Sexuality

Abstract

Sexuality is a complex amalgam of drives, desires, practices, and identities. Across the social sciences, sexuality has come to be understood first and foremost as socially constructed; even the most intimate and private acts are shaped by social norms that inform ideas about reproduction, kinship, love, and pleasure. Anthropology has been at the forefront of recording how sexuality is organized in specific locales and increasingly shaped by macrolevel and global factors. Anthropology's contribution to the study of human sexuality is through documentation of how sex is experienced and categorized differently across cultures. This is in contrast to approaches in other disciplines, such as psy..