The Sexuality of Gender 21 Virginia E. Rutter and Braxton Jones Abstract will ever be disconnected from one another? It This chapter presents theory and research on matters less to us whether they are connected gender and sexuality as well as on knowledge or disconnected than that heteronormativity production in this area. Study in this area ceases to be a source of social control, racism, begins with the idea that gender and sexuality and structured inequalities by regulating gen- are interactional, socially constructed through der and sexuality. micro and macro institutions ranging from family and individual couples to the nation, with effects varying by different social mark- 1 Two Questions ers like race, class, cohort, age, and relation- ship status. What we know of the history of Let us begin with two questions: First, how does sexuality plus what we recognize as chal- gender play a role in sexuality? And, second, how lenges for contemporary work are contingent does sexuality play a role in gender? Work on what on our epistemologies. This is because knowl- gender is gives clear direction for answering these. edge, too, about gender and sexuality is Our starting place is to recognize gender as a social socially constructed, hampered by the legacy structure, as Risman (2004, 2018 [this volume]) of constrained categories combined with lim- has demonstrated. Gender is performed (West & itations of imagination—our habits of mind. Zimmerman, 1987), gender is intersectional This chapter will help students and scholars of (Crenshaw, 1989; Robinson, 2018 [this volume]) gender recognize transformations in the with multiple and fluid statuses, and gender is expression of gender and sexuality, even as forever carrying us backwards even as we move it highlights the persistence of normative forward in time (Ridgeway, 2011; Fisk & Ridge- linkages between the two through heteronor- way, 2018 [this volume]). All this gendering mativity. Do we think gender and sexuality happens at the macro, organizational, and cultural level; it is not just something that happens face-to-face, but involves structures of work, economy, and politics. V. E. Rutter (&) Next is to recognize the extent of “gendered Framingham State University, Framingham, USA sexualities”—defined as how “individual and e-mail: [email protected] societal constructions of gender overlay and B. Jones intermingle with sexual behaviors, ideations, Boston University, Boston, USA attitudes, identities, and experiences” (Gagné & e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 285 B. J. Risman et al. (eds.), Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76333-0_21 286 V. E. Rutter and B. Jones Tewksbury, 2005, 4). Heteronormativity—in its structures by affirming some identities and expression as well as resistance to it through neglecting others. The de facto model of family breaking the imaginative limits of heteronorma- in debates about paid leave or childcare persists tivity—looms large. Heteronormativity refer- as a heteronormative, biologically based family: ences the way that heterosexuality is assumed to Sexuality—from norms to practices—is funda- be the “norm,” and that social systems and mental and yet not central in these debates. interactions work to promote and idealize it. Norms and practices are, instead, submerged, Heteronormativity has gender binaries (i.e. often naturalized. The default model of the male + female) as a cornerstone and dominates aspirational family is frequently inflected with these “gendered sexualities.” But we see it ten- whiteness when one traces the debates on family tatively giving way to transformational experi- structure that are infused with racist backlash. In ences, structures, and identities. We say a 20th anniversary look back at the Welfare “tentatively” in part because scholarship—such Reform Act of 1996, Cohen (2016) demonstrates as that guiding this chapter and this book— fills how racist stereotypes were a key basis for us in, but also reproduces explicit as well as making welfare more punitive, especially sneaky ways that gender and sexuality are towards black single moms. He mapped attitudes repressively linked, as suggested by Weeks linking poverty, race, and family structure to (2009) and Foucault (1978). Therefore, to grasp overwhelming belief that dependence (rather links between gender and sexuality we also than a lack of opportunities) was a serious harm. address the social construction of knowledge The popular sentiment against single parents that about it. Through our lens—pulling on the cur- grew in the early 1990s justified a welfare reform rent approaches in areas ranging from hooking program that limited opportunities even more. up to coming out; from the heteronormativity of You see the synergy between gender and sexu- U.S. family policy to marketing of gay porn; ality, and the relevance of intersecting statuses. from the racialized respectability politics of The unsexy case of family policy reminds us that gender and sexuality to effective resistance of gender functions in remote and impersonal ways those very forces—the links are persistent, (Mills, 1959) to organize personal experience. though their relations are evolving and unstable. Sexuality seems personal, private, and particular, In our approach, we present a vast array of but it really isn’t only that. Looking at sexuality cases to depict approaches to gender and sexu- with a gender lens (Rutter & Schwartz, 2012) ality. Multiple identities and contexts make it allows us to start with thinking about what gen- difficult—antithetical to our perspective, even— der is to move on to look at what gender does. to provide a quick blurb about what sex and And while heteronormativity, as the family pol- gender are like for each (falsely assumed) icy example suggests, is the cornerstone of gen- monolithic group. Doing so might obfuscate the dered sexuality, resistance to these constraints is common (though differently experienced) ways real and has implications for other forms of that context and institutions inform and follow inequality by means of calling out the essential- from gender and sexuality. Thus, our approach ism implied by rigid categories in fixed relation aspires to resist the performance of socially to one another. constructed boundaries such as analyzing straight versus gay versus married versus single versus trans versus cis versus an enormous matrix of 2 What Gender Does to Sex other identities. Our approach, though, should lead you to understanding more about all of Is the persistent connection between gender and these. sexuality necessary? Some evolutionary psy- Think, for example, of discourse on family chologists argue yes: they observe behavioral policy, seemingly devoid of categorical infor- differences between men and women and see mation: yet it reveals gender and sexuality these as an affirming product of reproductive 21 The Sexuality of Gender 287 differences between males and females (Buss, coverage in USA Today, Washington Post, CNN, 1995). Men inseminate, women incubate, and and others. these biological differences, goes this essentialist It harkened back to ideas widely popular in view, are fundamentally fixed and as such earlier times. For example, Kościańska (2016, account for differences in desire and social rela- 236) analyzed the work of Polish sexologists tions. Others critique these as “just so stories” from the 1970s and 1980s and found that experts (Gould & Lewontin, 1979). For sociologists of suggested that sex was vital to happy marriages, sexuality, the causal ordering, if anything, seems that traditional gender roles were best for a backward; social context may generate desire, couple’s sexual relationship, and thus worried rather than desire generating a social order. that heterosexual couples in which the wife Looking to social context leads to recognizing worked would be less satisfied. For analysis in when categories of “man” and “woman”—as more recent times of discourses on gender, well as “male” and “female”—are invoked as Kuperberg and Stone (2008) demonstrated how restrictive binaries rather than used as a heuristic media mislead about women’s work/family —a short-hand to reference a broad range of decisions in preference for “opting out”; editors social experience. Binaries assume the relation were seemingly influenced by gender stereotypes between gender and sexuality is already known, even as data demonstrated contravening evidence and neglect the persistence of gender and sexual (Boushey, 2005). fluidity, intersex, and transgender statuses. The scholarly critiques of the provocative Recent work we review here invokes categories Kornrich article pertained to the recency of the of man, woman, male, and female in a way that data—from 20 years prior to publication. Cou- broadly can be understood as heuristics used for ples from 1993 might be different from couples discovery and understanding how context gen- today, given changes in resources and cultural erates a wide range of reinforcing connections norms (Carlson, Miller, Sassler, & Hanson, between gender and sexuality. Recent attention 2016; Rutter, 2014). Multiple new studies made to gender and sexual fluidity has enriched the correction, showing that when more recent scholarship, and also serves as a robust rebuttal data are used, couples with more egalitarian to the rigid relation between gender and sex arrangements (income, housework, childcare) category that