is often known—other cultures find it disgusting
because of the possibility of exchanging saliva. “Putting your lips
together?” say the Siriono of the Brazilian Amazon. “But that’s where you
put food!”
Among heterosexuals in our culture, men are supposed to be the
sexual initiators, and women are supposed to be sexually resistant.
We’ve all heard stories about men giving women aphrodisiacs to make
them more sexually uninhibited. How different are the Trobriand
Islanders, where women are seen as sexually insatiable and take the ini-
tiative in heterosexual relations. Or a culture in Brazil where the women
commit adultery, not men, but they justify it by saying that it was “only
sex.” The men in that culture secretly give the women anaphrodisiacs
to reduce their sexual ardor. These are but a few examples. When ques-
tioned about them, people in these cultures give the same answers we
would. “It’s normal,” they’ll say. And they’ve developed the same kind
of self-justifying arguments that we have. Sexual norms can take many
forms, but none is more “natural” than any other.
Sexual behavior can occur between people of the same gender or
different genders, alone or in groups. It can be motivated by love or lust,
money or reproduction, anger, passion, stress, or boredom. For exam-
ple, some cultures forbid same-sex behavior and endorse only sexual
activity between men and women. Some cultures develop elaborate rituals to credit
the behaviors the culture endorses and to discredit those of which it disapproves.
Same-sex activity is treated differently from culture to culture (Figure 10.2).
In 1948, anthropologist Clyde Kluckohn surveyed North American Indian tribes and
found same-sex behavior accepted in 120 of them and forbidden in 54 (this is not
to say that it did not occur; it was simply considered bad or wrong). In the West,
same-sex marriage has become legal only recently, but some traditional cultures
(Lango in East Africa, Koniag in Alaska, and Tanala in Madagascar) have permit-
ted it for thousands of years.
In a number of cultures, relations between two men or two women are privileged
as better, higher, and more spiritual—or at least different—than relations between a man
STUDYING SEXUALITY: BODIES, BEHAVIORS, AND IDENTITIES 319Despite a 2003 Supreme Court decision
declaring them unconstitutional, sodomy
laws are still on the books in 13 states
and the U.S. military. Some laws specify
behaviors, but usually they just outlaw “the
crime against nature” and assume that
you’ll figure out that it means any behavior
that cannot result in a pregnancy. Three
states still forbid the “crime against nature”
only for same-sex partners, but the others
forbid it for anyone, including heterosexuals
(even married heterosexuals). Jail terms
range from 60 days (Florida) to 10 years
(Oklahoma, gay people only). But the
harshest sentence in America is in Idaho:
The crime against nature can get you life
in prison (American Civil Liberties Union,
2007). Globally, sodomy is only illegal in
most of Africa and parts of the Middle
East and Asia Pacific; it is punishable by
death in Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan, as well as the United Arab
Emirates, Yemen, Iran, and Saudi Arabia
(International Lesbian and Gay Association,
2006). Because the military is unaffected
by the Supreme Court decision, sodomy
remains illegal for all U.S. military service
members.Didyouknow