Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities

How is it useful (IS it useful?) to put sex into l Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-09-05 15:09:13 Link to this Comment: 6353

We begin week two of Thinking Sex by asking

is it necessary to put sex into language?
If so, of what use is it to do so?

Write to this query...
pose other questions...
respond to one another's observations...
keep the converation going, knowing that everything you say here is revisable....

Talking "Sex" Name: Laura Date: 2003-09-09 00:10:14 Link to this Comment: 6382

"The sexual experience is still largely outside language - at least as it (language) is constituted at any number of levels." (139 Delany)

I am beginning to agree with these sentiments more and more. In this class I struggle to define words that we throw around in the many and convuluded contexts in which we freely use them. Really, what is "sex", "gender", "sexuality", "perversion", "female/male", "masculine/feminine"? How do we define these words? The more we attempt to broach the subject of sex, the more words that we invent... (i.e. homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual...)

"'What we need,' Foucault writes in "the Gay Science" is 'a radical break, a change in orientation, objectives and vocabulary.'" (238 Fuss)

How effective is vocabulary? I feel like we attempt to understand sexuality through the definitions of words, but we only prove to ourselves, again and again, that doing so is not only confounding but almost impossible.

Name: Catherine Date: 2003-09-09 12:52:04 Link to this Comment: 6388

Having read the two pieces for this week, I believe it is useful to put sex and experiences into language. For me, especially with the second reading, the explanation of the narrator's experiences helped me understand him without having to accept his beliefs. Although I only received the information he chose to give (and not even other people's perspectives on the stories), I feel like he conveyed the stories in such a way that I could start thinking about things myself.

The first piece made me think that the inside/outside concept itself is too complicated to be so simple.

Language can be empowering Name: KB Date: 2003-09-09 13:22:25 Link to this Comment: 6389

This past weekend my mother came to Bryn Mawr, well, to Glenmede specifically, to drop off some groceries she had bought me and to bring a few things I had forgotten at home prior to moving in to school. We talked for a little about my readjusting to being back after a year off, and eventually came to the topic of classes. I told her about my French Senior Seminar, my UPenn classes on race and heroism (respectively), and finally I mentioned to her that I was in a course called "Thinking Sex." She actually blushed, and just said "oh, that's nice." I tried my hardest to explain to her that this really was an intellectual class and that it isn't just a group of girls sitting in a circle talking about their orgasms. I don't think she wanted to hear it, and I felt myself feeling frustrated that I could not fully get across to her that Thinking Sex is a meaningful course that will be an enriching part of my studies here at Bryn Mawr.

What a perfect example of what Delany writes about in his article. I also am of the mindset that language will never be the most adequate tool to describe our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I do think however, that language is a very empowering tool, and while it may cast people into "inside/outside" positions, it also allows us to utilize one of our most powerful gifts, our voices.

Believe me, it was a big deal that I even told my mother about this course, and I have to admit, it felt really good to do so, even if I couldn't properly describe its function in my life.

sex/language Name: Sarah Schl Date: 2003-09-09 14:04:54 Link to this Comment: 6390

I agree with everyone else who said that a lot of experiences in the sexual/emotional realm can't be put adequately into words. We wouldn't be in an English class if we didn't WANT to put things into words, though. Humans are social animals seeking connection to others, so we have a natural urge to talk about subjects that are meaningful to us. Because sex is so personal, we run into that distinction between being ABLE to speak and being WILLING to speak. Yes, putting an experience into words can change it or limit it, but it can also facilitate sharing and understanding (ie if you don't really get why you felt so upset over something that happened last night in the bedroom, so you talk it over with your best friend and she helps you figure it out). I think some things will always be too personal to share, or too intense and complex to describe, but we try to share our experiences hoping that someone else will understand and identify with us.

I found Professor Dalke's scenario of a southern Scarlett-wannabe losing her virginity to be very interesting in terms of whether our experiences are scripted/shaped by what we've read and seen. Personally my first exposure to sex was through my grandmother's Harlequin romance novels, and they've of course proved to be pretty far removed from what my sex life is really like. I think the most memorable sexual (and otherwise) experiences for me have been ones that have been unexpected--beyond the realm of what I'd imagined before, unscripted...perhaps something I don't seem to have the vocabulary to describe because I've never been exposed to it. So I guess this is the tip of the iceberg phenomenon Delany suggests--what is circulated in language about sex is only a small representation of the sexual realm, and it's probably not even the best part!

Hope that all made sense and that my two paragraphs didn't COMPLETELY contradict each other...

Speaking of Sex... Name: Ro. Finn Date: 2003-09-10 08:36:06 Link to this Comment: 6401

My 2 cents...
The more I think about these four writings as a set, the more I see putting language to sex as political protest, a protest against a power imbalance that is affecting the lives of those who see themselves and are seen by others as "outside." They may speak/come out/ whatever hoping to establish that aspect of themselves as legal and "normal" in their sexual practices. More likely they are motivated by a sense of being on the outside of a socio-economic community, not a community of potential sex partners. How they identify themselves needs to be deemed OK not only in their eyes but others "outside" –or why else bother?

Does what I desire identify me? Only if I let it? And do I have several identities: one with my parents, another with my peers, yet another with strangers? (Isn't that exhausting?!)

Do I need to speak about what I desire? Why? If I think about it as one more opportunity to exercise prudent risk management, what's to gain/what's to lose? Both questions are equally important. What if no one speaks about sex? Would everyone then believe in a heterosexual/vanilla norm? Normal—defined by biologists as "lacking observable abnormalities or deficiencies." So, if we speak about our sexual desires, then the range broadens away from a narrow, vanilla norm to a norm encompassing many more flavors. As the norm broadens, new flavors on the inside of the range increase the number of/ types of "normal" insiders.

So, to speak about sex is a social responsibility that carries real risk if only a few of us speak it. And another kind of real risk—implicit censorship/use it or loose it—if none of us speaks. And if many of us speak, as Arlo Guthrie pointed out, we could have a Movement. A political movement to gain/regain a balance of power that then enables us to live with "equal opportunity." Old buzzwords ringing again.

I do not question whether sex can be put into language (which I define more broadly than just words...think visual and audial, as well as textual). To the degree that all expressions by us are imperfect, so will this be. It's constrained only by our enabling/allowing ourselves to see those risks as important/worth taking AND survivable. The real question for me is this: will we?

Reply to Katie's post Name: Ro. Finn Date: 2003-09-10 08:44:53 Link to this Comment: 6402

Katie,
Thanks for posting about your exchange with your mother. It brought some new thoughts and insights home to me.

I just wanted to tell you that my mother--who is 85 and spry as an elf both physically and mentally--asks me about what goes on in Anne's class and offers her opinions quite flamboyantly--but only if we are NOT in the company of my father :-)!

Sexual Mystique Name: Ali Date: 2003-09-10 15:19:51 Link to this Comment: 6414

So the thoughts running through my mind right now concern loss. What is lost when I articualte my sexual experiences? When someone asks, "How was last night?" and I turn to them with a doofy smile on my face, pretend to faint out of sheer, fulfilled exhaustion and announce "Awesome!" am I being untrue to that experience? If it really was all that, how can I even TRY to convey those ineffable but precise emotions and physical feelings? I feel the same way when I'm asked about my sexuality and my sexual orientation. Every answer I give (and it's always different) leaves something integral out. The most succinct I can get is to say I'm "sexual" (or like Carla, I'm a slave to my body). I refuse to be pessimistic about language because there certainly have been times when I've felt that someone has eloquently alluded to some feeling or experience that, through her vagueness I've felt complete comprehension. Perhaps I want to say less is more, then - that details exacerbate communication and we should stick to innuendos or vague references. I also worry that the delicious mystery surrounding sex/sexuality is eroded when language tries to box abstractions into pre-existing signifiers like words.

dual uses of language Name: Jessie Date: 2003-09-10 19:53:48 Link to this Comment: 6419

I believe that, despite what Fuss theorizes about its danger, putting sexuality/identity into language is necessary. I agree with Fuss about the harshness of the inside/outside categories that language creates, and the inherent hierarchy that goes with such a strict binary system. However, I do not think, as Fuss says, that "what is called for is nothing less than an insistent and intrepid disorganization of the very structures which produce this inescapable logic" (Fuss 238). Rather, I think both language and the inside/outside structures it creates are necessary in order to achieve the flexible identities that Fuss seeks. We don't need to disorganize the structures so much as we should rearrange the way we think about them. This is exactly what Delaney does. By putting his experiences into language, he utilizes how we define "normal" and "perverse" to show that, really, nothing is statically "outside."

It is possible to construct hierarchies by putting identity into language. However, it is also possible to break down these hierarchies through language. Whereas Fuss establishes language as the cause of systems which pose identities as antithetically different, Delaney uses language to reveal that identities are essentially the same.

putting sex into language Name: Tia Burrou Date: 2003-09-10 23:21:54 Link to this Comment: 6424

I think it is important an nessecary to put sex into language. i fell that wehether or not sexual opinions and taboos are voiced, people are still going to think what they want. so whether or not someone says they are "outside" because they are a homosexual does not change the fact that the person they say it to could already be thinking that anyway. also, i think that putting sex into languge is nessecary for learning about ourselves and through something so basic, something we all have in common. i think that when we put sex into language, we are not nessecary talking about sex, but about an aray of human feelings and emotions, that are felt through a sexual experience

thinking and thinking and thinking sex Name: Laura Date: 2003-09-10 23:26:15 Link to this Comment: 6426

I just wanted to briefly commoent on Ro's posting...

"What if no one speaks about sex? Would everyone then believe in a heterosexual/vanilla norm?"

This question really troubled me. What if no one speaks about sex? What if we didn't have the word "sex" in our vocabulary?
I was thinking about the outside/inside debate that we had in our last class. Words themselves are both outside and inside. They can be outside and inside of the experiences they attempt to (and sometimes adequately do so) describe. Is sex outside of language? We do our very best to put emotions into words. For the most part it seems to work universally, right? However, isn't it also true that words end up superimposing upon our emotions as well? Ali made a really good point by asking "what is lost?" when she tries to articulate her sexual experiences. Obviously, her experiences are unique only to her, as mine are to me, and as your's are to you. And yet we try to sum up that uniqueness into a restrictive vocabulary... But then again, like Ro said, what if no one speaks about sex?
Are words empowering? Or are they destructive? By naming something, I believe we do both. Words unite emotions yet they are also sadly inadequate...
Okay, I think that I'm thinking too much right now. I'm just going to go to bed and I'll see everyone in class tomorrow.
Take care.

Name: Heather Date: 2003-09-11 17:31:47 Link to this Comment: 6444

Diana Fuss' article, "Inside/Out" really made a lot of sense to me. It made me think about categories. When you catagorize something, there is neccessarily an outside because of the lack of what the category encompasses. There is an "outside" because of the lack of the "inside." This makes me mad at the category, and the category-makers. But we are all category-makers; It is a defense mechanism and a comfort to be part of a group. I went to the Town Hall discussion on diversity, and we were discussing something very similar. Many people discussed their social discomfort (to say the least) about not fitting neatly into a defined category. One person said "which cultural group do I go to?" Anne talked about how her identity is constantly changing, and the freedom that comes with that rather than limiting yourself by labeling yourself. I have had a very different gut reaction to redefining my identity, both to myself and to other people. It is comforting and easy to be able to label yourself in a socially acceptable category. It is very scary to be an "outsider." In our discussion in class someone mentioned that being an outsider is being part of a group as well, and that there are those that don't even fit into the category of an outsider. I found that to be very insightful as to another very scary place to be. So, I would argue that we cannot change the existance of categories, but maybe we can change the way we feel about not being able to fit into a category? the way we feel about others that are outside our own category? the boundaries of the category? what is socially acceptable?...but if by defining ourselves as something socially unacceptable we are strengthening the boundaries of the "inside", how can we challenge what is socially acceptable?...Maybe the answer is, like Delany did, just to talk about it.

Speaking in Silences Name: Grannis Date: 2003-09-13 12:10:24 Link to this Comment: 6463

Hello everybody :-). I have enjoyed reading all of your postings, and I am really just "exploding" with thoughts at the moment- so I'm just going to start with the first idea that has popped into my head!

Okay.... after much thinking, I do believe that it is necessary to put sex into language. If not for any other reasons, I believe it is imperative that we do so merely for the health of society. So much of how effectively our country (and on a smaller scale, businesses and families) function is tied to sex. For example, sexual diseases in this country take away valuable lives hourly. Imagine if there were no discourse on sex--- no sexual health precedents would ever have been established! This is unacceptable, when so much can be prevented by holding conversations and increasing awareness regarding "safe" sex, disease prevention, and care for existing sexual illness.

Also, I believe it is important to open up discourse on sex because it is important to study people's attitudes toward reproduction and/or their sexual habits. NOT because of voyeurism: rather, because it is necessary to study the birthrate in this country (which affects EVERYTHING- economy, politics, resources) along with public health.

However, here's my main gripe: I don't think we're using the right "medium" to put sex into language. (Or the right language?) I found Ali's post very interesting (so I want to quote her):

"So the thoughts running through my mind right now concern loss. What is lost when I articualte my sexual experiences? When someone asks, "How was last night?" and I turn to them with a doofy smile on my face, pretend to faint out of sheer, fulfilled exhaustion and announce "Awesome!" am I being untrue to that experience?"

No Ali, I don't think you are being untrue to that experience--- however, I too feel that something is often lost when I try to put sex into WORDS. If I express myself through art, (especially musically in my songs) I actually feel the opposite though- like I am gaining something. Perhaps it's because I'm getting to know myself better, and I'm sending my statements out into the void to let other people interpret them as they wish. But I do feel a sense of loss when I put sex into concrete words (whether it be written or spoken).

I think the problem for me is the fact that I am never able to come up with precisely the words I need--- nothing is exact enough, true enough to the moment. Therefore, sometimes I think it's better not to use words and speak with silences. This summer, I read Foucault's "History of Sexuality" and was especially intrigued by one quote:

"Silence itself--- the things one declines to say, or is forbidden to name, the discretion that is required between different speakers---is less the absolute limit of discourse, the other side from which it is separated by a strict boundary, than an element that functions alongside the things said...There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses."

Hmmm.... so I started thinking to myself last night that perhaps silences are just as important in talking about sex as verbalization. (However, in my opinion, this wouldn't work in a sexual discourse regarding research of sexual habits/ sexual health...in this situation, it is necessary to be explicit). Yet in a situation like Ali's where someone asks you "So what happened last night!?!?!?!" I don't think one should feel pressured to grope for words and be "overt." Rather, it might be easier on an individual and minimize the sense of loss one feels from verbally "publishing" their private sexual lives to just answer with a few nondescript words, a facial expression/ body language, a nice long silence, and let the person interpret things for him/herself.
Just some wild late night theorizing.... hope it makes sense!

sex in language Name: Laurel Date: 2003-09-16 02:29:41 Link to this Comment: 6488

Yes, sex is an experience, like all experiences, that can never truly be captured in language. But it sure is fun to try. If I could have all the hours back that I have spent recapping sexual exploits and desires with my friends it would add up to years. It is interesting the way experiences sound differently when they are put into language--suddenly an episode that seemed natural at the time sounds silly or weird when described out loud. And we all draw lines, I'm sure there are experimentations in our past my friends and I would never admit to each other. In the end it doesn't matter that we can't express sexual experience perfectly in language...but perhaps it is so satisfying to try because we sense that others do perhaps understand some of the layers we cannot explain. My friends and I can tell just by the expression on one of our faces or the sigh one of us makes during a movie that she is thinking about, remembering, wanting sex. Not that everyone's sexual experiences are the same--far from it--but perhaps we can all understand each other's desire through experiencing our own, which isn't really language, but perhaps language is a prompt for this sexual empathy.

Sex v. Sexuality Name: Megan Hill Date: 2003-09-16 09:15:50 Link to this Comment: 6490

Sitting around the table last night at my praxis training, I realized that "sex" can easily be put into language but what we struggle with is "sexuality".

One of the training exercises, exactly like the one Nell did, asked us to write downs words that came to mind when describing "sex" and "sexuality". The list for "sex" was identical to the list we created in class. However, the group struggled for a while, pondering "sexuality". Words ranged from gender to orientation, sensuality to creativity. It seemed much easier to describe "sex", what one could describe as physical actions and "sexuality" which encompasses emotions, identities, judgments, politics, etc.

When one recounts a sexual experience, the actions seem easy to describe (arousal, orgasm, kissing, etc.), but the narrator can never truly convey all of the emotions and politics behind the experience (power, love, judgements, etc.).

blushing language Name: Garron Date: 2003-09-17 12:15:47 Link to this Comment: 6509

Sex, like any other topic, can be put into language. How well it, or any other experience or thing, can be put into language is quite another matter.

This discussion about language reminds me or an essay I read in a college seminar I took a number of years ago entitled "The Left Hand of Difference" by Robert Scholes. I went back and skimmed the article and here's a part that stood out for me. When describing a language exercise performed by Jacques Derrida, Scholer writes that "One of its principal functions is to remind us of that basic act of differentiation by which language offers us control of things at the price of distancing us from them. And one of its most powerful implications is that this initial difference operates to make every verbal formula incomplete, requiring a perpetual supplementary activity, a de-construction of language by means of more language."
Interesting, huh? At least to me, this idea of a trade off inheirant in the use of language. Scholer sees the trade off as a distancing between what one puts into words from that thing which one puts into words. Ali, by what she writes in her posting, seems to see puting sex into words as a loss rather than a distancing. I don't know what I see it as, or even if I see it this way at all . . .

What I do know is that I can describe what I feel when I eat an apple or lick an icecream cone, but I don't think I could put the entire experience into words. Take the icecream cone for example, I could wax on about the texture, the temperature, the sweet/sugaryness rushing into my bloodstream, but I could never encompass the entire experience of consuming that ice cream cone.

But maybe the point of language, whether it be about sex, ice cream, or even taking out the garbage, is not to translate the entire experience but to give us clues, keys, parts . . . for remembering, for understanding others, for others to understand us, for conveying a point.

Speaking about putting sex into language, I must admit that I'm no delicate flower. or blushing school girl when putting sex into language in a social or personal context. On the other hand, putting sex into language about my personal sexual acts, or hearing about others sexual acts in an academic context is quite another matter. Reading Delany's article gave me a lot to think about regarding sex from an intellectual and a personal stanpoint, but I must say that as I read his work I repeatedly thought "I can't believe that he's writing about his personal sexual experiences to illustrate an intellectual/academic points. I can't believe that he's talking about his sex life in terms of an academic paper being delivered out loud to a large group of people."

Similarly, in class, when students move from talking about sex as an intellectual abstract to a personal experience--when someone mentions that they actually have sex I find myself blushing, at least, internally. I know people have sex. I know people in our class have sex. I'm just not used to people saying it in a setting outside of a medical, or social context. Sex is something we all know we do, whether it's sexual intercourse or sexual feelings, or whatever, but generally its implied and not explicited stated in formal settings. When someone in the classroom mentions they have sex I feel as though someone has taken an implicit possiblity and made it an explicit reality. Let me be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with discussing sexuality in the classroom, it's just going to take me some time to get used to.

Putting sex into language Name: Date: 2003-10-03 14:53:30 Link to this Comment: 6782

I read through all the posts and thought hard about what I could add to this conversation that someone hadn't really already touched on. I realized, though, that when it comes to putting sex into language, everyone's thoughts really intercross and connect, so its difficult to be completely original. anyway, instead I decided to just build on thoughts I found intriguing and kind of let myself flow from there.

I started with Laura's post, since its first...and from that one I had an influx of thoughts...haha...so I'm going to start there with my contribution. To quote her:

"In this class I struggle to define words that we throw around in the many and convuluded contexts in which we freely use them. Really, what is "sex", "gender", "sexuality", "perversion", "female/male", "masculine/feminine"? How do we define these words? The more we attempt to broach the subject of sex, the more words that we invent... (i.e. homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual...)"

Thinking about that led me to realize that when we create more words to define sex and sexuality...all we really do is create more and more narrow inside/outside categories. In an effort to find the exact word, we end up excluding the majority of people. Why can't sex just be what it is...why must we tell people exactly what we felt and thought? Isn't part of the fun of sex the imagination? In my opinion, the only reason sex is so fantastic for some of us is partly imagination, which is why it becomes so hard to define and speak about. Maybe we should just leave it up to the imagination and allow people to intersperse what we say about our experiences with what they have experienced and how they understand sex to be. Then when we talk about sex its like a learning experience, where we build upon our own experiences with someone else's and vice versa.

Also, I wanted to comment on why I believe it is important to at least try and put sex into language. It seems to me that all experiences, sexual or otherwise, are similar in one way...when we try to put them into language what we are attempting to do is share our history and our life with other people...to give them a part of ourselves (I think someone, maybe Laurel?? said this in class...and I agree) and so by attempting to put sex into language, whether through a romance novel, through memoirs, through a simple story you tell your friends, we are trying to become part of a history. In this case, part of a sexual history. Telling any experience is a passing on of history, of life, of ourselves and so we must attempt to put sex into language or we would surely lose a very important part of ourselves and our world. Ro's comment about what would happen if we stopped discussing sex altogether was especially poignant, when I think about the horrific consequences. Not being able to discuss something as delicious as sex (and sometimes as awful as sex) would not only be problematic for health reasons (as Grannis brought up), but also for mental reasons. It would be like having this wonderful secret to tell and never being able to share it. I might explode! Or, on the other hand, if your experience was negative, it would be awful to think of so many more people balling it up inside (so many more than already do) and letting it hurt them from the inside out instead of being able to deal with it and healing themselves.

I know I've been rambling, I will stop now...but I just wanted to get that out there. I'm having trouble being succinct today, but I'm sure you'll all survive. Have a nice day everyone! Don't think about sex TOO much!

Putting sex into language Name: Anjali Date: 2003-10-03 14:53:37 Link to this Comment: 6783

I read through all the posts and thought hard about what I could add to this conversation that someone hadn't really already touched on. I realized, though, that when it comes to putting sex into language, everyone's thoughts really intercross and connect, so its difficult to be completely original. anyway, instead I decided to just build on thoughts I found intriguing and kind of let myself flow from there.

I started with Laura's post, since its first...and from that one I had an influx of thoughts...haha...so I'm going to start there with my contribution. To quote her:

"In this class I struggle to define words that we throw around in the many and convuluded contexts in which we freely use them. Really, what is "sex", "gender", "sexuality", "perversion", "female/male", "masculine/feminine"? How do we define these words? The more we attempt to broach the subject of sex, the more words that we invent... (i.e. homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual...)"

Thinking about that led me to realize that when we create more words to define sex and sexuality...all we really do is create more and more narrow inside/outside categories. In an effort to find the exact word, we end up excluding the majority of people. Why can't sex just be what it is...why must we tell people exactly what we felt and thought? Isn't part of the fun of sex the imagination? In my opinion, the only reason sex is so fantastic for some of us is partly imagination, which is why it becomes so hard to define and speak about. Maybe we should just leave it up to the imagination and allow people to intersperse what we say about our experiences with what they have experienced and how they understand sex to be. Then when we talk about sex its like a learning experience, where we build upon our own experiences with someone else's and vice versa.

Also, I wanted to comment on why I believe it is important to at least try and put sex into language. It seems to me that all experiences, sexual or otherwise, are similar in one way...when we try to put them into language what we are attempting to do is share our history and our life with other people...to give them a part of ourselves (I think someone, maybe Laurel?? said this in class...and I agree) and so by attempting to put sex into language, whether through a romance novel, through memoirs, through a simple story you tell your friends, we are trying to become part of a history. In this case, part of a sexual history. Telling any experience is a passing on of history, of life, of ourselves and so we must attempt to put sex into language or we would surely lose a very important part of ourselves and our world. Ro's comment about what would happen if we stopped discussing sex altogether was especially poignant, when I think about the horrific consequences. Not being able to discuss something as delicious as sex (and sometimes as awful as sex) would not only be problematic for health reasons (as Grannis brought up), but also for mental reasons. It would be like having this wonderful secret to tell and never being able to share it. I might explode! Or, on the other hand, if your experience was negative, it would be awful to think of so many more people balling it up inside (so many more than already do) and letting it hurt them from the inside out instead of being able to deal with it and healing themselves.

I know I've been rambling, I will stop now...but I just wanted to get that out there. I'm having trouble being succinct today, but I'm sure you'll all survive. Have a nice day everyone! Don't think about sex TOO much!

oops Name: anjali Date: 2003-10-03 14:54:27 Link to this Comment: 6784

oops...posted twice. SORRY!!