Research Material and Theoretical Perspectives

Abstract

We approach sexuality as a specific social practice through the concepts of sexual generations, the sexual life course and sexual scripts. Understanding sexuality as a social practice means that we do not employ, say, the evolutionary, biological or psychoanalytical approaches to human sexuality. The social realm of sexuality has been characterized as ‘the array of acts, expectations, narratives, pleasures, identity formations and knowledge in both men and women, that tends to cluster most densely around certain genital sensations but is not adequately defined by them’ (Costlow et al. 1993, 1). Human sexuality does appear to have some universal constants — for instance, the intensity of sexual life usually diminishes with age. The need to reproduce sexually is something we share with other animals and also with most plant species. Many aspects of human and animal behaviour can undoubtedly be explained by their relevance for reproductive success. Yet, as Featherstone (1999, 1) writes, animals always copulate in the same ways, whereas human beings have woven into this act a wide range of practices, institutions, rites and representations.