Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender | Date: 30 April 2011, 06:50
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Although the vast amount of media attention devoted to sex may make it seem more
important than ever, in some ways sex is actually less important today than ever before. In
the developed world, there has been a trend away from the wide-open spaces of agrarian
settings and toward overcrowded cities, which means that most couples no longer have an
urgent need to reproduce to provide offspring to take care of themwhen they get older.With
fewer fields to till, infant mortality reduced, and improved health care allowing people to
work for many more years, having a large number of children is no longer the standard
method of retirement planning. So although at one time the ability to limit pregnancies
would have had catastrophic results, today’s birth rates reflect this new reality, be it
voluntarily as in Europe, or involuntarily as in China. And now, with artificial insemination,
we don’t even need the sex act tomake babies. So if we humans were ever to lose the ability to
have sex at some point in the future (heaven forbid!), these new technologies would allow our
kind to continue to inhabit the earth for as long as the earth was inhabitable.
But whereas sex has lost its importance in its primary sense, it has grown in importance
in another, keeping people together as couples, leading to its current state where we humans
are having more sex than ever before. I don’t need a study to prove that because one reason
for this increase is simply the fact that we’re living longer, and so each of us is havingmore sex
than did past generations over the course of our longer lifetimes. But the added leisure time
in our modern societies also frees us to put more focus on sex, so while the sex act has been
decoupled somewhat from its original purpose, it remains very much at the center of our
daily lives.
Many of these changes have taken place over generations, but there have been significant
changes with regard to sex that have occurred in only the past half century or so. I’ll even take
some credit for one or two of those. One significant change is that so many more women
know now that they should be enjoying sex rather than just putting up with it in order to
have a family. Inmy lectures, I oftenmake reference to a Victorianmother who, when telling
her about-to-be-married daughter about the birds and bees, would say, ‘‘Lie back and think
of England.’’ But while those dark ages continue for too many women, millions of others
have made the transition to being sexually fulfilled by acquiring the knowledge needed to
have orgasms, and the independence to demand them from their partners. So the pleasure
that comes fromengaging in sexual relations, which has historically been more important for
one gender than the other, can be shared now by both men and women equally. And one
could say that this happened just in time, because as the reproductive role of sex lessens, its
role in keeping parents together has become more important.
It has always been important for children to have two parents for their survival, but
historically, children were given adult roles much earlier than they are today. In order to
support a child through the college years, parents must find ways of cementing their
relationship over a much longer period of time. And sex is an important part of the glue
that keeps partners together. That is not to say that many divorced couples do not send their
children to college, but it becomes much more of a financial burden if the funds have to
come from two separate households. So as the reproductive aspects of sex have been sinking
in importance, it is the pleasurable aspects for bothmales and females that have been rising to
the top. This is especially true in societies where women have increasingly been able to
support themselves. When women were financially dependent on their partners, they had
less leverage when it came to asking for sexual satisfaction. But now that women can survive
when living alone, the sexual aspects of a marriage, for both partners, play a more important
role in their combined desire to remain a functioning couple.
This encyclopedia is not only about the sexual act, but also about gender, which
traditionally stood for males and females but these days may be open to further interpreta-
tions, as sexual orientation may not necessarily follow one path linked to the physical
attributes of male and female.
Just as sex has changed in its importance over the last half century, so has gender. Not
that long ago everyone’s place in the world was determined, to some degree, by their gender.
Every year that goes by, that becomes less and less true, and so conversely, as with sex,
knowing about gender becomes more and more important. If all the old assumptions are
wrong, then we all have a duty to learn about the new possibilities. And to do that, you need
as up-to-date a road map as you can find, and that is exactly what you will find inside these
many pages.
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