Sexual Development, Social Oppression, and Local Culture

Published in Sexuality Research & Social Policy (Vol. 1, No. 1, pps. 39-62), this paper reviews some of the factors that have created and reproduced intellectual, historical, political, and disciplinary barriers to understanding the role of social oppression in the development of young people's sexuality. In it, author Gilbert Herdt argues for, and delineates, a new research and policy framework to understand how severe social oppression - or "structural violence" resulting from poverty, racism, heterosexism, religious persecution and anti-Semitism, homophobia and anti-gay violence, the diaspora of transgender people, xenophobic bias against immigrants, ageism, and discrimination against individuals with disabilities - impacts young people's sexuality around the world.

Herdt (an anthropologist) emphasises the need for context-based research on social oppression in sexual development, which he claims is "common in many places and times and creates an impact on childhood sexual subjectivities and behaviors that has typically been ignored in research and policy." To support this hypothesis, he explores analytical paradigm shifts that have taken place in the past 20 years in the social and health sciences. In short, while historically, sexuality research as well as policy consistently emphasised the individual rather than the culture, theories of sexuality have been reassessed - such that thinkers have incorporated the contributions of culture and society to sexual development and of the expanding role played by social meaning systems and social practices as defining features of sexual cultures. The idea is that sociocultural theory can help to embed research on young people's sexuality within real-world contexts, "wherein social suffering, and even 'survival sex,' are a part of daily life constraining the choices and life circumstances widely experienced by young people globally."

Herdt moves on to focus in greater depth on these theories and shifts, exploring such topics as the following: sexual essentialism and individual difference theories, the influence of Freudian developmentalism, "what individual difference theory left out", the over-reliance of biopsychosocial theories of individual differences on normative development on middle-class European and American populations, and social difference theories of childhood sexuality. The HIV epidemic was one factor that influenced researchers' thinking, making it evident that researchers must no longer take the Western middle class norm as the baseline for all childhood sexual development, especially in situations of radical and swift social change.

In short, culture-specific and socially-sensitive research is the key strategy Herdt endorses. In one portion of the document, he explains that narratives and observations can be critical approaches "where sexuality is silenced by shame and secrecy", and when there is a "need to know who has the power to silence, who feels shame, and what is at stake in adhering to or breaking the rules..."

To that end, in the Conclusion section Herdt opens up a number of research avenues. For instance, he notes that research on "survival sex" - e.g., studies looking into the process of development of those whose sexuality is outside of the norm (especially for those in situations of social oppression) - has been insuffienct to date. In addition, if optimal sexual development is indeed more dependent upon context than previously suggested by theorists, sexual health research can, the author suggests, better inform and help to shape the best practices and policies related to sexuality in communities and populations continually impacted by oppression and adversity. In short, by taking into account cultural and social factors impacting sexuality in health communication research, policymaking, and programming, "we can increase the sense of inclusion and belonging...by creating, through the best research and thoughtful social policies, the means for people to achieve a better voice in their own sexual and social development and destinies."

Click here to access a related peer-reviewed summary on the Health e Communication website, and to participate in peer review.