HISTSEX ARCHIVES: 19-30 April 2000
© Lesley Hall and list contributors
NB During this month there were various server problems, thus the chronological sequence is not consistent and some messages may appear twice.
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 22:13:40 +0100
The main reason I offered some defence of the biological model vis-a-vis
rape, is because Chris White --provocatively signing herself "an inveterate
cultural materialist/social constructionist" -- asked a question which I
think merited a negative answer. She suggested that "if it is possible to
locate such a phenomenon as a female rapist, . . . might it strengthen the
cultural conditioning claims, over and above any biological element"? No, I
don't think so.
Let me clarify, as I think Chris misunderstood my point. (1) A feminine
female heterosexual rapist probably *would* support the constructionist
model. (2) However, one of the features of the biological model is that
homosexual women have biological characteristics of men (such as
male-pattern finger length), namely (in many studies) they have
characteristics typically created by largish amounts of androgen in the
womb [I'm oversimplifying these studies]. It therefore follows, that if most
of the "female rapists" one can cite are lesbians who follow masculine
patterns of behaviour or women with biological masculine characteristics,
then this data would support the biological model rather than the
constructionist model. (3) The data, modern and historical, suggest that
"the female rapist" is typically either a lesbian or a noticeably masculine
female. (4) I did not mean to suggest that lesbians were biologically
conditioned to be violent, but that, according to the biological model, they
were biologically conditioned to follow male patterns of behaviour. (I
acknowledge that they are also *culturally* conditioned to follow male
patterns of behaviour: here is one instance in which the biological and
constructionist model agree with one another! I mentioned the cases of Linck
and Lister because they seem to have involved biological factors as well as
male behaviour.)
Chris makes the valid point that rape (in many cultures, particularly
Western cultures) is defined as penetration and cannot legally occur without
a penis. But this is true mainly in the higher reaches of legal discourse.
In actual trials, assault is the primary feature of the case, and if women
committed assault in which sex was present, they could still be prosecuted
for assault even though they could not be prosecuted for rape. And the trial
records would show, even if the charge was assault rather than rape, whether
or not some sexual element were present. I mentioned the case of prostitutes
assaulting their punters in order to steal their money. The fact that these
women were not charged with rape reflects the fact that they did not commit
rape, not the inability of the law to define their action as penetration! In
a similar way, men charged with sodomy, which requires anal penetration,
were regularly acquitted of sodomy because penetration could not be proved;
they were then charged with "sodomitical practices" which in some
circumstances could involve only kissing or dressing up like a woman. In
other words, the trial records will reveal a wide range of non-penetrative
sexual data despite the fact that the law says that sodomy equals anal
penetration full stop. Court records (and magistrates' records of
investigations that preceed trials) are full of data that is not directly
linked to strict legal definitions. Eighteenth-century English trial records
contain virtually no data about women engaging in violent behaviour
connected with sexual aggression. It seems to be a male thing.
If a youngish child were sexually assaulted by a female, this would almost
certainly result in a complaint for assault, and reach a stage of indictment
if not conviction, regardless of the legal definition of rape. Such cases
are not recorded in 18th-cent. English records. It would also probably be
reported in the newspapers, but I have found no such cases. Women on
occasion were in fact with brutal or cruel treatment of their children or
young servants. If a sexual element was present in this abuse, it would
certainly have been mentioned, but I have not noticed it. The specifically
*sexual* element in abuse of the young seems to be a male thing.
If a man were sexually assaulted by a female, I can almost guarantee you
that this would come to the attention at least of the newspapers. There is a
tremendous amount of data about different forms of violence recorded in
18th-cent newspapers, and a tremendous amount of data about titillating and
sensational occurrences (that never got to the courts). Even if people
thought it terribly funny rather than illegal for a man to be sexually
assaulted by a woman, instances would certainly be reported in the
newspapers. (At least if it occurred in semi-public, as did a very great
deal of sexual behaviour in the 18th cent.). But I have found no such cases.
For the newspapers from 1710 to 1730 (which I've been going through this
month) I've noticed literally hundreds of cases of women murdering their
bastard newborn infants, hundreds of cases of men sexually assaulting
(young) women, scores of cases of women murdering their husbands (and rather
less of men murdering their wives), and hundreds of cases of women being
violent in the context of theft. But I have found no cases of female sexual
assault in these newspapers. In other words, historical data shows many
women
who are violent despite cultural constructs, but hardly any women who are
specifically *sexually* violent despite cultural constructs. This suggests
to me that *non-cultural* factors are probably more important for the
phenomena of *sexual* violence.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 21:20:29 +1000
From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@history.usyd.edu.au>
Subject: Re: pornography: Hera's discussion of modern pornography
Hi,
Thanks for the thoughtful response - I don't have time right now but I will
respond to this eventually.
regards,
Hera
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 12:25:49 -0500
From: David Nicholas Harley <David.N.Harley.4@nd.edu>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
>Tim wrote:
>>To suggest that men are culturally conditioned (rather than biologically
>>conditioned) to commit rape would have to ignore the overwhelming evidence
>>that among mammals and primates, aggressive violence is a significant factor
>>in male sexuality rather than female sexuality.
Chris Dummitt wrote:
>I can't claim to be an expert on mammal and primate behaviour but it is
>interesting to note that when the socio-biologist wrote in to comment on
>this discussion, she claimed that rape is in fact rare among most primates.
David Harley comments:
One of the advantages of being a sociobiologist or an evolutionary
psychologist is that you get to pick your own examples. How often have we
heard humans compared to chimpanzees, when the author or speaker wishes to
stress the instinctive nature of aggression. However, the testes size and
social organization of chimps are not very similar to humans. The bonobo
would make a far closer analogue, and very different conclusions would be
drawn about what might be innate in humans. In effect, these groups of
scientists license themselves to select some human characteristic which
they wish to explain, or even justify, and then they pick their species to
allow them to tell precisely the Just So story that they want to tell.
This is the return of natural theology, under the guise of biological
determinism.
David Harley,
Dept. of History,
University of Notre Dame,
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
tel.: 219-631-7789
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 20:34:34 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
As noted in a previous posting, Chris accidentally
misidentified me as the author of these words. The author
was responding to my earlier post, which was something of a
polemic *against* sociobiological interpretation. ;)
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
On Wed, 19 Apr 2000, Dar Weyenberg wrote:
> Hello Tim
> I am curvious how you are using "sex/gender" in the your statement (below).
> >
> >Tim wrote:
> >.....
> ........
> > Since the rape-like patterns
> >>of sexual behaviour that male mammals and primates practise are instinctual
> >>rather than culturally learned, it's hard to see why cultural conditioning
> >>would be the overriding factor for the virtually identical kind of behaviour
> >>in human males (and not present to a significant degree in human females).
> >>To say that men are brutes by nature may be to overstate the case, but there
> >>really is no scientific doubt that sexually dimorphic factors such as
> >>hormones play an important role in sexuality as well as sex/gender, and that
> >>hormones are biologically inherited, not socially constructed.
> >..........
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 08:52:53 +0100
Chris White writes:
>So do we all give up and go home now? If men are 'naturally' (hormonally,
>whatever) rapists, what justification is there for not killing them all,
>keeping their sperm, and annihilating all male progeny? There may be no
>scientific doubt, but that was equally true of humeral theory, the sun
>orbiting round the sun etc etc. To what extent do scientists (and every
other
>breed of student) only find the answers to the questions they (can) ask?
>
I grant you that modern scientists can still confuse cause and effect, as
did past scientists, but this kind of relativist attack on science (which
seems to be typical of the constructionist line) betrays a very slim
understanding of modern science. If you really do not know that there is a
difference between knowledge about the four humours and knowledge about
oestrogen and androgen, if you really think that the theory that the planets
orbit the sun will be superseded by another theory just as was the theory
that the earth was the centre of the solar system, then I think you may be
hopelessly lost in a magical world of constructionist semiotics.
Incidentally, when comparing the science of the past to the science of the
present, it is important to use the science of statistics as a dividing line
(i.e. when determining the relative doubtfulness or trustworthiness of past
and present theories), as that is a non-constructionist measuring tool that
past scientists lacked.
>As to Linck and Lister, I would see this as much more akin to females
>adopting the kinds of normative masculine behaviour that society values and
>rewards. Can you, in cultural terms which determine women to be either
>asexual or less sexual than men, be sexually active towards other women
>unless you are something of a man? And what differences are there between
the
>17th and 18th centuries, where in the former the common belief was that
women
>were the more lascivious and insatiable sex, while in the latter women were
>naturally less sexed, or just plain deviant (in which I include being
working
>class and a woman of colour)?
>
The idea that women were the more lascivious and insatiable sex was a
cultural construct, often found in literature, e.g. Restoration dramas. I
don't think there is much historical evidence that this was mirrored by real
life. That is, the cultural construct actually didn't have much effect in
persuading or encouraging women to actually be more lascivious and
insatiable. This construct was used mainly in misogynist attacks on women,
and was probably designed to encourage women to be *less* sexually active.
However, there is no evidence that this had much effect either. The evidence
suggests that until towards the late eighteenth century, women were just as
desirous of and happy to engage in non-penetrative sex (i.e. mutual
masturbation) as men were, and that, on the other hand, men were just as
unwilling to engage in penetrative sex before marriage as women were. Quite
a good summary of the studies about these slow changes in behaviour is
contained in Tim Hitchcock's _English Sexualities, 1700-1800_ (1997).
The suggestion that Linck and Lister "adopted the kinds of normative
masculine behaviour that society values and rewards" is something I find
hard to follow. Lister was financially independent and did not adopt
masculine behaviour in order to be valued by society; much of the time her
behaviour was ridiculed by society. Linck was beheaded and her wife was
imprisoned for three years. It is generally the case that society punishes
rather than rewards women who adopt "normative" masculine behaviour.
It is also generally the case that society punishes rather than rewards
extreme violence in men. Men are culturally encouraged to be dominant and in
some sense "aggressive", but it is difficult to document that they are
culturally conditioned to be rapists or to commit violent sexual acts upon
members of the civic community. Men who do so are very frequently executed,
pilloried, fined and imprisoned. Much of the law during the eighteenth
century was devoted to controlling rather than encouraging male violence.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 09:12:59 +0100
This statement has been mistakenly attributed to Tim, but is mine.
Yes, I used the term "sex/gender" in order to bring us back to the idea that
the sexed body is very close to (though not identical with) the gendered
body. It is commonplace these days to distinguish between cultural gender
and biological sex, and this can be a very useful distinction, but I think
that the total split between them alleged by constructionists has gone too
far and clouds more issues than it clarifies. In actual fact (e.g.
documented by historical data and anthropological data etc.) there is *a
very high degree of congruence* between sex and gender. Biological
scientists, notably scientists in the field of genetic and hormonal research
and evolutionary biology, argue that this degree of congruence is so high
that it cannot be satisfactorily explained by cultural conditioning, but is
very likely a result of biological factors that favour sexual dimorphism.
Since sexual dimorphism is common to (virtually) all species, I agree with
these scientists that it is impossible to believe that cultural factors
would be the paramount explanation for it in the human species.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Dar Weyenberg <dweyenbe@students.wisc.edu>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Date: 20 April 2000 04:29
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
>Hello Tim [**wrong: should be Rictor**]
>I am curvious how you are using "sex/gender" in the your statement (below).
>In other words, a slash gender implies the same or interchangability in the
>commonsenical use of the words. Or in other words, (in your usage of the
>term), is the sexed body the same as the gendered body? If this is so? why
>duplicate?
>Thanks
>dar
>
>At 09:32 AM 4/18/00 -0700, you wrote:
>>Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>>
>>
>>Tim wrote: **[wrong: Rictor wrote:]**
>>.....
>........
>>
>>>To say that men are brutes by nature may be to overstate the case, but
there
>>>really is no scientific doubt that sexually dimorphic factors such as
>>>hormones play an important role in sexuality as well as sex/gender, and
that
>>>hormones are biologically inherited, not socially constructed.
>>..........
>
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 08:32:17 -0400
From: Sheila McManus <smcmanus@yorku.ca>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Rictor Norton wrote:
> (2) However, one of the features of the biological model is that
>homosexual women have biological characteristics of men (such as
>male-pattern finger length), namely (in many studies) they have
>characteristics typically created by largish amounts of androgen in the
>womb [I'm oversimplifying these studies].
I think the reason why so many lesbians dispute the biological/reductionist
"explanations" is that 1) there have actually been very few of these sorts
of studies that have included lesbians; 2) the sample tends to be
pathetically small (for example, the recent 'finger length' study involved
fewer than 300 people, female and male, homo and hetero); and 3) their
findings rarely match the (admittedly purely anecdotal) experiences of me
and my lesbian friends.
The finger length study did an odd segue into the womb-androgen theory by
citing a study conducted solely on gay men and found that gay men tended to
have more older brothers than heterosexual men. I refuse to take
seriously any study conducted on gay men which proposes to then apply its
findings to lesbians, or any study which will not say exactly how many
actual lesbians were involved, or any study which 'explains' lesbians by
seeking and then finding ways in which we are 'like men'. Nevertheless, in
the spirit of mocking male-dominant science a group of my lesbian friends
and I compared our fingers. Out of a group of 9 lesbians, only 2 had
'lesbian' [i.e. 'male pattern'] fingers, and of those 2 only one had more
than one older brother.
A couple years ago the 'explanation' was that our inner ears were 'like
those of heterosexual men'. Well, what's it to be then? Is it our ears or
our fingers? Am I not a lesbian if my ears or fingers do not resemble
those of straight men? Do my ears or fingers speak a deeper truth about my
sexuality than I do when I say I'm a lesbian? I must admit that as a
historian, a feminist and a lesbian, I find these biological/reductionist
"explanations" to be both pathetically tedious as well as personally
hilarious.
Sheila McManus
* * * * * * * * * *
Sheila McManus
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, York University
smcmanus@yorku.ca
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 09:09:02 -0700
From: chris dummitt <cdummitt@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Hello all,
I just want to apologize for wrongly using Tim's name below. The word's
are Rictor's but I had been having an extended conversation with Tim and
mistakenly used his name.
sorry
>
>
>>Tim wrote:
>>>To suggest that men are culturally conditioned (rather than biologically
>>>conditioned) to commit rape would have to ignore the overwhelming evidence
>>>that among mammals and primates, aggressive violence is a significant
factor
>>>in male sexuality rather than female sexuality.
>
>Chris Dummitt wrote:
>>I can't claim to be an expert on mammal and primate behaviour but it is
>>interesting to note that when the socio-biologist wrote in to comment on
>>this discussion, she claimed that rape is in fact rare among most
primates.
>
>David Harley comments:
>One of the advantages of being a sociobiologist or an evolutionary
>psychologist is that you get to pick your own examples. How often have we
>heard humans compared to chimpanzees, when the author or speaker wishes to
>stress the instinctive nature of aggression. However, the testes size and
>social organization of chimps are not very similar to humans. The bonobo
>would make a far closer analogue, and very different conclusions would be
>drawn about what might be innate in humans. In effect, these groups of
>scientists license themselves to select some human characteristic which
>they wish to explain, or even justify, and then they pick their species to
>allow them to tell precisely the Just So story that they want to tell.
>This is the return of natural theology, under the guise of biological
>determinism.
>
>David Harley,
>Dept. of History,
>University of Notre Dame,
>Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
>
>tel.: 219-631-7789
_______________________
Chris Dummitt
Doctoral Candidate
Department of History
Simon Fraser University
_______________________
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Margaretta Jolly" <jolly@moa.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: sociobiologist clarifies re male sexual violence
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 18:19:07 +0100
I forwarded the recent discussion on sociobiology once again to my mother
who has given a fuller explanation of a sociobiological model of
determinism. (I hope I'm not contravening listserve etiquette in bringing in
someone like this, I just thought it an unusual opportunity to bring
together different perspectives that usually don't exchange much - won't add
any more to it.) Margaretta
"I am interested in Chris Dunnit's reply--he certainly did not need to
apologise! He should hear how nasty us sociobiologists are about each
other!
There are just two points that I want to take up: first, his last rather
brass suggestion that sociobiologists should learn some history of gender
roles. This is fascinating in its own right--I wish I knew more. However,
what little I do know suggests that in essentially all historical periods,
and
all cultures, men are more violent than women. There are lots of
pharmacological studies showing the role of testosterone and testosterone
analogues in promoting aggerssion. And a lot of studies in other mammals
(eg
mice) showing the heritability of differences in aggression thresholds. OF
COURSE culture shapes the expression of such differences, and OF COURSE a
man
may go through adult life without ever hitting someone else, let alone
raping
them. And OF COURSE we all want to shape society to minimize violence,
whether
sexual or not. But to argue that there are no biological influences on
behavior is a bit extreme. Or even arguing that aggression may not be
coupled
to, and serve the ends of sexual reproduction.
The more interesting point is how to read that last sentence, which is
what
Dunnit calls taking the effect of rape and making it into a cause. It is
worth
really understanding this, because it underlies all evolutionary thinking.
As
the late, great Niko Tinbergen said, there are four different kinds of
causes:
the immediate cause, development, phylogenetic evolution, and function of
any
behavior. (The four causes also apply to any anatomical trait.) The
immediate causes are what went on to provoke the behavior (eg, wartime
conditions, drunken spree, unlucky woman passing by, soldiers' peer
pressure).
The developmental causes include everything from testosterone in utero and
puberty, to unhappy childhood. Phylogenetic causes include being a human
primate, not a more chivalrous ringtailed lemur. Finally, the adaptive
function, if any: adaptive behaviors increase the chance of reproduction.
This
has nothing to do with conscious purpose: it is a short-hand phrase for
natural
selection on the genes of past generations of humans, which has favored
those
traits that resulted in surviving offspring. "Serving the ends of sexual
reproduction" ONLY applies to this kind of cause.
One might point out that human male tendencies toward care for spouses,
and
love and support for children, are as culturally widespread and far more
individually common than rape. They also function for successful
reproduction,
and have in all probability been selected for as genetically coded
tendencies
in our species.
Only they do not make salacious copy for the likes of Randy Thornhill.
If anybody wants to read a sociobiological book, with subtitles like
"Instinct is not Fate", and "Instinct is not necessarily right", they could
buy
a copy of "Lucy's Legacy, Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution."
Alison Jolly
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 09:25:45 -0700
From: chris dummitt <cdummitt@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
At 10:13 PM 19/04/00 +0100, you wrote:
>
>Let me clarify, as I think Chris misunderstood my point. (1) A feminine
>female heterosexual rapist probably *would* support the constructionist
>model. (2) However, one of the features of the biological model is that
>homosexual women have biological characteristics of men (such as
>male-pattern finger length), namely (in many studies) they have
>characteristics typically created by largish amounts of androgen in the
>womb [I'm oversimplifying these studies]. It therefore follows, that if most
>of the "female rapists" one can cite are lesbians who follow masculine
>patterns of behaviour or women with biological masculine characteristics,
>then this data would support the biological model rather than the
>constructionist model. (3) The data, modern and historical, suggest that
>"the female rapist" is typically either a lesbian or a noticeably masculine
>female. (4) I did not mean to suggest that lesbians were biologically
>conditioned to be violent, but that, according to the biological model, they
>were biologically conditioned to follow male patterns of behaviour.
Why call these woman manly or masculine? It seems to me the biological
features you are talking about are size, hormones, etc. Only if you talk
about generalizations can you talk about these things being male or
masculine. To give such features a sex is to use a cultural metaphor that
you are imposing on them and not necessarily one that is natural. After
all, if these are woman, why call them masculine. Certainly, there are men
who display characteristics that you call feminine. But, you must be clear
that the use of this designation of manly women and feminine men is an
imposed metaphor that makes things easier for the person who designates and
inevitably speaks to the kinds of cultural assumptions made by the
designator. To call such women manly is to simply suggest that you have an
idea of femininity that excludes them.
>If a man were sexually assaulted by a female, I can almost guarantee you
>that this would come to the attention at least of the newspapers. There is a
I am not at all certain of this. I don't think newspapers are always
reliable sources on numbers.
>tremendous amount of data about different forms of violence recorded in
>18th-cent newspapers, and a tremendous amount of data about titillating and
>sensational occurrences (that never got to the courts). Even if people
>thought it terribly funny rather than illegal for a man to be sexually
>assaulted by a woman, instances would certainly be reported in the
>newspapers. (At least if it occurred in semi-public, as did a very great
>deal of sexual behaviour in the 18th cent.). But I have found no such cases.
>For the newspapers from 1710 to 1730 (which I've been going through this
>month) I've noticed literally hundreds of cases of women murdering their
>bastard newborn infants, hundreds of cases of men sexually assaulting
>(young) women, scores of cases of women murdering their husbands (and rather
>less of men murdering their wives), and hundreds of cases of women being
>violent in the context of theft.
This finding of women murdering their husbands and little report of
husbands murdering their wives really speaks to the reliability of
newspapers as sources. From my reading of statistical works on the history
of murder, I would be very surprised if husband murderers outnumbered wife
murderers in western cultures. This suggests that newspapers are best at
revealing cultural values -- generally, what titillates -- and not accurate
statistical representations.
christopher d
_______________________
Chris Dummitt
Doctoral Candidate
Department of History
Simon Fraser University
_______________________
***
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Margaretta Jolly" <jolly@moa.u-net.com>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 14:52:27 +0100
I'm not sure sociobiologists are as cavalier as implied below - there has
been an upsurgence of looking at Bonobos rather than Chimps as the closest
species to humans, and much interest in the biological determinants for
cooperation, nurturance, playful rather than aggressive sex ... these are
arguments currently going on between sociobiologists too.
Margaretta
-----Original Message-----
From: David Nicholas Harley <David.N.Harley.4@nd.edu>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Date: 20 April 2000 13:55
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
>
>>Tim wrote:
>>>To suggest that men are culturally conditioned (rather than biologically
>>>conditioned) to commit rape would have to ignore the overwhelming
evidence
>>>that among mammals and primates, aggressive violence is a significant
factor
>>>in male sexuality rather than female sexuality.
>
>Chris Dummitt wrote:
>>I can't claim to be an expert on mammal and primate behaviour but it is
>>interesting to note that when the socio-biologist wrote in to comment on
>>this discussion, she claimed that rape is in fact rare among most
primates.
>
>David Harley comments:
>One of the advantages of being a sociobiologist or an evolutionary
>psychologist is that you get to pick your own examples. How often have we
>heard humans compared to chimpanzees, when the author or speaker wishes to
>stress the instinctive nature of aggression. However, the testes size and
>social organization of chimps are not very similar to humans. The bonobo
>would make a far closer analogue, and very different conclusions would be
>drawn about what might be innate in humans. In effect, these groups of
>scientists license themselves to select some human characteristic which
>they wish to explain, or even justify, and then they pick their species to
>allow them to tell precisely the Just So story that they want to tell.
>This is the return of natural theology, under the guise of biological
>determinism.
>
>David Harley,
>Dept. of History,
>University of Notre Dame,
>Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
>
>tel.: 219-631-7789
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 16:49:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mario Rups <markin@patriot.net>
Subject: Re: "rape free" cultures - one last thought
On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Lesley Hall wrote:
> Also, I believe that the chances of pregnancy occurring from a single act of
> intercourse, as opposed to several acts over a period of time, are fairly
> minimal in the human (presumably the rapist has no way of knowing whether
> the woman is ovulating - or do sociobiologists invoke some kind of pheromone
> effect??)
And how would the rapist know when another man is ovulating? By which I
mean to say that the notion of rape as somehow associable with the need /
desire to propagate does not take into account male-on-male rape.
Frankly, my instinct is that rape is about *dominance* and establishment
of same: vide the expression "f*** you", which I would suggest has the
flavour of "I can f*** you", i.e. "Stop / stand down / get lost /
whatever, I'm the dominant one here." Even if one isn't.
Rape, I've always suspected, is the ultimate way of demonstrating one's
utter and complete contempt for and power over the (direct or indirect)
victim. That it takes an overtly sexual shape clouds the issue.
Mario Rups
markin@patriot.net
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 17:51:25 -0700
From: Eric Grace <ericgrace@home.com>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
Chris White thus:
Why is there such a wedded commitment to the notion that
>gendered patterns of behaviour are biological? .... etc.
A recently published book (whose details I don't have in front of me but
can dig out if requested) recounted the story of a Canadian boy whose penis
was damaged by botched circumcision in infancy. Leading ideas on gender
construction at the time (Dr. Money?) suggested he be castrated, reshaped,
and raised as a girl. The case is particularly significant because he was
one half of male twins. To cut a long story short, the "girl", who was
given only female clothes and toys and discouraged from male pursuits,
never accepted this role. From infancy, he never acted feminine -- in fact
was more butch than his brother. Despite the dresses and dolls, and
constant "reinforcement" of female identity from parents, relatives (who
didn't know) and doctors, the child wanted to watch his father shave, not
help mom bake cakes. Adolescence brought crisis, and he was due for major
surgery and hormone treatments when the truth was revealed to him. He had
surgery to restore a penis and is now married to a woman and adopted her
children.
While human behaviour and biology are clearly very plastic, this particular
case demonstrates unequivocally the primary role of biology -- presumable
genes rather than sex hormones since the "boyish" behaviour was present
from early infancy.
Eric Grace
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 22:10:42 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David F. Greenberg" <dg4@is3.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: "rape free" cultures - one last thought
I've not yet read the new Thornhill-Palmer book on rape, so I cannot
comment on it directly. Nevertheless, I believe I can make a few
contributions to the discussion. The argument that a propensity to rape
would confer greater reproductive fitness, and so would be selected for,
is a familiar one from other evolutionary psychology writings. I was
exposed to it for the first time in a paper written by Mary Pavelka, a
Canadian primatologist, and presented at a conference in Portugal some
years ago. Chris Dummitt's objection - that rapists are generally not
seeking to procreate is probably well-grounded factually, but
irrelevant. The evolutionary psychology argument doesn't say anything
about the intent of the rapist. It offers an explanation of the origins of
a desire to rape, not a desire to procreate. Nevertheless, the argument
that Margaretta Jolly found likely when she wrote on April 17, that rape
" has benefited rapists to the extent of leaving offspring often enough to
be a potential behavior in alarge number of men" is not very obvious, for
several reasons. Because the chances of a random rape resulting in
conception are quite low (I have heard figures quoted of 1 in 50, but
don't know how sound that estimate is), a man will have much greater
success in procreating if he is able to gain the willing participation of
his sexual partners. A raped woman is not likely to stay with him, if she
is able to get away. If this is so, it would only be someone who couldn't
get a consensual partner who would turn to rape. Second, someone who
attempted rape (in the days before there were police and prisons to deal
with rapists) would have run the risk of violent resistance from potential
and actual victims, and from their kin. Chances of serious injury or death
might have been high. If this was so, reproductive fitness might have been
hurt by attempting rape. Third, we have to consider the circumstances of
people living in small bands. Cooperation in collecting food, and fending
off predators would have been important. Anyone who seriously antagonized
other members of the band might have been able to continue as a member of
the band, and his survival might have been jeopardized. Moreover, if the
band members were close relatives, incest prohibitions and inhibitions
would have made a rape within the group unappealing. This would not apply
to the rape of someone from a different band. But such a rape might lead
to violent retaliation not only against the rapist, but also against other
members of the band. Band members might, in this circumstance, try to
discourage such rapes for fear that they, too, would be targeted. Now, in
response to Rictor Norton's observations about rape, culture and
biology. I, too, have read extensively in 18th century English court
records, though probably not to the extent he has. I do not recall any
instances of women raping. However, if one accepts that there were few
lesbians, one would not expect many cases of women raping or attempting to
rape women. One might not expect many cases of women trying to rape men
because one cannot coerce a man to be sexually aroused. Norton is
concerned only when explaining the sex difference in rape when he argues
against cultural influence, but that is not the only source of variation
to be explained. The incidence of rape varies greatly among men - if one
is concerned with the rape of strangers, there are strong variations
across space, time, and social categories like class. Another point
concerns the efforts criminologists have made to identify specialization
in criminal activity. Those efforts have generally concluded that most law
violators do not specialize. They tend to commit a wide range of
offenses. None of these studies have found a high degree of specialization
among rapists. The typical arrest record of a rapist is likely to look
like the typical arrest record of an assaulter or a robbery or a
burglar. The age distribution of rapists is also similar to the age
distribution of other crimes involving interpersonal violence. Rates
of rape have, in recent years, dropped in the United States, in
parallel to drops in other crime rates. All this suggests to me that if
there is an inherited component to criminality
(as various studies suggest there may be) it is not likely to be something
that is highly specific to a particular activity like rape. It may be a
personality trait that has implications for involvement in a number of
different kinds of crime. - David Greenberg, Sociology Department, New
York University
___________________________________________________________________
From: Kazetnik@aol.com
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 20:59:50 EDT
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
I have to agree (you'll be surprised....) with Sheila about the tediousness
and hilarity of such studies as that of finger length. I'm interested to know
how those academics who subscribe to such beliefs as
lesbians-in-possession-of-male-anatomy respond to those who self-define
and/or live as lesbian and who have heterosexual fingers, inner ears,
brothers or whatever? Is the self-definition delusory? Or the science bad?
Chris W
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 11:54:02 +0100
-----Original Message-----
From: chris dummitt <cdummitt@sfu.ca>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Date: 22 April 2000 03:24
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Rictor said:
>>The data, modern and historical, suggest that
>>"the female rapist" is typically either a lesbian or a noticeably
>>masculine female.
>
Christopher said:
>Why call these woman manly or masculine? It seems to me the biological
>features you are talking about are size, hormones, etc. Only if you talk
>about generalizations can you talk about these things being male or
>masculine. To give such features a sex is to use a cultural metaphor that
>you are imposing on them and not necessarily one that is natural. After
>all, if these are woman, why call them masculine. Certainly, there are men
>who display characteristics that you call feminine. But, you must be clear
>that the use of this designation of manly women and feminine men is an
>imposed metaphor that makes things easier for the person who designates and
>inevitably speaks to the kinds of cultural assumptions made by the
>designator. To call such women manly is to simply suggest that you have an
>idea of femininity that excludes them.
>
Rictor responds:
In most human societies men are significantly (not universally, but to a
significantly high degree) taller, larger, stronger than women: to call
this set of characteristics "masculine" is not to impose a cultural
metaphor, but to make an objective observation that these characteristics
are typical of males, in which context it seems entirely reasonable to use
the word "masculine". I was not imposing stereotypes on Anne Lister or
anyone else. I was simply observing that from the very little data we have
about females engaging in rape or sexual assault, it would appear that the
females concerned do exhibit features that are significatly linked to the
biological constitution of males, which therefore would give some support to
the biological model rather than the constructionist model. I do not think
there is any evidence that the relative ratio between males and females with
regard to height, size and strength are culturally determined, and to use
"masculine" and "feminine" in the context of these characteristics is more
than to play with metaphors. Physical characteristics can be culturally
influenced, for example the patrician class is usually taller than the
peasant class because they are fed better and better cared for medically,
but I think the ratio of difference in size etc. of males and females stays
constant within the class. In some societies a physiological difference can
be culturally imposed upon females, e.g. the case of foot-binding, but I'm
not aware of any data suggesting that evolutionary cultural practices are
the reason why males and females have different bone structures in general
and overall, though I suppose that might be possible.
Rictor said:
>>If a man were sexually assaulted by a female, I can almost guarantee you
>>that this would come to the attention at least of the newspapers.
>
Christopher responded:
>I am not at all certain of this. I don't think newspapers are always
>reliable sources on numbers.
>
Rictor responds:
You're quite right that newspapers are not reliable sources for making
arguments based upon statistics. But I think it is still fair to say that if
a certain kind of incident is virtually never reported by newspapers, then
there is a fair degree of likelihood that such incidents were rare. What
we're talking about is degrees of probability, which is the central problem
of historical research. Newspapers do of course have various kinds of
"ideological agendas". But if 18th-cent. newspapers regularly refused, say,
to report cases of female rapists because they wanted to construct an image
of woman as weak and chaste, then it is hard to see why they reported so
many cases of women murdering their newborn infants.
Rictor said:
>>For the newspapers from 1710 to 1730 (which I've been going through this
>>month) I've noticed literally hundreds of cases of women murdering their
>>bastard newborn infants, hundreds of cases of men sexually assaulting
>>(young) women, scores of cases of women murdering their husbands (and
>>ratherless of men murdering their wives), and hundreds of cases of women
>>being violent in the context of theft.
>
And Christopher objected:
>This finding of women murdering their husbands and little report of
>husbands murdering their wives really speaks to the reliability of
>newspapers as sources. From my reading of statistical works on the history
>of murder, I would be very surprised if husband murderers outnumbered wife
>murderers in western cultures. This suggests that newspapers are best at
>revealing cultural values -- generally, what titillates -- and not accurate
>statistical representations.
>
Rictor responds:
You're quite right to question my statement about marital murders, and I
withdraw it. I do have the impression that the newspapers reported slightly
more cases of women murdering their husbands than of husbands murdering
their wives, but I have not attempted to count figures, and my impression
may well be wrong. My statement was, however, a parenthetical remark, and
not crucial to any of my argument. Newspapers certainly do reflect cultural
values, but I think you are wrong to suggest that newspapers merely reveal
cultural values rather than report factual incidents: I think these
18th-cent. newspapers report incidents pretty objectively, though these
incidents can of course reveal cultural values and trends. Different
newspapers with different ideologies (Whig, Tory, Radical, Revolutionary,
Liberal, Conservative, Unitarian, whatever) generally have very similar news
reports (at least in the 18th cent.) covering incidents of "crime", and I
cannot detect any overriding ideologies in distorting the criminal data. And
in most cases the accuracy of the reports is confirmed by legal records.
Some 18th-cent "newspapers of records", incidentally, are in fact excellent
sources for statistics about births, deaths, marriages, accidental deaths,
and murders. I think it would be a great loss to sexual history to
dismissively "problematize" such newspapers as mere ideological mouthpieces
(though that charge could indeed be laid against many late 20th-cent.
newspapers!).
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Paul Marks" <pkmax@camtech.net.au>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 09:52:43 +0930
----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Grace <ericgrace@home.com>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
> Chris White thus:
>
> Why is there such a wedded commitment to the notion that
> >gendered patterns of behaviour are biological? .... etc.
>
>
> A recently published book (whose details I don't have in front of me but
> can dig out if requested) recounted the story of a Canadian boy whose
penis
> was damaged by botched circumcision in infancy. Leading ideas on gender
> construction at the time (Dr. Money?) suggested he be castrated, reshaped,
> and raised as a girl.
The story of 'John and Joan' is well documented. It is particularly relevent
because Money always claimed
that this case demonstrated the veracity of his argument about sex/gender.
>
> While human behaviour and biology are clearly very plastic, this
particular
> case demonstrates unequivocally the primary role of biology -- presumable
> genes rather than sex hormones since the "boyish" behaviour was present
> from early infancy.
Rather than, as you say:
demonstrates unequivocally
maybe
suggests arguably
This child was 8 years when his penis was accidently removed. Are you
suggesting that life before age ???
has no affect on the gender development of children. I am suggesting that
because he was raised as a boy, at least for the first few months of his
life, this played some role in shaping his identity.
Paul
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Alejandro Levis" <ancient-andean@almapintada.com>
Subject: Re: "rape free" cultures - one last thought
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 23:36:23 -0400
Just thought I'd mention that in Araji's book "Sexually Aggressive Children"
research is cited indicating that some 25% of sexually aggressive children
(children = under 12) are female and their most common offense commited by
these girls is penetrating a much younger child digitally or with an object.
These female children offenders were victims of multiple types of abuse,
abusiveness that is common to most European cultures, but not to the
majority of non-western ones. Learned behavior? Yup.
Levis
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 13:13:45 +0100
I attach Marc Breedlove's response to Sheila McManus's critique of his study
of finger-length ratios.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
Regarding our recent article in Nature looking at relationships between
finger lengths, sexual orientation and birthorder, Sheila McManus wrote:
>I think the reason why so many lesbians dispute the
>biological/reductionist "explanations" is that 1) there
>have actually been very few of these sorts of studies
>that have included lesbians;
It's true that S. LeVay did not examine women's brains, for the simple
reason that his measures could only be done post-mortem, and gay men were
dying at a much higher rate than were gay women. But there are certainly
studies of heritability of female orientation (M. Bailey), and D. McFadden's
otoacoustic emissions, as you discusse below, featured lesbians.
>2) the sample tends to be pathetically small (for
>example, the recent 'finger length' study involved fewer
>than 300 people, female and male, homo and hetero);
In fact, we had 720 subjects. If it is "pathetically small", anyone else
could feel free to gather more. Furthermore, small sample sizes would only
make it more difficult to find real differences between groups, while
parametric statistics estimating the chance that a seen difference is an
error (i.e., P values) remain equally unbiased no matter what the sample
size. In any case, according to the report in the Philadelphia Inquirer,
biologist R. Trivers of Rutgers was, independently of our group, in the
midst of the same study and found the same difference between lesbians and
heterosexual women. With a replication already on the scene, it would
appear that our pathetically small sample size was quite large enough.
>and 3) their findings rarely match the (admittedly
>purely anecdotal) experiences of me and my lesbian
>friends.
Diane Sawyer had the same reaction as you. And in both cases, I'm guessing
you had even more pathetically small sample sizes than we did? A glimpse of
my lab a few years ago would have indicated that women are taller than men.
Hmm... perhaps I should publish that somewhere ("Men Actually Shorter than
Women, Research Shows") before I get scooped?
>The finger length study did an odd segue into the womb
>-androgen theory by citing a study conducted solely on
>gay men and found that gay men tended to have more older
>brothers than heterosexual men.
No, R. Blanchard and colleagues have examined both male and female
populations. What they find is that there is a birth order effect among men
(gay men have an over-representation of brothers among their older siblings
or, put another way, men with more older brothers are more likely to be
gay). But there is no birth order effect in women (A. Bogaert).
>I refuse to take seriously any study conducted on gay
>men which proposes to then apply its findings to
>lesbians,
Just as Bogaert, studying lesbians and straight women, found no birthorder
effect on female sexuality, we found no birthorder effect on female finger
ratios. Blanchard finds a birthorder effect on male orientation and we
found a birthorder effect on male finger ratios (men with older brothers had
smaller finger ratios than men without). This was the only instance in
which we applied birthorder effects to lesbians, and it is logically quite
sound--there is no birthorder effect on either orientation or finger ratios.
>or any study which will not say exactly how many
>actual lesbians were involved,
Our graph clearly indicates we surveyed 153 lesbians. Perhaps you did not
know that this is what "N = 153" means?
>or any study which 'explains' lesbians by seeking and
>then finding ways in which we are 'like men'.
We were not seeking to find that lesbians were "like men", we were testing
to see whether they were. The data, already independently replicated,
indicated they were. (Only as a group, of course. The differences are
subtle, just as the sex difference in height is subtle, making it easy to
find exceptions). We were also testing to find whether gay men were "like
women", but found no data to support that notion. And we reported that.
>Nevertheless, in the spirit of mocking male-dominant
>science
>a group of my lesbian friends and I compared our
>fingers. Out of a group of 9 lesbians, only 2 had
>'lesbian' [i.e. 'male pattern'] fingers,
Gee, in our sample, most women, of either orientation, had index fingers
slightly shorter than the ring finger. It was the *mean* ratios that were
different between the groups (the lesbian mean 2D:4D was slightly less than
that of heterosexual women). How many straight women did you compare them
to? This misunderstanding of our results (shorter index finger means a
woman is a lesbian) was hilariously utilized by the _National Enquirer_ to
analyze photos of Hollywood stars. So you're in good company in your
misunderstanding.
>and of those 2 only one had more than one older brother.
OK, good. Remember, no one has ever found a birthorder effect on
orientation or finger lengths of women. So this observation is either a
confirmation of our report or a non-sequitur.
>A couple years ago the 'explanation' was that our inner
>ears were 'like those of heterosexual men'. Well,
>what's it to be then? Is it our ears or our fingers?
Why on earth would you assume that hormones would affect only one part of
the body? The most powerful aspect of steroid hormone action is that,
because they travel throughout the body, they can and do affect many
different target tissues. Would you next suggest that the steroids in birth
control pills must affect ovulation from the ovary OR the lining of the
uterus, but not both?
>Am I not a lesbian if my ears or fingers do not resemble
>those of straight men? Do my ears or fingers speak a
>deeper truth about my sexuality than I do when I say I'm
>a lesbian?
Here we're in complete agreement. No, you cannot tell, with any acceptable
degree of accuracy, a person's orientation by looking at fingers or ears.
Our data clearly show there is considerable overlap between groups. And, of
course, we take it as a given that the true standard of a person's sexual
orientation is what they tell you about themselves in a context in which
they feel secure (i.e., with guarantees of anonymity).
>I must admit that as a historian, a feminist and a
>lesbian, I find these biological/reductionist
>"explanations" to be both pathetically tedious
I suppose you should continue your career as a historian rather than a
biologist, then. I doubt I will ever offer public comment on any historical
treatise, but if I do, I'm sure I'll actually read it first.
>as well as personally hilarious.
Cheers,
Marc Breedlove
*****************************
S. Marc Breedlove
Psychology Department
3210 Tolman Hall; MC1650
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-1650
(510) 642-8615; fax: 642-5293
breedsm@socrates.berkeley.edu
http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/psychology/breedbio.htm
http://ls.berkeley.edu/dept/psychology/breedcv.htm
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England
Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 16:26:33 +0100
Members of the list may be interested to know that during the past couple of
weeks I have added more than 20 new items to my website on "Homosexuality
in Eighteenth-Century England", bringing the total now to 50 items. They are
all primary documents: trial records, newspaper reports, some literary items
and some sermons and homophobic diatribes, mainly for the period 1700-1750.
There are a couple new lesbian items, e.g. Two Kissing Girls of
Spitalfields, 1728, which I don't think has ever been published or mentioned
in historical studies before:
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/1728kiss.htm
and The Game of Flats (i.e. lesbianism), 1749
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/1749flat.htm
References to heterosexual sadomasochism and the sexual enjoyment of urine
and excrement are also mentioned, in one of the Letters of Philogynus, at:
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/1726phil.htm
Half a dozen items for the period 1750-1770 will be added in the next couple
of weeks.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Paul Marks" <pkmax@camtech.net.au>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 10:01:57 +0930
OOPS! Typo in my response.
That should have been
8 MONTHS OLD NOT 8 YEARS
Paul
___________________________________________________________________
From: Kazetnik@aol.com
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 06:04:14 EDT
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Eric Grace's example of the emasculated twin is fascinating. How is the
conflict of
gender role and its perception documented in this case? Is it anecdotal (by
child or parents) or medical (anatomical/psychological)? In other words, is
the past reconstructed in the terms of 'present' truth ("it's really a boy")
or are there any properly trustworthy accounts? The fact that the child
ultimately self-defined as male might mean there is a powerful cultural need
to make sense of a slippage between gender identities by ascribing a
straightforward biological explanation, by interpreting or reconstructing
past behaviour.
Rictor Norton wrote:
<< it would appear that the females concerned do exhibit features that are
significatly linked to the biological constitution of males, which therefore
would give some support to
the biological model rather than the constructionist model. >>
I'm puzzled by this. Which features? The old, oft-repeated myth that lesbians
use their clitorises as penises, since they are blessed with a freakishly
large one which proves they are that kind of person? (Such an organ is of
course to be found only in 'foreign' women who are obviously
over-sexed....and will make every attempt to corrupt nice normal women.)
David Greenberg wrote:
<<Moreover, if the band members were close relatives, incest prohibitions and
inhibitions
would have made a rape within the group unappealing.>>
'Unappealing'? Errr, are you arguing that an earlier stage of civilisation
incest prohibitions worked effectively to prevent such activity? The fact
that such prohibitions existed seems to imply that they were socially
necessary. There isn't much tendency to say to people not to do something if
they never do it. Or think of doing it.
Chris W
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 10:01:29 -0700
From: Eric Grace <ericgrace@home.com>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
>This child was 8 years when his penis was accidently removed. Are you
>suggesting that life before age ???
>has no affect on the gender development of children. I am suggesting that
>because he was raised as a boy, at least for the first few months of his
>life, this played some role in shaping his identity.
>
>
>Paul
>
I think you mean 8 months. That's quite a claim if you suggest that the
first few months so strongly influence the subsequent 16 years that they
predominate over a much longer period of opposite influences and over
inherited characteristics. In some species, imprinting establishes an
object of sexual attraction: with, I suppose, its corollary of their own
species and sexual identity. There may be a similar period in human
development, but I don't know if there is much credibility in the stories
of wolf children.
In any case, this approach to human identity postulates the discredited
tabula rasa concept. It is undeniable, I think, that genetic makeup
provides each of us with a given set of possibilities and determines the
parameters of such things as temperament, physical health, and
intelligence. We admit these things in, say, dog breeding, so why not in
humans? Because extroversion/introversion, physical strength etc. can be
modified TO A DEGREE does not mean they don't exist or aren't important.
Gender is related to possession of the XX and XY genes among others and
genes produce more than sexual anatomy. There are behaviours characteristic
of each sex and related to the biological roles of each sex. Why should we
be an exception among mammals? (I am a zoologist and interpret our species
as the naked ape).
Eric Grace
___________________________________________________________________
From: ddh@arts.gla.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 11:10:59 +0000
Subject: Re: Eunuch medical technicalities
The Russian Skoptsy sect were not eunuchs in the conventional sense but did
practise ritual castration. See:
Laura Engelstein, Castration and the Heavenly Kingdom: A Russian
Folktale (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1999).
Dan Healey
Department of History
University of Wales Swansea
Swansea SA2 8PP
healey_dan@hotmail.com
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 03:45:59 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
Eric Grace asked:
"Gender is related to possession of the XX and XY genesamong
others and genes produce more than sexual anatomy. There are
behaviours characteristic of each sex and related to the
biological roles of each sex. Why should we be an exception
among mammals? (I am a zoologist and interpret our species
as the naked ape)."
My response, as a non-scientist historian with some exposure
to cultural anthropology, is that we are not exceptions, but
we are at the extreme end of the continuum of behavior
constructed (at our extreme) culturally and (at the other
extreme) genetically. As I said in a previous post: culture
is the human adaptation to life on earth. While other
species do indeed manifest culture as well (this knowledge
has come along since my undergraduate days), none proves
both so fully reliant on it and as capable of manipulating
the environment with it, as we.
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 12:18:01 +0100
I attach a review of Colapinto's book on the John/Joan case (which is the
book we've been talking about in this thread). The reviewer (particularly in
his concluding paragraphs) rather overstates the case and oversimplifies a
complex issue, but Colapinto's book seems to be generally regarded as being
trustworthy. It may answer some of the questions Chris White raised.
John Money, the well known sexologist who decided in favour of sex
reassignment in this case, is the man most responsible for defining the term
"gender" as it is used today, and the alleged success of the John/Joan case
was the main prop in his argument that gender is socially constructed.
Sexologists agree that the John/Joan case was a failure, and it seems almost
indisputable that Money knew it was a failure yet nevertheless continued to
allege its success in his textbooks. The well known sexologist Vern Bullough
addressed the issue in January and February this year, and said:
"Money was
wrong on the John Joan case and he compounded his error by refusal to
discuss
it or admit it. . . . As I said several years
ago at the SSSS meetings, John should have publicized his failure himself
years ago. We had known about for many years and I have included the
failure
in many of my books. It is not new. Money has been an innovative scientist
and made important contributions, but he has also often been wrong, and the
measure of a great scientist is the willingness to admit this. In my
correspondence over the years with John, I have begged him to do so, but he
seems to feel that if he admitted he was wrong, his legal defense would
crumble. I am not certain it would. Colapinto brought out in the open what
we have discussed in sex meetings and our books for several decades."
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
Book review from the Globe and Mail:
'Cauterized to a crisp'
IAN BROWN
Saturday, February 26, 2000
AS NATURE MADE HIM
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl
By John Colapinto
HarperCollins, 279 pages
Among the fears men are subject to, having your penis cauterized to a
useless crisp during a botched circumcision ranks pretty high. To then be
castrated; have your emptied scrotum butterflied into rudimentary vulva; fed
female hormones and dressed and raised as a girl, against all your male
instincts; subjected to the rude scrutiny of the medical profession and the
incessant cruelty of one's schoolfriends; and subsequently decide, as a
teenager, to go back to being a boy, thereby requiring a double mastectomy
and the construction of a troublesome artificial penis -- well, that strikes
this man as sheer hell on earth.
That is precisely what happened to David Reimer, beginning eight months
after his birth in Winnipeg's St. Boniface Hospital on Aug. 22, 1965. Born
as Bruce and raised as Brenda, she didn't learn she had come into the world
a boy until she was 15. By then, Reimer was the most famous subject in
developmental pediatric science -- a foundation not just of
late-20th-century medicine, but of late-20th-century thought as well, in the
form of "unassailable proof of the primacy of environment over biology in
the differentiation of the sexes," as John Colapinto puts it in As Nature
Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a Girl.
Reimer was proof that nurture trumped nature. Feminists in particular (Kate
Millett in Sexual Politics was one) loved to cite the case as "proof that
the gender gap was purely a result of cultural conditioning, not biology."
Meanwhile, Dr. John Money, the sex researcher who oversaw Bruce's
transformation into Brenda, was elevated to godlike status, and is still
considered by many to be the equal of Freud, Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey,
Masters and Johnson, and even Darwin. And all for an "experiment," a "game
of science fiction" that was a bust from the word gonad.
All this is now well known, or soon will be, thanks to Colapinto's plain but
gripping biography of David Reimer. Colapinto, a Canadian journalist based
in New York, first wrote about Brenda Reimer's case in December, 1997, in
Rolling Stone. Reimer subsequently asked Colapinto to collaborate on a book.
In return, Colapinto could reveal Reimer's true identity, use real names.
Manitoba had already given the world Louis Riel and Colin Thatcher, but
Reimer was Manitoba's Frankenstein.
Faced with a son who suddenly had no penis, the boy's parents went into
shock. Doctors in Winnipeg dithered, and suggested they raise him normally
until someone could attempt a phalloplasty, an artificial penis. A tricky
bet even today, the gizmo back then resembled one of Fred Flintstone's
appliances. But one night on television, Ron and Janet Reimer heard a suave
and confident sex researcher named John Money claim that gender-damaged
children could be raised in either sex -- without complication. Money was
the director of something called the Gender Identity Clinic at the
prestigious (and American) Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore,
Md. Ron and Janet contacted him immediately.
John Money contacted them right back. He'd begun his career studying
hermaphrodites, children who displayed indeterminate, damaged or mixed male
and female genitalia. Money had concluded -- albeit on speculative
evidence -- that 95 per cent of hermaphrodites fared equally well,
psychologically, whether they were raised as boys or girls. From there it
was but an imaginative step to his first, last and most famous theory.
"Sexual behaviour and orientation as male or female does not have an innate,
instinctive basis," Money wrote early on. Environment, not biology, was what
mattered. With that, one of the biggest bandwagons in a century of
bandwagons lumbered into motion.
Money's theory fell upon fertile ground. For starters he'd provided the
medical profession with a simple surgical solution to the traumatic and
vexing problem of what to do with an intersexual infant. Medicine itself was
still rebounding from a late-19th-century wave of discredited, biology-based
gender theories. Freudianism, behaviourism and other learning-centred models
of human behaviour were the hot new thing.
The only fly in this rich theoretical ointment was that Money had no actual,
scientific proof that nurture trumped nature when it came to assigning
genders. To his further frustration, his main theoretical opponent, Dr.
Milton Diamond, of the University of Hawaii, kept pointing this out. Gender
identity, Diamond insisted, wasn't a shirt you could change on a whim: It
was hardwired from conception. Besides, Diamond claimed, to truly test
Money's theory, he would need to find a normal, unequivocal male reared
successfully as a female. And they were hard to come by.
Enter eight-month-old Bruce Reimer, an otherwise normal boy who had just
lost his penis to a clumsy cauterizer. More perfect still, he had a still
intact identical twin brother -- a genetic clone who would then serve as the
perfect experimental control.
Money knew Bruce was his ticket to fame. He convinced the Canadian boy's
parents -- neither of whom had finished high school -- to castrate and raise
him as a girl. What he appears not to have told them, Colapinto discovers in
the course of some meticulous reporting, was that the procedure was
completely experimental.
(Let's break here for a moment, gendered reader, to speculate why
researchers study the subjects they do. Colapinto's father was himself chief
of urology at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, and nightly told his
children stories of babies losing their penises and being raised girls.
(Money, on the other hand, was raised in fundamentalist circles in
post-Victorian New Zealand. His father beat him for breaking a window, and
died early. His mother and her spinster sisters had nothing good to say
about men when they took over the future sexologist's upbringing. "I
suffered the guilt of being male," Money later wrote. "I wondered if the
world might really be a better place for women if not only farm animals but
human males were also gelded at birth." This was the man who, with Brenda
Reimer on full display, became the most powerful sex researcher in the world
and the mentor of an entire generation of medical researchers.)
There was only one wee problem. The Brenda experiment wasn't working -- and
hadn't been since 1969. Brenda wore dresses and longish hair, but "there was
nothing feminine about Brenda," as his twin brother Brian later admitted.
When four-year-old Brenda saw her father shaving, she wanted to shave too.
She beat her brother up easily and regularly, and was the dominant child of
the pair. She hated dolls and Girl Guides, loved guns and trucks. When asked
by her Winnipeg psychiatrists (most of whom were afraid to contradict the
famous Dr. Money) what she saw herself as, Brenda described a 21-year-old
man with a mustache, a sports car and girlfriends. When her voice cracked
despite female hormone treatments, Brenda's mother told the girl she was
going to sound just like Marlo Thomas. Meanwhile at school the other kids
called Brenda "Cavewoman." She even peed standing up.
None of these facts prevented Money from describing the experiment as a
complete success, year after year, in paper after paper and book after book.
Despite mounting trauma, Brenda was encouraged to think and behave like a
chick. When that didn't work, Dr. Money browbeat her. Worse still, he forced
the twins to "practise" their "proper" coital positions -- Brenda playing
the female and Brian playing the male. In return, they hated Money and tried
to commit suicide.
Today, of course, a surging tide of evidence indicates gender is indeed
biologically based, and not learned at all. How we use or express our
masculinity and femininity, yes, Frederique, that you can play with. But
which one of the two genders we are, in our deepest selves? Not debatable.
Gender identity appears to reside in a cluster of cells in the human
hypothalamus, not in a parade of artificial costumes and public rituals.
Researchers have recently even speculated a biological basis for
homosexuality. But that hasn't stopped Money from claiming the new findings
are lies, the work of anti-feminists and his myriad enemies. Brenda he
simply never mentions any more.
For good reason. To the doctor's chagrin, she never agreed to the
reconstructive surgery that would have given her a vagina. Thus when her
father finally told her, at the age of 15, the truth about her birth and her
accident -- one of the really harrowing passages in a book full of them --
Brenda began immediately to live again as a boy, as her true male self.
Today, David Reimer (self-named, after the David who fought Goliath) is
married, with three stepchildren. He has both sex and orgasms, thanks to
microsurgery and a new phallus fashioned from the muscle and veins of his
forearm. He works as a cleaner in a slaughterhouse, washing away the stains
of butchered meat. (Could that be any more psychologically revealing?) He
also has an ironically resilient sense of himself as a man, which is why
Colapinto calls him a true hero.
Meanwhile, five years after Brenda switched back to being what she was all
along, thoroughly demolishing John Money's theories, the doctor was still
recommending gender re-assignments. In 1987, when yet another Canadian boy
lost his penis to cauterization (it must be a national hazard), his parents
took Money's advice, had him castrated and raised him as a girl -- with the
same apparently disastrous results. Yet Money still has supporters in
powerful positions throughout the medical establishment. Doctors hate to
admit they backed the wrong horse.
It wasn't so long ago, of course, that doctors were reviled as little more
than ambitious barbers. David Reimer's terrible adventures suggest some of
them still should be. They also suggest that in a world dominated by
bullying experts and arrogant technologies, we should pay attention to our
instincts. Like our bodies, they belong to us, and us alone. When we own
them, we can trust them, for they are true.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 10:16:48 -0400
From: Sheila McManus <smcmanus@yorku.ca>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
I would like to thank Dr. Breedlove for his response to my critique and I
am indeed guilty as charged - I have not read his study directly nor have I
seen any charts associated with it, and my impressions of his research were
based on articles carried in 3 newspapers here in Toronto and one on-line
article. And while I really should know better than to expect accuracy in
newspapers, the only pathetic defence I can mount is that what I read had
little in common with Dr. Breedlove's own summary of his work!
I expect he and I would still find many things to disagree over, but such
disagreements ought not to be based on ill-informed perceptions of another
discipline's research.
Sheila McManus
* * * * * * * * * *
Sheila McManus
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, York University
smcmanus@yorku.ca
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 02:20:52 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: Ann Lyden's questions on women and pornography, in re Eric Grace ,
post of interview excerpt
Before we answer Ann Lyden's questions, I think we should
ask: what does women's "participation" in/consumption of
pornography (including that which men recognize as such)
prove--"consent"? --agency? --empowerment?
In a political system where "no" doesn't mean _no_ when it
comes to women's participation in sex (see, e.g., Diana E.H.
Russell, *Rape in Marriage*), what does "yes" mean?
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 09:51:48 -0500
From: "M.E. Buszek" <buszekme@chickmail.com>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 23:23:35 Anne Lyden wrote:
>How long does a sex shop have to be open before it moves beyond being 'a
>cultural fad'? What about Good Vibrations in San Francisco, and its
>catalogue, which is readily available around the USA? It was started by a
>woman, and has a lot of women on its staff, would it count?
Hear, hear! There is also Toys in Babeland in New York City--Good Vibrations' east coast counterpart. This store (like GV--which I believe recently celebrated its 25th anniversary) also caters to a female clientele, and is owned/operated by women, selling pornographic books, magazines, art, vibrators, and dildos as well as material on sexual health, feminist theory, and tantric sprirituality. (Much of the above can be found in male-geared porn shops as well...but that doesn't keep any of this material from being an important part in many generations of women's sex lives--particularly lesbians and bi women.)
As for the Dworkin-MacKinnon "backlash" that is supposedly fueling women's experimentation with/enjoyment of pornographic materials (as if all women are ordinarily, "naturally" reviled by the very large and diverse category--which does indeed count many centuries of bodice-rippers in its numbers), in the twentieth century alone one can count many individuals before Dworkin-MacKinnon's legal/literary crusade for whom one could argue pornographic material was a medium. (Colette, Nin, Jackie Susann, Bunny Yeager, the Samois group, just to name a few off the top of my head.)
Also...as a woman of the third wave generation of feminism, I'm very interested in
seeing which ways women's research is going to swing, so to speak, on the issue as
women my age enter academe, administration, activism, and other positions of
power. Since childhood, I've always been not only interested in erotic material, but
also felt that my power to infiltrate the stuff (both visually and imaginatively) has
been a direct result of my early association with feminism...and I hardly think I'm
alone in my generation in feeling this way. Any others on the list with ideas?
Maria-Elena Buszek
Ph.D. Candidate
Kress Foundation Department
of Art History
The University of Kansas
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV, pornography etc
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 19:52:58 +0100
Something which hasn't been addressed (as far I recall) in this discussion
is the question of whether it's viable to constitute a category 'men' who
rape, consume pornography etc. Is this actually true of all men? Is it not,
rather, a percentage - which I would hypothesise varies quite wildly from
culture to culture? Does anyone have any statistics (dubious though I
suspect these would be)?
Re pornography, it has occurred to me before now that a viable market
for a product doesn't need anything like take-up by 100% or even a majority
of the population - what it probably needs is a steady market of dedicated
consumers. I read a fair amount of science fiction but I believe that sf
readers make up less than 10% of the reading market, which itself is (maybe)
around 50% or less of the population. Within that my own tastes veer away
from the most popular blockbuster successes and towards perhaps the more
feminist end of the sf spectrum. Nonetheless I can find a relatively steady
supply of the kind of thing that I like.
Therefore, does the existence of pornography in the marketplace mean
that there is actually a vast general demand for it, or is there rather a
steady demand from a core consumer group, with perhaps a penumbra of
occasional users?
This is a question I also pose to myself about resort to prostitutes in
C19th Britain - was there enough of a consumer group to sustain a market
without having to invoke the possibility that every man in London was
constantly going to prostitutes?
Questions.... Is there an economist in the house?
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 15:44:06 -0400
From: Cristina Nelson <crn@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Drag-request for info
Dear Colleagues,
I have posted a request for info before and have been delighted with the
response. So I thought I would send another RFI.
I am a doctoral student at UNC-Chapel Hill and am writing a (US history)
dissertation on women's underwear, US, 1940-70 (roughly). Much of the
dissertation has to do with gender roles, business history, and the like.
In a recent conversation w/ my advisor, she made an excellent point, and it
is with that point in mind that I make this RFI.
She said that the population most likely to verbalize explicit sexual and
gendered notions about women's underwear might be men in the drag
community, and she urged me to, 1.)look for books and publications which
might contain reflections on the part of drag queens (dragfolk? dragsters?
What's the correct term?); and, eventually, 2.) interview some of them.
To whit: I would love to get suggestions for books and other publications,
in fact, even visual media (for instance, I have already looked for some
films that exhibit, in one way or another, women's underwear, such as
_Psycho_ and _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_; perhaps _Glen or Glenda_ might be a
good one for my chapter on drag) that will help me conceptualize a chapter
on drag.
In addition, if anyone knows how I could go about interviewing dragfolk, I
would like to know about that as well. Ideally, to discern change over
time, I should interview someone who was active ( a drag entertainer,
perhaps) in the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's. I know that Provincetown MA has
a big drag community, so if anyone can steer me to someone there, that'd be
great, as I will be in Boston the 2nd week in June.
I look forward to your responses.
Cristina Nelson
UNC-Chapel Hill
History Department
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Donna Larsen" <ladydonna85@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 13:46:12 PDT
Here in Seattle we have Toys in Babeland, they have been opened now for
about four years ago now. This was founded and is owned and operated by two
women. They recently opened a branch in New York City and their catolog is
available on the Web as well. They also sell porn and erotica geared towards
women, though they have porn depicting all sexual orientations.
>How long does a sex shop have to be open before it moves beyond being 'a
>cultural fad'? What about Good Vibrations in San Francisco, and its
>catalogue, which is readily available around the USA? It was started by a
>woman, and has a lot of women on its staff, would it count?
>
>Anne Lyden
>Ph.D Student, Cornell University.
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 17:51:04 +1000
From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@history.usyd.edu.au>
Subject: Finger pattern study
Hi Mark Breedlove,
Could you please explain what the statement below means. What is being
'like men'?
1. What are such characteristics?
2. How does one ascertain these and independently replicate such
findings?
and -
3.Please give a reference for this study.
"We were not seeking to find that lesbians were "like men", we were
testing
to see whether they were. The data, already independently replicated,
indicated they were. (Only as a group, of course. The differences are
subtle, just as the sex difference in height is subtle, making it easy
to
find exceptions)."
Some questions that trouble me regarding these claims follow. It is
indisputable that the number of women who identify themselves as
lesbians has grown hugely since say 1970. Suppose for the moment that I
accept your conclusions that there is a physical/genetic component to
lesbianism. What hypothesis could I, as a historian, work on for earlier
decades? This genetic component must still have been present - what
effect did it have? What did the women whom this research says have male
characteristics do? Remain unmarried or have a different kind of
marriage to the marriages of women with feminine characteristics?
In other words if these characteristics are not socially constructed but
physical, what effects do they have in periods during which a gay
identity/behavioural pattern is not socially acceptable? [If it is
argued that such women in these periods take on concealed gay identities
- work in homosocial contexts for example then it should be possible to
test this even now]
What is being identified as significant, as 'like men', about these
women with the lesbian finger pattern? Their object choice, their sexual
behaviour, their choice of active/passive roles within relationships?
These claims about causation of gay identity imply substantial beliefs
about 'normal' heterosexual females.
It may be that the characteristics identified as masculine and feminine
are character traits that people, such as myself, might agree exist if
they were labelled in a different fashion, i.e. not as masculine and
feminine. (Please remember how radically such claims have changed over
the past century - why should a current claim be more reliable?) The
statistical differences revealed (assuming for the moment I accept that
the methods used prove the traits exist in the given individuals*) mean
only that there is a tendency of a certain strength. It might be
possible that these traits lead women toward outcomes that will vary in
different societies or in different periods in the same society. So in
this society at this time these traits may lead to some of these women
becoming lesbians - what might these traits lead to in other contexts
and where might they lead other women?
There are many such questions and I could go on producing them. However,
it appears to me that regardless of how rigourous the use of statistics
or sampling etc is, use of terms such as masculine and feminine means
introducing cultural construction. The suggestion that the science we
are dealing with here is analogous to Einsteinian physics is completely
untenable.
Nor is that true only of the socially constructed elements. I do not
believe that scientific understanding of hormones is good enough to
justify claims that androgen will produce x behaviour or physical
result. For example, perhaps x behaviour leads the body to produce more
androgen. Finger length is obviously fixed I agree, but the conclusion
that `at least some homosexual women were exposed to greater levels of
fetal androgen than heterosexual women,'' is the researcher's
hypothesis. It is a claim and not an observation made during the period
the fetus is in the womb.
I would not argue that all sexed human experience is culturally
constructed but that most is. Having a baby is a female experience,
having a penis is a male experience - but beyond that?
Hetero/homo/bisexuality is culturally constructed from an age, and to an
extent, where I believe that we should accept any behaviour as
culturally constructed unless we can indisputably prove it is not. For
example, in the sad case of the eight month old castrated boy - his
parents 'knew' he was male and many studies show that parents treat male
and female babies differently without being conscious they are doing so.
It is obvious that the extended family and friends would have known the
mother had two boys - we know children who were adopted and not told
often felt something was wrong without knowing what. The man the baby
became also comments that he learned while he was a girl to sympathise
with women because they were treated badly - in other words he had an
incentive to see himself as male. This does not mean that there was not
a genetic/hormonal case etc but that this account cannot prove the case
either way - it is just terribly sad.
*the semi-random self-selection of the finger pattern sample and the
filling out of a 'detailed questionnaire' does not impress me greatly.
And the number of brothers provides an obvious opportunity for socially
constructed influence - how about measuring men who had the requisite
number of brothers but were taken away from them at birth and grew up in
a different birth order? Sorry, I know the answer is money - but if the
funding does not exist to do more demanding studies then firm
conclusions cannot be drawn. All these studies are cheap and small and,
as with the gay gene studies, I find it hard to accept they prove what
they claim to prove.
Regards,
Hera
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 17:29:24 -0700
From: chris dummitt <cdummitt@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
>Rictor responds:
>In most human societies men are significantly (not universally, but to a
>significantly high degree) taller, larger, stronger than women: to call
>this set of characteristics "masculine" is not to impose a cultural
>metaphor, but to make an objective observation that these characteristics
>are typical of males, in which context it seems entirely reasonable to use
>the word "masculine". I was not imposing stereotypes on Anne Lister or
>anyone else. I was simply observing that from the very little data we have
>about females engaging in rape or sexual assault, it would appear that the
>females concerned do exhibit features that are significatly linked to the
>biological constitution of males, which therefore would give some support to
>the biological model rather than the constructionist model. I do not think
>there is any evidence that the relative ratio between males and females with
>regard to height, size and strength are culturally determined, and to use
>"masculine" and "feminine" in the context of these characteristics is more
>than to play with metaphors.
christopher responds:
I'm afraid I will continue to insist that you are imposing a cultural
metaphor onto larger women by calling them masculine. I won't argue that
this metaphor is logical and helps us understand them. YOu are right. It
makes sense. But other metaphors could make sense too, for example,
comparing them with other groups of people who are generally larger and
stronger. Your choice of gender as an analytical category reflects your
own focus on sexual difference as the important definining characteristic.
My argument is not weakened by a statement that the relative ratio of size
between men and women is constant. I'm not disputing the relevance or
usefulness of your metaphor. I am simply pointing out that this reflects
your own concern with sexual difference. Why not just treat them as a
different type of woman? Why make the comparison? The answer, to these
questions, of course, is that the comparison helps you understand them
better. The emphasis here is on "you" and not "them".
_______________________
Chris Dummitt
Doctoral Candidate
Department of History
Simon Fraser University
_______________________
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 17:47:16 -0700
Subject: Re: Drag-request for info
From: "David Robinson" <dmrobins@U.Arizona.EDU>
Just an observation:
I would bet that transvestites rather than drag queens would have more to
say about women's underwear. Drag queens do drag as public performance, so
their focus is on articles of apparel that can be seen by others. There's a
lot of drag talk about wigs & makeup & pumps, but relatively little (in my
experience, doing some drag myself and just being a gay man in various gay
communities) about women's underwear.
However, men who dress in women's clothing for sexual excitement or else
because of gender identity would, it seems to me, be more likely to be
concerned with women's underwear (as well as with other feminine attire).
David Robinson
Univ. of Arizona
___________________________________________________________________
From: "King, Michael" <m.king@rfc.ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 09:09:08 +0100
Your argument depends crucially on the preparedness (or lack of it) of men
to report sexual assault by women to the police or others. It also depends
on the level of coercion used.
In a national study of sexual assault on men, we found that 46% of reported
cases involved women as the perpetrators.
Coxell A, King M, Mezey G, & Gordon D. (1999) Lifetime prevalence,
characteristics and associated problems of non-consensual sex in men: a
cross sectional survey. British Medical Journal 318:846-850.
Michael King
-----Original Message-----
From: Rictor Norton [mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk]
Sent: 19 April 2000 22:14
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality
Subject: Re: sociobiology and the politics of rape
Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
The main reason I offered some defence of the biological model vis-a-vis
rape, is because Chris White -provocatively signing herself "an inveterate
cultural materialist/social constructionist" - asked a question which I
think merited a negative answer. She suggested that "if it is possible to
locate such a phenomenon as a female rapist, . . . might it strengthen the
cultural conditioning claims, over and above any biological element"? No, I
don't think so.
Let me clarify, as I think Chris misunderstood my point. (1) A feminine
female heterosexual rapist probably *would* support the constructionist
model. (2) However, one of the features of the biological model is that
homosexual women have biological characteristics of men (such as
male-pattern finger length), namely (in many studies) they have
characteristics typically created by largish amounts of androgen in the
womb [I'm oversimplifying these studies]. It therefore follows, that if most
of the "female rapists" one can cite are lesbians who follow masculine
patterns of behaviour or women with biological masculine characteristics,
then this data would support the biological model rather than the
constructionist model. (3) The data, modern and historical, suggest that
"the female rapist" is typically either a lesbian or a noticeably masculine
female. (4) I did not mean to suggest that lesbians were biologically
conditioned to be violent, but that, according to the biological model, they
were biologically conditioned to follow male patterns of behaviour. (I
acknowledge that they are also *culturally* conditioned to follow male
patterns of behaviour: here is one instance in which the biological and
constructionist model agree with one another! I mentioned the cases of Linck
and Lister because they seem to have involved biological factors as well as
male behaviour.)
Chris makes the valid point that rape (in many cultures, particularly
Western cultures) is defined as penetration and cannot legally occur without
a penis. But this is true mainly in the higher reaches of legal discourse.
In actual trials, assault is the primary feature of the case, and if women
committed assault in which sex was present, they could still be prosecuted
for assault even though they could not be prosecuted for rape. And the trial
records would show, even if the charge was assault rather than rape, whether
or not some sexual element were present. I mentioned the case of prostitutes
assaulting their punters in order to steal their money. The fact that these
women were not charged with rape reflects the fact that they did not commit
rape, not the inability of the law to define their action as penetration! In
a similar way, men charged with sodomy, which requires anal penetration,
were regularly acquitted of sodomy because penetration could not be proved;
they were then charged with "sodomitical practices" which in some
circumstances could involve only kissing or dressing up like a woman. In
other words, the trial records will reveal a wide range of non-penetrative
sexual data despite the fact that the law says that sodomy equals anal
penetration full stop. Court records (and magistrates' records of
investigations that preceed trials) are full of data that is not directly
linked to strict legal definitions. Eighteenth-century English trial records
contain virtually no data about women engaging in violent behaviour
connected with sexual aggression. It seems to be a male thing.
If a youngish child were sexually assaulted by a female, this would almost
certainly result in a complaint for assault, and reach a stage of indictment
if not conviction, regardless of the legal definition of rape. Such cases
are not recorded in 18th-cent. English records. It would also probably be
reported in the newspapers, but I have found no such cases. Women on
occasion were in fact with brutal or cruel treatment of their children or
young servants. If a sexual element was present in this abuse, it would
certainly have been mentioned, but I have not noticed it. The specifically
*sexual* element in abuse of the young seems to be a male thing.
If a man were sexually assaulted by a female, I can almost guarantee you
that this would come to the attention at least of the newspapers. There is a
tremendous amount of data about different forms of violence recorded in
18th-cent newspapers, and a tremendous amount of data about titillating and
sensational occurrences (that never got to the courts). Even if people
thought it terribly funny rather than illegal for a man to be sexually
assaulted by a woman, instances would certainly be reported in the
newspapers. (At least if it occurred in semi-public, as did a very great
deal of sexual behaviour in the 18th cent.). But I have found no such cases.
For the newspapers from 1710 to 1730 (which I've been going through this
month) I've noticed literally hundreds of cases of women murdering their
bastard newborn infants, hundreds of cases of men sexually assaulting
(young) women, scores of cases of women murdering their husbands (and rather
less of men murdering their wives), and hundreds of cases of women being
violent in the context of theft. But I have found no cases of female sexual
assault in these newspapers. In other words, historical data shows many
women
who are violent despite cultural constructs, but hardly any women who are
specifically *sexually* violent despite cultural constructs. This suggests
to me that *non-cultural* factors are probably more important for the
phenomena of *sexual* violence.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
From: "James Paterson" <jimjamtwo@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 06:59:41 PDT
Dear Rictor,
This site on the 18th century sounds wonderful, and I mean to look at it as
soon as I get time. (I've been saving these references up myself, but it
seems I no longer need to bother!) In the meantime, though, I wonder if you
can help me with a problem. When did the word "Sodom" (and the other words
derived from it, e.g., sodomitical) begin to be used to refer specifically
to male/male sex in English discourse? I've looked at some 16th century
usages of the word, and I'm not at all convinced that male/male sex is
involved. What do you think?
James Paterson,
Department of History,
University of Sydney.
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: "rape free" cultures - one last thought
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 15:42:49 +0100
I haven't read the Thornhill-Palmer book either (so perhaps we are all doing
too much hypothesizing!).
David Greenberg's argument that rape would not have a procreative benefit to
ancient human societies seems persuasive, and seems effectively to counter
one of the theories of evolutionary biology. However, his argument seems to
be valid primarily with regard to rape *within* the kin group. He says that
rape outside the band would be likely to encourage retaliation by the other
band, so people would discourage rape. But if a warlike conflict already
existed, or if a band regularly attacked an opposing band any, then any
*additional* fear of retaliation because of rape is less likely to be
relevant.
I think there is the view that rape occurs mainly *outside* the kin
group, and the common pattern of *rape of strangers* may reflect this.
There's a lot of historical evidence about the frequency of rape during war,
from the squabbling of the ancient Greeks over their slave girls as booty of
war, to the rape of women by conquering soldiers during the Bosnian
conflict--
specifically for the purpose of spreading their seed in the opposing ethnic
group. Although Lesley Hall has also mentioned the marked inefficiency of
rape as a method of procreation, my understanding is that the raped women in
the Bosnian conflict are right now giving birth to the offspring of these
rapes in sufficient numbers to require the setting up of special units in
hospitals to care for them (apparently some mothers are killing these
children as soon as they are born). I cannot confirm that this is true. It
may be one of the myths engendered by wars, but this is what has been
reported in the higher quality newspapers. If it is true, then it would
suggest that perhaps rape, when performed by sufficient numbers of men,
would indeed be a successful strategy for spreading one's gene pool into
opposing groups, and thereby extending the population of your own tribe.
One final thought: Rape in historical terms often involved abduction (the
literal meaning of "rape") of women from a different group, bringing them
into
one's own group, and repeatedly raping them (which might overcome Lesley's
point that rape is procreatively inefficient because it is only a single
act) --
thereby literally reducing the offspring in the opposing group and
increasing the offspring in one's own group. This historically important
aspect of abduction has not been discussed in this thread. Looking at this
from an evolutionary biology point of view, a community with 20 females can
maximally produce 20 offspring every 9 months, so the abduction/rape of a
man into the community would not increase the number of possible offspring,
whereas the abduction/rape of a woman into the community *would* increase
the total number of possible offspring -- which might be one evolutionary
reason why women seem to be raped significantly more often than men.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 13:15:50 -0400
From: Cristina Nelson <crn@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: transvestites
Dear Colleagues,
David Robinson has made an excellent point, that the people I should be
looking at vis-a-vis my dissertation on underwear are transvestites more so
than drag queens. To that end, let me rephrase my request: How would I go
about getting interviews and memoirs of men who dressed in women's
underwear. I would imagine that to be difficult, especially getting the
information from men who were dressing in, say, the late forties/early 50's.
Again, any ideas and specific references would be welcomed.
Thanks.
Cristina Nelson
UNC - Chapel Hill
History Dept.
___________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 13:05:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Sandra Reineke <sreineke@indiana.edu>
Subject: Content Analysis of Women's Magazines
We are a small research team of sociologists, political scientists, and
scholars of gender studies, who would like to undertake a comparative
study of women's magazines. Our research aim is to elucidate how mass
cultural texts, such as women's magazines, function in the reproduction of
gendered identities and, specifically, women's social practices.
We are interested in finding out about how to manage the complexity of
content analyses of mass media texts, such as women's magazines. Are
there indexes for women studies' related contents (in contrast to indexes
about fashion and beauty related content)? If so, do such indexes exist
for all or only some national editions (US, UK, France, etc)? For specific
magazines only?
Also, how to undertake a content analysis that combines/compares textual
and photographic (visual) materials?
Lastly, what theories could be employed to measure the readers' perception
of the content?
We are particularly interested in US, French, and East European
publications. You may reply privately to sreineke@indiana.edu.
Sandra Reineke
Indiana University
___________________________________________________________________
From: Kazetnik@aol.com
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2000 17:05:39 EDT
Subject: Re: sociobiology, rape, TS/TV, pornography etc
Hi all. Some thoughts on recent posts:
Maria-Elena Buszek wrote:
<< Since childhood, I've always been not only interested in erotic material,
but also felt that my power to infiltrate the stuff (both visually and
imaginatively) has been a direct result of my early association with
feminism...and I hardly think I'm alone in my generation in feeling this way.
Any others on the list with ideas? >>
I found this question interesting because I found my own answer slightly
disconcerting. I have never (till now) considered linking use of erotic
material with my feminism, perhaps because of the pervasiveness of the
Dworkin-MacKinnon paradigm where, even if erotica is stimulating, there is a
sense that one should reject it or certainly not regard it as a source of
liberatory pleasure, because of the women exploited in its making, even when
they (deludedly according to this model) assert that they find it empowering.
And now I'm wondering to what extent I infiltrate such material. In other
words, that I am not objectified by its scopophilic construction of female
sexuality, but am constructing a resisting scopophilia. Might there be a
difference between visual and textual material in women's capacity to
infiltrate erotica? Going to have to sit with that one :)
Chris Dummitt writes to Rictor: <<Your choice of gender as an analytical
category reflects your own focus on sexual difference as the important
definining characteristic.>>
Absolutely. Of course there are times in history or in different cultures
where other analytic categories take precedence over gender, or where gender
may not signify at all. Obvious examples would be pre-abolition slave
societies, Nazi Germany, Israel etc etc. Also, note that there are in fact 3
genders. Male. Female. And disabled. If this were not so, why are there three
kinds of public lavatory? A w