September 26, 2011
Framed by a discussion of her partner’s intersex condition, Blank (Virgin) explores the invention of heterosexuality as a term and norm. The concept of heterosexuality was created (along with homosexuality) in the 19th century by German researchers protesting the criminalization of same-sex relations. While the law remained unchanged, the taxonomy passed into popular use, and complemented by the theories of Krafft-Ebing and Freud, became “doxa,” what everyone knows (or believes they know). So while homosexuality has been extensively studied and debated, heterosexuality and “straight” genes have remained “amorphous and undefined” despite carrying the “monolithic aura of inevitability and authority.” A natural or biological basis for sexual orientation is commonly claimed, because it appears to be the case, even though none of the experiments performed to find a biological or genetic cause for homosexuality have yielded any evidence. From its thorough but brisk explorations of sexual orientation’s intersections with sex, gender, and romance, this illuminating study examines our presuppositions and makes a powerful, provocative argument that heterosexuality—mazy, unscientific, and new—may be merely “a particular configuration of sex and power in a particular historical moment.”
November 1, 2011
Independent scholar Blank, a social historian who has written extensively on sexual subjects (Virgin: The Untouched History, 2007; Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them, 2000), turns her attention to changing attitudes toward mainstream sexual identity. She begins with the startling information that the term heterosexuality was invented as an identifying category in 1869. Until then, the term "sodomy" was used to describe proscribed sexual relationships outside of marriage—the presumption being that the purpose of a proper sexual relationship was procreation. In this chronicle of changing sexual mores, the author challenges the common preconception today that the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality is legitimate. Beginning on a personal note, Blank reveals the circumstances of her own long-term partnership with a person whose genetic structure is anomalous—his sex chromosome is XXY rather than XX or XY—something he only found out belatedly since to all appearance he was a typical male, albeit with an absence of facial hair. The author explores the various ways that our beliefs about biological sex and gender have varied historically and why, in her opinion, they are still confused. Patterns of appropriate behavior have changed radically from the 19th century, when lawyers typically shared a bed when they rode the circuit without any implication of impropriety. While women since then have increasingly gained equality politically and in the workplace, only very recently has that autonomy extended to the bedroom. Blank uses the case of erectile dysfunction to illustrate a hidden meaning of heterosexuality today: In "the model of pleasure that Viagra is marketed to serve…Viagra-fueled erections are intended for vaginal penetration…the only fully legitimate source of sexual pleasure for most of Western history." Moreover, homosexual "men who take the insertive role of sex with other men are likely to be perceived as more masculine and sexually respectable" than their passive counterpart. The author uses wisdom and wit to substantiate her contention that love and passion are not definable by biology.
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April 15, 2012
In this slim volume, Blank (Virgin: The Untouched History) sets out to explore the changing views of marriage, heterosexuality, and conceptions of biological sex itself over the past 150 years, systematically exploring the history from scientific, philosophical, and sociological perspectives in an entertaining and intelligent style. She argues that although sexual contact between men and women has existed since time immemorial, the word and idea of heterosexuality as an identity is a relatively recent invention. Beginning with the sex research of Richard von Krafft-Ebing in the late 1800s and trickling down from the elite world of medicine and science to middle-class households by way of the writings of Sigmund Freud, heterosexuality as we know it emerged and adjusted in response to a number of sociocultural factors, such as urbanization and the invention of the birth control pill. VERDICT Adding to the expanding body of knowledge about the history and sociology of sexual identity, Blank has produced a challenging, clear, and interesting study of how Western views of what it means to be "straight" have changed over the past two centuries and continue to change. This will engage academic and casual readers alike who are interested in cultural history and sexuality studies.--Jennifer Stout, Cumberland Univ. Lib., Lebanon, TN
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