That's the reaction I've gotten in the past few weeks at school. We talk about our majors, our career goals, and every time I change up my answer a little, trying to figure out how to best describe what I want to do.
"Well, I'm going to double major in Biology and Behavioral Science, get a Master's in Biology, and be a biological researcher in the fields of gender differences and human sexuality."
"What???"
"I want to study the hormones, the evolution, the biology behind what makes men and women tick, particularly in the bedroom."
"What??"
"See, I want to run trials, and do my own research--not necessarily for a drug company, you know, even though I wouldn't mind contributing if I approve of their projects--but I want to write articles, and just sort of be a revolutionary in that field."
"What?"
"Sex. Okay? Sex."
"Oh."
The thing is, it's been impossible thus far in our society to be an intellectual and a scholar regarding sexuality. As much as we hear rants about sex being rampant, around every corner, we're really quite puritannical about it. Sexologists haven't gotten the same recognition or respect as, say, linguists or mathematicians, or other scientists. There's moral agendas against lifting the ignorance from the field of sex, and so it's trivialized in a word: "sexpert."
It's elitist, anti-intelligence, and borderline emotionally abusive to cut people and children off from information regarding sex and sexuality. It is simply a part of our lives. Sexuality enters into practical skills, science, ethics, self-esteem--virtually every topic that should be discussed. Research in this field is just not given the attention it deserves. I'm not out to work on something erotic. I'm not out to be tantilized (though that would be nice). I'm not trying to cop a feel from anything except a clipboard.
I'm just trying to learn things, like about how the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, and how the reason why a man's penis is shovel shaped is to scoop out any competing man's semen from a woman's uterus, thus guaranteeing his boys their rightful place in her eggs. These are things that someone had to discover, and though they may seem silly or like non-issues, there are thousands more facts like this that we haven't found out.
I want to find them out.
Is that so wrong? Or hard to understand?
What?
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3 comments:
Don't worry, soon all you'll hear when you explain your emphasis are bad jokes asking about your "hands on" approach. Welcome to my world.
You have got to look into queer theory, which is co-listed under Gender Studies and English at the U. It is entirely about various sexual wirings and how they operate. Queer doesn't exclusively relate to homosexual, but instead is anything other than boring, vanilla, heterosexual missionary coitus (although you still talk plenty about that). It doesn't have as much of a biological slant as you are planning on, but I think you'd find it a beneficial experience. Personally, it was the most challenging and rewarding class I took during college.
The professor for that class (my favorite college professor and an absolutely masterful teacher) is giving a lecture on queer theory and queer youth, her specialty, later on this month. Coincidentally, it is at the Biology building at the U, so maybe there's more overlap than I've suggested.
The details: Thursday, October 28, 7pm in the Alpine Wilmot Skaggs Biology Building, Room 210. You have to RSVP if you're going to 801-585-0911.
I assure you I would go if I were still in Utah, and I hope you can make it. Kathryn is an absolute wonder to behold, and she is in her element when she is lecturing. I will also mercilessly probe you for details afterwards because I miss hearing her think, and would be interested in your thoughts.
How true...sex researchers are so miserably undervalued that the same woman who developed the idea for the Pill didn't even know that it had become a reality (at 80 years of age) until she read it in the newspaper one morning. People still wink when they speak of Freud, and his focus was the unconscious mind, but all he's really remembered for is the oedipal complex and smoking a cigar. I wish you better luck...and if you have better luck, maybe you can answer some of MY questions a few years from now...
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