SOC 1100 Lecture 9: Tutorial #3

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1100
• Professor: Deanna Behnke- Cook

Document Summary

Sex and sexuality are simultaneously biological and cultural issues. There are chromosomes, hormones and sex organs that make us male or female but culture takes over to determine what we do with these biological facts. From birth to old age, culture shapes almost every aspect of our thinking, feeling, and acting as males and females. To the extent that we define and negotiate our sexual expression or sexuality through our social interaction, it is socially constructed. Thus the notion of the social construction of reality applies as much to sexuality as to any other part of our social lives. Since it is constantly constructed and reconstructed, you can think of it in terms of symbolic- interaction, fluidity, and social change. The research or investigative approach you would use here is interpretive sociology since you are looking at the meaning that people attach to their sexuality or sexual interactions.