GU4529: The Science of Sex | D. Joslyn

American Studies
Undergraduate and Graduate Seminar
W 11AM-12:50PM

What is good sex? What, even, is sex? Who should be having it with whom, and when? Why does sex hurt sometimes? Why does it feel incredible, when it does? What makes sex healthy? Normal? Who says? How do they know? Why?

Across the past hundred and fifty years, time doctors, biologists, psychologists, feminists, phrenologists, and LGBTQ activists have spent lifetimes struggling over the answers to these questions and more. In this class, we will explore the growth and development of the field of sexology, its vast impact on U.S. and German life and its imbrications with structures of oppression and visions of (often imperfect) liberation. To do so, we will read a range of both primary and secondary sources from a variety of different schools and perspectives. The attempt to scientifically study and define sex fundamentally reshaped both sex and science. It changed how everyday people lived their lives and helping give birth to new scientific disciplines. It also helped produce and police idea of normal, healthy sex, and provided evolutionary justifications for heterosexuality and patriarchy.

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