¶ … Sexuality
Sex can be described as a biological distinction between males and females, particularly regarding reproductive functions. On the other hand gender tends to concentrate on socially constructed differences between men and women that reveal masculinity and feminity. More importantly while gender can be applied to individual difference, it can also be applied to institutional, cultural as well as structural difference.
There are theories that explain gender: Among them are biological theory and sociological theory. In terms of sociological theory, there are three concepts involved in explaining social science of gender. They include socialization, gender role, and opportunity structure. Gender role is described as a collection of acceptable behavior which is dissimilar in terms of sex within a given behavioral domain, such as parenting, in support of gendered norms. The sex determines the boundary of acceptable behavior, and where these boundaries have been violated there are consequences that follow as well as being made difficult by structured opportunities.
Biological theory
Theory of sex dimorphism tend to vary in its details by species, however its general basis is that sex dimorphism in behavior is controlled by hormones. Sex hormones controls sex dimorphism. Since the entire mammals generally have the same primary sex hormones, studying other mammals applies too in human biology, (J. Richard Udry, 1994). Such sex hormones guide the development of sex demographic body structures as well as controlling sex dimorphic reproductive behavior, which rests at the basis of gender. The important principle within the study of animals is that the very hormones causing between-sex differences in a behavior causes it within sex variance within the same behavior. Therefore the hormone theory tends to be applied in explaining both sex dimorphism and within-sex variance on the similar behaviors that are sex dimorphic.
Such distinctions have allowed researchers in countering academic as well as popular portrayals of the differences between male and female as natural and somehow immutable. Basically emphasis on sex especially in variation in terms of biology entails sex-specific variation in chromosomes. On top of the 22 pairs of autosomal chromosomes, there are additional pairs of what has been now realized as sex chromosomes. Many of the females posse 2 X chromosomes while males posse X and Y chromosome. As males and females share the entire 22 autosomal chromosome pairs as well as an X chromosome, sex-specific variation found within the approximately 20,000 protein-coding genes is small. Smaller numbers of genes about 75 are found within the Y chromosome as well as the ones that have been linked to the development of the testes. Even though reading such numbers a bit quick can indicate sex-specific variation in genes to be about 0.5%, to estimate functionally relevant variation tend to be complex.
Moreover, regardless of the binary suggested by human reproduction, sex and gender are fluid. Variations in terms of the hormone level, chromosomes, as well as reproductive organs brings about more than 2 sexes, indicating multifaceted processes of sex development transversely multiple levels, and showing that sex tend to be culturally constructed. In the same way, some decides to disobey normative gender boundaries in their day today life, defining gender in another perspective of more than just a simple dichotomy of men and women. Indeed gender is created and recreated following social interaction that happens in dynamic cultural and institutional contexts.
Somehow human sexual orientation exists in form of a continuum from solely heterosexual to solely homosexual. The American Psychiatric Association in 1973 classified homosexual again to fall under sexual orientation or expression from previously mental disorder. It is still unclear about the mechanisms for development of any sexual orientation; however, presently the existing scholars and literatures in the field indicate that individual's sexual orientation is not a choice, meaning nobody chooses to be heterosexual or homosexual. Various theories regarding the influences on sexual orientation have gone on proposal. As a matter of fact sexual orientation is never determined through just a factor; it is a combination of hormonal, genetic, as well as environmental influences.
Experts have favored biological based theories in current decades. The existences of homosexuality among monozygotic twins as well as the formaton of homosexuality within family pedigrees are in support of biological models. Even though evidences exists that exposure to the prenatal androgen influences sexual orientation development, there are no variation on postnatal sex steroid concentrations and sexual orientation. Different researches have indicated neuro-anatomic differences between...
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