Thomas+Laqueur


 * __ Thomas Laqueur __**

Thomas Laqueur is a renowned sexologist and history professor at University of California Berkeley where he is currently the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor (2008). He has authored and co-authored several notable books such as //Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation,// and //Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud//. Furthermore he has contributed dozens of scholarly articles to subjects such as death, memory, culture, religion, and of course sex. In 1967 he graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy and moved on to Princeton University where he earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. by 1973. He has since taught and instructed at Concord College in Athens, West Virginia and the University of California Berkeley from 1973 until present. He has also at times been active director of Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities (2008).

Thomas Laqueur: Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor (2008).

**__ Major Contributions and Their impact on Sexual Communication: __**

**// Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud //**

In one of his more acclaimed book //Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud// Laqueur (1992) pressing the envelope when it comes to understanding not just gender but sex itself. Gender in many ways can be understood as a socially constructed concept and therefore what makes someone a “man” or “women” varies between cultures. According to Bond (2011), “sex” is “biological, inherent, and born.” On the other hand gender is the “social, psychological, cultural traits generally associated with one sex or the other” and is typically “learned.” What is “generally associated” with a certain sex is determined by the society that surrounds a person. Therefore, concepts of gender change. While Laqueur agrees with this, he takes it a step further and claims that even sex is somewhat malleable in the hands of popular belief. He states early in his book that, “More to the point, though no particular understanding of sex difference historically follows from undisputed facts about bodies” (p. viii). He goes on to explain the origin of his book in that, “what began with a history of female sexual pleasure and its attempted erasure has become instead the story of how sex, as much as gender, is made” (p. ix). Through the book he traces two “stories” or “master plots” that have dominated and weaved in and out of history that developed as frames to understand sex. There is a “one-sex” plot and “two-sex” plot. He argues that the former was most prevalent before the enlightenment. This was the view that there is really only one sex, male. The woman therefore is just a man, so to speak, turned inside out. In particular it was understood to be the inferior version of the male body. The female anatomy is then viewed in a similar lens of the male. For instance, “the vagina is imagined as an interior penis, the labia as foreskin, the uterus as scrotum, and the ovaries as testicles” (p. 4). The second story, which emerges more after the enlightenment, is a “two-sex” story. This is more of what we might think today. This holds that the body or anatomy is what mainly factors into deciding what makes someone’s gender different. The woman is now no longer an imperfect extension of the man but is now her own separate body, different from the male. It has its own organs, and even functions somewhat differently and has a different set of emotions and emotional patterns.

__ Sexual Communication Impact __ The arguments that Laqueur propose further complicate and blur the lines in both sex and gender. It is now almost difficult to distinguish if there is a difference between the two terms. While gender is learned, sex can now too be learned. How this is communicated and its implications can be numerous. One thing observed through Laqueur’s writing is that the “one-sex” seems to be most prevalent in the classical times. During these times the society was almost exclusively patriarchal. The education of women was even rare. There are still cultures today that have a patriarchal system and possibly even a “one-sex” story weaving into the way sex roles are communicated. For instance in a patriarchal system with a “one-sex” story the expectations for the way women and men play, behave, and work will be in a far greater contrast that a “two-sex” story culture. This happens because the women are seen to be the imperfect variation of the man. Therefore there is less tolerance for women to take positions or roles that a man normally takes so they might be kept to the household chores. In a “two-sex” story, women are seen as a separate being and no longer an inferior version of men. Therefore they can be seen more as equals and assume roles, and behaviors previously dominated by men.

** Solitary Sex: A cultural History of Masturbation **

In Laquer’s //Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation// he talks on a very sensitive subject that carries with it embarrassment and shame. In it he attempts to locate the emergence of masturbation into the public sphere. He hits on several key points in history that he sees a pivotal in the world’s ideas of masturbation. “In his work as a whole, Laqueur continues to offer a periodization which locates the decisive point of change in the early 18th century, and which relates the history of sexuality to that of civil society” (Cryle 2009). For instance, he believes that the ancients did not have much concern for it, and then he cites 1712 as a breakout moment. An anonymous tract called //Onania// which he supposed was written by a man named John Marten (Shorter 2004). Laqueur tries to lay out history and map the periods in which it was only viewed as a moral threat and gross lack of discipline, to when it is also viewed for a time as a mortal health threat at the influence of Samuel Auguste David Tissot in 1760. To better clarify, Laqueur outlines what he believes to be three phases in which the world viewed masturbation differently. The first phase he describes as the “moral ‘crossroads’” which ranged from the 18th to 19th centuries. During this phase, people say masturbation has a dangerous threat to both moral and physical health and integrity. The second phase was coined after Freud and represents a time in which masturbation transitioned into a developmental step into maturity. Finally masturbation enters into the post-WWII phase in which masturbation becomes a form of validating and supporting the self (Shorter 2004)

__ Sexual Communication Impact: __ Laqueur places a focal point around the world’s fear of their masturbation to be exposed. It is unclear if Laqueur’s pegging it as a shameful practice from the society’s view caused or just reflected the publics already distaste for it. Either way, our world today has a mixture of stigmas attached to it. Many still consider it a great moral vice and an unhealthy practice. On the other hand there are those that consider it a normal and healthy practice of life and ones individual rights. What is clear is that it is still a sensitive subject today as Laqueur implicitly points out. Therefore we can understand why when a child or teenager is caught doing it by their parents, shame usually accompanies it. This is very relevant to the way that parents relate and talk with their kids about sex and in particular, masturbation. By tracking the way the world has culturally seen masturbation we can better understand the way our world today views it and why they see it that way. This allows us not just better understanding into the minds and practices of a large portion of the public but aids us in instructing the next generation to come about an issue that will surely still exist in their time. Laqueur’s work has helped us to understand the stigmatization of masturbation and why so many people through history have held it in derision. We can see truth in Laqueur’s assertions in the general public’s indignation at Joyce Elders’ promotion of masturbation **(**Bond 2011). Overall, it is clear that Laqueur has accurately described and effected the way that we view and talk about masturbation.

** References: ** (2008). //Thomas W. Laqueur Helen Fawcett professor//. Retrieved from httip://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Laqueur///

// Bond, Brad. //Sexual Communication 368. //University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Gregory Hall 112. 810 South// Wright Street, Urbana, IL. 20 March 2011. Sex Education

// Bond, Brad. //Sexual Communication 368. //University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Gregory Hall 112, 810// South Wright Street, Urbana, IL. 21 Feb. 2011. Sex and Gender

// Cryle, P., (2009). Interrogating the work of Thomas W. Laqueur. //Sexualities, 12, 411-417. //doi:// 10.1177/1363460709105705

// Laqueur, T. W., (1992) //Making Sex: Body and from the Greeks to Freud. //Harvard College, United States:// Harvard University Press

// Shorter, E. (2004) Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation by Thomas W. Laqueur, //Journal of Interdisciplinary History//,// 35, 116-117. // doi: 10.1162/002219504323091289