Citings and Sightings

Photo taken from the Sociological Images Blog

I never thought I’d be writing the words “fellatio” or “cunnilingus” for an academic purpose (or frankly ever), but here I find myself exploring recent musing on the decline of the, ahem, blow job. Near the end of March, Esquire’s Geoff Dyer reported that the act has fallen on hard times: in an informal survey of 10 of his male friends, 8 preferred pleasing their partners to receiving oral sex.

It’s easy for sociologists to pooh-pooh the methodologies of this “survey,” as surveying 10 friends is hardly scientific.  Further, an increase in cunnilingus does not necessarily signal a decrease in fellatio.  But still, several intellectuals have recently explained why they think Dyer’s article might be on to something.  In an essay on his own website, Pasadena City College history and gender studies professor Hugo Schwyzer explained,

In an era of rising male body dysmorphia, we know that more men than ever before are self-conscious about their appearance; it’s conceivable that anxiety about their size (driven by comparison to well-hung porn stars) or even how their penises’ smell has some guys anxious to avoid the intense focus that comes with a woman’s mouth on their manparts.

In essence, Schwyzer thinks that cunnilingus has become a new way for men to demonstrate sexual competence and deal with performance anxieties.

Sociologist Michael Kimmel also believes that Dyer may be on to something, though he finds some fault with an assumption in Schwyzer’s article: that giving and receiving head mean the same thing.  In fact, sexuality research suggests that the meaning of the act may not be symmetrical.

When straight men describe their experiences with oral sex, they talk about power. This holds whether receiving fellatio: “I feel so powerful when I see her kneeling in front of me,” or performing cunnilingus: “Being able to get her off with my tongue makes me feel so powerful.” Heterosexual men tend to experience the giving and receiving of oral sex as an expression of their power. By contrast, straight women perceive both giving and receiving oral sex from the position of powerlessness—not necessarily because they are forced into these acts, but because “it makes him happy” to receive oral sex and to perform it. So oral sex, like intercourse, allows him to feel “like a man,” regardless of who does what to whom.

So what happens to men’s sexual experience when women desire reciprocity and actually want to perform oral sex?  According to Kimmel, in a traditional sense, sex was a conquest for men.  But is there still victory if women like the “conquering”?

It’s difficult to say, though if the answer is “no,” perhaps we need to rethink what sex means to straight men.  Kimmel asks,

Can we both conquer and surrender to pleasure? Or can we dispense with martial metaphors… entirely, and simply pleasure and be pleasured? In other words, can heterosexual men embrace the liberatory promise of queer sex—the freeing of sexual pleasure from gender inequality?

As Kimmel puts it, can there really be anything sexier than equality?

Photo by Dan Vitoriano via flickr.com

According to well-worn stereotypes, boys who have sex are “players” or “studs,” while girls who have sex get stuck with nastier labels. But in a recent New York Times editorial, sociologist Amy T. Schalet argues that boys in the U.S. seem to care much more about romance—and avoiding pregnancy and disease—than they did 20 years ago.

Rates for 15-to-17-year-olds who report having sex have dropped since the 1980s, according to the Centers for Disease Control. “And there are virtually no gender differences in the timing of sexual initiation,” Schalet writes.

She offers a few rationales for the change, based on survey data and her own research:

Fear seems to have played a role. In interviewing 10th graders for my book on teenage sexuality in the United States and the Netherlands, I found that American boys often said sex could end their life as they knew it. After a condom broke, one worried: “I could be screwed for the rest of my life.” Another boy said he did not want to have sex yet for fear of becoming a father before his time.

In fact, Schalet writes, boys seems to be more preoccupied with negative outcomes than girls. She suggests these fears grow out of sex education and an awareness of AIDS, while the drive to have sex with another person might be, in part, quelled by access to Internet pornography.

Schalet suggests there could also be a positive reason American boys are hurrying less to have sex. It might be “because they have gained cultural leeway to choose a first time that feels emotionally right. If so, their liberation from rigid masculinity norms should be seen as a victory for the very feminist movement that Rush Limbaugh recently decried.”

The Summer Olympics in London could be a watershed event in sports, as every country is expected to send female athletes to participate.  In the past, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei have only sent male athletes, according to the New York Times.

Saudi Arabia, a monarchy whose legal system is based on Islamic law, is considered the most significant of the three, given its size, international oil influence and severe restrictions placed on women in daily life. While female athletes from Qatar and Brunei have participated in national and regional competitions, Saudi Arabia has essentially barred sports for women, according to Human Rights Watch.

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, women in Saudi Arabia are systematically discriminated against when it comes to sports.  There is no physical education for girls in state schools, and gyms were closed for women in 2009 and 2010.  So, while senior Human Rights Watch researcher Christoph Wilcke welcomes the participation, he notes that the International Olympic Committee should work toward more systemic change.

However, even this change might have effects beyond Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia’s sending of female athletes could put pressure on other countries with similar restrictions to do the same, said Martha F. Davis, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law.

“I think it’s a savvy move,” she said. “It’s trying to make sure there isn’t a groundswell of Arab Spring-like activities and being responsive to those yearnings to participate. It’s being proactive.”

Professor Erika George (S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah) noted that there may be some negative reactions as well.

“There are people who may think it’s inappropriate,” George said. “But there’s precedent for this. It’s going to be hard to argue that a woman can be an Olympic champion but not be behind the wheel.”

If anything positive came from the debacle that surrounded the International Association of Athletics
Federation’s attempts to ‘determine’ South African runner Caster Semenya’s sex, it is that it brought to light the crude methods that were being used to enforce the male/female binary in sports (See David Zirin and Sherry Wolf’s article in the Nation for critical coverage of the initial controversy).

Two years later the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federation, the governing body for track and field, have released a new policy to regulate athletes whose sex development is considered unusual to avoid a repeat of the nightmare that Semenya faced.

In a recent editorial in the The New York Times, Alice Dreger, professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, provides a critical read of the new policy. Dreger explains that initially the policy seems like an improvement because:

The new policy no longer allows any room for a simplistic “I know it when I see it” approach to who counts as a female athlete.

The new system relies on setting the ‘appropriate’ levels of functional testosterone a female athlete should have. However, as Dregger argues, this policy is fundamentally sexist. Both men and women naturally produce testosterone.

Yet despite the fact that testosterone belongs to women, too, the I.O.C. and the I.A.A.F. are basically saying it is really a manly thing: “You can have functional testosterone, but if you make too much, you’re out of the game because you’re not a real woman.”

Dregger explains that men are free of any equivalent biochemical policing and can take full advantage of any ‘mutation’ that gives him an advantage. In efforts to create ‘the mythical level playing field’ the committee has taken another step in a now rich history of controlling and categorizing women’s bodies. For women athletes who have more functional testosterone than is considered appropriate for a female the only option is to “submit to being made sexually ‘normal’ through hormone treatments” or they cannot compete.

While Dregger is sympathetic to the difficulties that I.O.C. and I.A.A.F. face, she finds little progress in the decision

this newly proposed biological reduction of women to a hormonally disadvantaged class of people — one medically made disadvantaged, if necessary — struck many of us as regressive from the standpoint of women’s rights. Indeed, it reminds me of those itty-bitty shorts that college women’s volleyball players must wear. They each sexualize the bodies of female athletes as a requirement of play. They each insist that a woman never be manly.

Perhaps the biggest take away point from Dregger’s article and the debates surrounding how to define and separate male from female in the sporting arena is that:

There is no perfect solution, one that is reasonably objective, universally applicable and universally satisfying.

In February’s issue of Wired (now available online), Columbia sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh helps us understand the life of a prostitute in New York City and how the trade has been transformed by advances in technology.

While Venkatesh’s initial goal was to examine how the gentrification of Times Square and other areas of New York City would impact the sex trade, he quickly found himself documenting the rise of a new type of sex worker.

The economies of big cities have been reshaped by a demand for high-end entertainment, cuisine, and “wellness” goods. In the process, “dating,” “massage,” “escort,” and “dancing” have replaced hustling and streetwalking. A luxury brand has been born.

The shift has resulted in an increase in both the price of, and level of respect for, prostitutes. Technology has played a large part in this as it allows clients to find companionship without resorting to driving the streets.

The Internet and the rise of mobile phones have enabled some sex workers to professionalize their trade. Today they can control their image, set their prices, and sidestep some of the pimps, madams, and other intermediaries who once took a share of the revenue.

Most exciting about this short piece was the amount of information conveyed in about ½ a page of writing through the use of a wide array of supplemental graphics. A map is used to show the movement of sex workers to trendier, more upscale districts in Manhattan. And a compilation of images, statistics, and well-chosen quotes demonstrate the divide between types of sex work, as well as the infusion of technology into the escort services. For instance, Facebook is quickly becoming a medium for advertising adult-services and a BlackBerry phone has come to symbolize a professional (and disease-free) status.

USA Today recently reported on a controversial new study that surveyed 642 heterosexual adults in Chicago and found that casual hook ups can lead to rewarding, long-term relationships.

University of Iowa researchers analyzed relationship surveys and found that average relationship quality was higher for people who took it slowly than for those who became sexually involved in “hook-ups,” casual dating, or “friends with benefits” relationships.

Yet, according to sociologist Anthony Paik, having sex early in the relationship did not cause the disparity.

When he factored out people who weren’t interested in getting serious, he found that those who became sexually involved as friends or acquaintances and were open to a serious relationship were just as happy as those who dated but delayed having sex.

To measure the quality of the relationship, the respondents answered questions about how much they loved their partners, their satisfaction with intimacy in the relationship, the relationship’s future, and how their lives would be different if the relationship ended.

While the study did suggest that rewarding relationships were possible for couples who delayed sex, Paik noted that:

It’s also possible for true love to emerge if things start off with a more Sex and the City approach, when people spot each other across the room, become sexually involved and then build a relationship.

In a recent article discussing the arrest of a local official in a prostitution sting, The San Gabriel Valley Tribune called upon sociologists to explain why men visit prostitutes:

Some men are excited by the illicit risky behavior of prostitution; others like the consumer-oriented and simple transaction of meeting sexual needs through purchase; others say they have difficulties getting involved in traditional relationships; and still others are looking for a different kind of sex than they can normally find, according to a study conducted by sociologist Martin Monto for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Janet Lever, a sociologist at California State-LA, weighed in an alternative opinion:

“It’s not about the sex act. It’s really about creating variety. They usually do the same acts as they do with their wife or partner. Secondarily it’s about getting more sex,” Lever said.  Two-thirds of men wish they were getting more sex with their partner, while one-third of women do, Lever said. And prostitution provides an outlet for more sex that many men perceive as safer and less complicated than having an affair.

Commenting on high profile busts such as those of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Lever added:

“It certainly seems like these guys show a great deal of arrogance… and they have a lot more at stake than the average joe schmoe, which shows they are either delusional that they won’t get caught or they are truly driven for this act.   Joe schmoe does it too, and he may be sacrificing his marriage, but not his career.”

The author adds some demographics to the story:  The 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (led by sociologists Edward Laumann and John Gagnon) found that 16 % of men report ever visiting a prostitute, with .6 % of men visiting a prostitute each year.

The Crawler couldn’t resist the Wall Street Journal headline from yesterday’s paper: “The Sex-Housework Link: Housework Pays Off Between the Sheets.” The WSJ article begins…

Housework may seem like the ultimate romance-killer. But guess what?

A new study shows that for husbands and wives alike, the more housework you do, the more often you are likely to have sex with your spouse.

Earlier studies have hinted at this connection for men; the sight of a husband mopping the floor or doing dishes sparks affection in the hearts of many wives. But the more-housework-equals-more-sex link for wives, documented in a study of 6,877 married couples published online recently in the Journal of Family Issues, is a surprise.

But whoever thought vacuuming was sexy?

But for some high achievers who take a “work hard, play hard” approach to life, researchers say, working hard in one domain produces more energy for others. The study also found a correlation between hours spent on paid work and the frequency of sex in marriage.

“Rather than compromise their sex life” because of time demands at work or at home, “this group of go-getters seems to make sex a priority,” says Constance Gager, lead researcher and an assistant professor of family and child studies at Montclair State University, Montclair, N.J. The study doesn’t measure what proportion of spouses fall into this group, but she believes “they are on the leading edge of couples we expect to see more of in the future.”

More from the authors, one of whom is a sociologist…

Dr. Gager and her co-author, Scott Yabiku, associate professor of sociology at Arizona State University, Tempe, controlled the results for “gender ideology” and found the housework-sex link remained true, regardless of people’s views on roles. Results from the data, taken from the National Survey of Families and Households, were controlled for age, health, duration of couple’s relationship, religion, income, education and marital satisfaction.

The study defined housework as nine chores: cleaning, preparing meals, washing dishes, washing and ironing clothes, driving family members around, shopping, yard work, maintaining cars and paying bills. Wives in the study spent an average 41.8 hours a week on these tasks, compared with 23.4 hours for husbands—a split that is fairly typical, and often regarded by wives as unfair. However, the effects of any fairness concerns among wives weren’t measured in this study.

Outside the home, husbands spent an average 33.8 hours a week on paid work, compared with 19.7 hours for wives. Couples reported having sex 82.7 times a year on average, or 1.6 times a week, about the same as in other studies.

After a long national decline in time spent on housework, the study joins a growing body of research on how chores shape the dynamics of marriage. A survey of 2,020 U.S. adults placed “sharing household chores” as the third most important factor in a successful marriage, behind faithfulness and a happy sexual relationship, says the nonprofit Pew Research Center. That’s a sharp increase; 72% of respondents gave high importance to housework, up from 47% in a comparable study in 1990. In respondents’ minds, housework outranked even such necessities as adequate income and good housing, Pew says.

The article also links to another sociological study:

A 2003 study by Scott Coltrane, a sociology professor at the University of California, Riverside, linked fathers’ housework to more feelings of warmth and affection in their wives. And a survey of 288 husbands, reported in Neil Chethik’s 2006 book “VoiceMale,” linked a wife’s satisfaction with the division of household duties with her husband’s satisfaction with their sex life.

One husband, Mr. Chethik says in an interview, reported that his wife enjoyed flowers or a candlelit dinner out; but “if he wants to be sure of a romantic evening, he goes for the vacuum cleaner.”

Read more.

The San Jose Mercury News ran a story this weekend about how women’s role in sex crimes has resurfaced as an issue. Citing a handful of recent crimes in which women have played significant parts, the article delves into women’s roles in the crimes and the leniency they sometimes receive in the courtroom.

Charlene Williams of Sacramento lured six teenage girls and four young adults to their deaths as her husband demanded the perfect “sex slave.”

Michelle Lyn Michaud, also of Sacramento, customized curling irons to help her boyfriend torture and murder a 22-year-old student abducted from a Pleasanton street.

In Utah, Wanda Eileen Barzee was accused of helping her husband kidnap 14-year old Elizabeth Smart at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City bedroom so that he could secure another “wife.”

Now along comes Nancy Garrido of the Bay Area. Like the others, Garrido is accused of teaming up with a male partner — in Garrido’s case, her husband of nearly three decades — and allegedly committing unthinkable crimes against other women and children.

The arrests Aug. 27 of Nancy and Phillip Garrido revealed a stunning story about the 1991 kidnapping of 11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard, snatched off the street near her home in Meyers. Authorities say Jaycee, now 29, had been living for 18 years in the Garridos’ backyard near Antioch and is the mother of two children fathered by Phillip Garrido.

While attention focuses on Phillip Garrido’s history of sexual assault, his reduced prison term and evasion of parole oversight, the case also raises haunting questions about what role his wife may have played.

The article draws upon sociological commentary from Jack Levin…

One noted criminologist said he believes that some female offenders actually have benefited by the persistent notion that women could not possibly be the leaders — especially in a sex crime.

“The court typically throws the book at the man, believing that he was the instigator — that he initiated the attack. So he’ll get the death penalty,” said Jack Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University in Boston.

“His female companion is considered an accomplice who went along for the love of her man. She gets a much lighter sentence.”

That view is not always accurate, said Levin, an expert in serial murder and hate crimes.

In one case in Canada, he said, a woman caught up in a rape and murder case involving teenage victims testified against her husband in exchange for leniency.

In a move decried in Canada as the “Deal With the Devil,” Karla Homolka got a 12-year sentence in 1993 for manslaughter in the murders of two Ontario teens.

Motivations vary widely

She is now believed to be living in Paris, Levin said. Her former husband, Paul Bernardo, was sentenced to life in prison in Canada, which does not have the death penalty.

But after the deal was struck, Levin said, videotapes showing the rape and torture of the schoolgirls revealed Karla Homolka was a willing participant.

“She was seen enjoying herself and participating fully,” he said. “Karla Homolka was just as guilty as her husband.”

But women in these types of cases can also fall into the category of being so passive they “just go along with the plan,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

He said besides women who are battered or psychologically controlled, some are simply “low-functioning” and dependent on their mates.

“It’s not like there’s a single profile,” he said.

Read more.