Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
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Unit 13
The Anthropology of Sexuality
In this unit (to accompany SAPIENS podcast S6E7), students will explore sexuality through the lens of anthropology. Students will investigate the influences of cultural, social, and historical factors on human sexual behaviors and identities. Students will use an anthropological framework to examine the challenges of studying sexuality, including researching in diverse cultural settings.
Learning Objectives
- Investigate how cultural, social, and historical factors influence human sexual behaviors and identities.
- Indicate the challenges of studying sexuality within an anthropological framework, including conducting research in diverse cultural settings.
Sapiens articles
When Did Sex Become Fun?
Sexual reproduction has been around for 2 billion years. But when did sex for pleasure arise? And how much did penises have to do with it?
Dating Apps Can Gauge Attraction but Not Chemistry
Why do attraction and chemistry feel different in the digital age? The answer lies in how digitally mediated information is changing the way we come to know potential partners.
Keywords
View All in Sex
![A close-up image features a circular street sign with random black symbols such as an exclamation mark and hashtag and a red circle and strikethrough over them.]()
![A man with black hair and a beard sits on a sofa in the dark and looks at the illuminated screen of a cellphone he holds in his left hand.]()
![A person with blonde hair wearing a pink blazer stands at a podium with several microphones on it and a sign that reads, “Protect Children’s Innocence.” Several people in suits stand behind, with a large white domed building in the background.]()
![A child wearing a plaid shirt and a beanie looks up and holds the hand of an adult wearing jeans and a plaid shirt but whose head isn’t visible. They stand next to a cholla cactus.]()
![A landscape photo features dense buildings on a hillside under blue skies, with a mountain range in the background.]()
![A photograph features a parade with people in the front holding up gold balloons that spell out “Disney” and those behind holding mouse-head–shaped balloons in rainbow colors.]()
Why I Ask My Students to Swear in Class
An anthropologist uses explicit insults to get students thinking about gender and power in everyday language. Plus, a brief explainer on the slang term “sus.”
Dating Apps Can Gauge Attraction but Not Chemistry
Why do attraction and chemistry feel different in the digital age? The answer lies in how digitally mediated information is changing the way we come to know potential partners.
Two Myths Fueling the Conservative Right’s Dangerous Transphobia
An anthropologist attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—ground zero for the current onslaught of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation in the U.S.
Monogamy. Grandmas. Milk. The Evolution of Childhood Is Very Strange.
In a new book, Growing Up Human, a bioarchaeologist chronicles some of the most surprising evolutionary adaptations of babies, parents, and grandparents.
What Is Freedom in a Brazilian Favela?
In a new book, Minoritarian Liberalism, an anthropologist explores how favela residents of Rio de Janeiro create their own versions of liberty—even under conditions of violence, poverty, and marginalization.
What’s Behind the Backlash to Lightyear’s Animated Kiss?
What do Twitter debates over Disney-Pixar's recent family film tell us about today’s parenting politics in the U.S.?
View All in Relationships
![A smiling girl with shoulder-length brown hair in a black T-shirt and gray leggings sits on a wooden table in a grassy park and hugs a stuffed animal wrapped in a pink and white blanket.]()
![Four deer with orange fur stand in a field of yellowing grass with a mountainous incline on the horizon.]()
![Colored in sepia tones, a photo shows a person in a dark headwrap and robes with a walking stick traveling behind a herd of sheep and goats on rocky terrain that rises into a steep hill.]()
![A black silhouette of a person contrasts with an illuminated cobalt-blue background with two bright spotlights shining from behind their head.]()
![Two people in uniforms—one in black, the other in tan—wearing black boots and hats topped with matching fans face each other and kick one leg up, their feet traveling above their heads. Other people in uniform stand at attention along the roadside behind them.]()
![A close-up image features the wrinkled hands of a person wearing a cardigan and printed skirt as they mold clay into a bowl shape.]()
Raising My Children in an Ableist World
In a new book, an anthropologist and father of three, including a daughter with Down syndrome, reflects on the pressures of parenting.
Past and Present Approaches to the Management of Red Deer
An archaeologist weighs the pros and cons driving debates around the rising population of Scotland’s renowned animal and explains what historical archaeology could add to the conversation.
What Ancient Goat Teeth Reveal About Animal Care
Unraveling a mystery around millennia-old goat bones, an archaeologist reflects on the harm people can cause their most cherished animals.
Bringing Nhakpoti, the Kayapó Story of Star Girl, to the Screen
Over years and across long distances, an international filmmaking team collaborated to bring to life the origin story of how agriculture came to Kayapó communities, Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon.
Imagining Other Worlds at the India-Pakistan Border
For decades, soldiers at the border between Attari, India, and Wagah, Pakistan, have staged an elaborate ceremony for onlookers. An anthropologist reflects on the ceremony as a legacy of Partition—and imagines other futures for the two nations.
What Pots Say—and Don’t Say—About People
Archaeologists long abandoned the simple notion that “pots are people”—that people’s identities directly correspond with the pottery they made and used. What, then, can ceramics reveal about past lives?
View All in Gender
![Two people hug in a bathroom, with one seated on a closed toilet and the other kneeling on a tan-and-brown tiled floor. Two standing onlookers flank the image’s foreground.]()
![A person wearing a white dress whose skirt is made of ribbons, each with a name written on it, leans back with their eyes closed. They are on grass with a Black Lives Matter banner on the ground beside them and a circle of drummers and bystanders around them.]()
![A black-and-white film still features a person wearing a hoodie, clear vest, and cap looks upward at the face of a person holding small objects in front of them with a gloved hand. The two are on rocky terrain in front of a graffiti-covered stone wall.]()
![A close-up image features a circular street sign with random black symbols such as an exclamation mark and hashtag and a red circle and strikethrough over them.]()
![A human figure with a large white cloth draped over them stands in a long, dark corridor lined with windows on one side.]()
![A person with blonde hair wearing a pink blazer stands at a podium with several microphones on it and a sign that reads, “Protect Children’s Innocence.” Several people in suits stand behind, with a large white domed building in the background.]()
How Eugenics Shaped the U.S. Prenatal Care System
Black women in the U.S. are far more likely to die from complications related to pregnancy and birth than White women. Two scholars explore how the discrediting of Black midwives helped create these racial disparities—and call for alternative models of prenatal care.
The Urgency of Envisioning a World Without Police
An anthropologist working in Baltimore argues that safety for Black communities requires an end to policing. That also means taking a hard look at how policing intersects with patriarchy and intimate partner violence.
Excavating a 19th-Century Detroit Saloon
A filmmaker highlights the work of urban archaeologists who are excavating the site of a woman-owned business that opened in the late 1800s.
Why I Ask My Students to Swear in Class
An anthropologist uses explicit insults to get students thinking about gender and power in everyday language. Plus, a brief explainer on the slang term “sus.”
What It Means to be Human in an Asylum
A sociocultural anthropologist from Pakistan speaks to how women in asylums in a patriarchal culture are in a battle between their realities and their lost dreams. Yet those dreams offer hope for tomorrow.
Two Myths Fueling the Conservative Right’s Dangerous Transphobia
An anthropologist attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—ground zero for the current onslaught of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation in the U.S.
Glossary
Sexual behavior
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Behaviors involving acts or parts of the body that are considered sexual.
Professor Talking Points
- The study of sexuality from an anthropological perspective focuses on investigating sexual experiences in different cultures and the social and cultural constructs of sexual practices and identities.
- Relativized sexuality is the idea that sexual experiences are not the same across all cultures and identities. Essentially, people have different lived experiences based on their cultural identity and other characteristics.
- Starting in the 1830s, Samoan culture began rapidly changing. Christian missionaries came to the country in pursuit of evangelization, and many Samoans were converted. Cultural practices and views continued to change through the century as outside influences impacted and interacted with the Samoan people. It is possible that the current culture of Samoa no longer aligns with Mead’s interpretations of Samoans’ view of sexuality due to the influences of Christianity and a possible cultural shift in Samoa.
Academic Articles
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Baxi, Pratiksha. “Sexual Violence and Its Discontents.” Annual Review of Anthropology 43 (2014):139-154.
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Maksimowski, Sophie. “A Brief History of the Anthropology of Sexuality, and Theory in the Field of Women’s Sex Work.” The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology 20, no. 1 (2012): 1-13.
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Schneider, Luisa T. “Sexual Violence During Research: How the Unpredictability of Fieldwork and the Right to Risk Collide with Academic Bureaucracy and Expectations.” Critique of Anthropology 40, no. 2 (2020): 173-193.
Student Discussion Questions
- Why is sexuality relative? Provide examples as you discuss with your peers.
- What are some challenges with studying sexuality through an anthropological framework today?
- What, if any, are some ethical concerns for studying sexuality?
- Why do you think it can be so challenging to discuss the topic of sexuality today?
- Consider the idea that sexuality is relative and explain what this would say about sexual violence in different cultures.
- How do culture, history, and social influences impact human sexual behaviors and identities?
Activities
- Create a discussion post to reflect on Mead’s work as it relates to adolescence and sexual experiences. Consider how different cultural, social, and historical factors may influence sexual experiences across cultures. Respond to two or more peers.
- In a three-to-five-page paper, compare and contrast two different frameworks of studying sexuality. One framework should be anthropology. For instance, you can compare sexuality from an anthropological lens and a biological, sociological, or psychological lens.
- Develop a study using methods from anthropology. Explain the details of the study, including your research question (i.e., what you are trying to answer), the method(s) you will use to conduct your research, and the challenges you might face during the research process. Refer back to unit materials to help you.
Additional Resources
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Article: Jennifer Hasty’s “Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Anthropology”
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Video: La Trobe University’s “Sex, Gender and Sexuality an Anthropological View”
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Video: Marc Breedlove’s TEDx Talk “Prenatal Influences on Sexual Orientation”
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Video: Deepak Modi’s TEDx Talk “Science Behind Sexuality”
Unit By
Chelsea Wheeler, Freedom Learning Group
Teaching
The Problems With Coming of Age
-
Unit 14
Reading Sia Figiel
