Deck 9: Sexuality

Question 1

According to Jonathan Ned Katz, when was heterosexuality "invented"?

A) about 6,000 years ago, when homosexuality first developed
B) in 1859, when laws about sexual orientation were written
C) in 1700, when the term was first used in Germany
D) in 1892, when the term was first used in the United States

Answer 1

in 1892, when the term was first used in the United States

Question 2

Human beings have a libido-a degree of sexual and erotic drive-that varies widely. Which term refers to individuals with no erotic interest in others?

A) homosexuals
B) bisexuals
C) asexuals
D) heterosexuals

Answer 2

asexuals

Question 3

Mati may engage in sexual relationships with which of these groups?

A) only men
B) only women
C) only other mati
D) men and women

Answer 3

men and women

Question 4

Why do contemporary anthropologists study sexuality?

A) They study sexuality in order to provide a better understanding of the diverse expressions of sexuality worldwide.
B) They study sexuality in order to better understand the individuals they want to study.
C) Other researchers do not study sexuality due to the difficulty of watching people have sex.
D) It is a unique exercise in participant observation.

Question 5

When discussing sexual behavior, biologist and zoologist Alfred Kinsey is quoted as saying, "The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats." To what would he likely have been referring when he said this?

A) Sexual activity maintains a strict dichotomy between heterosexual and homosexual sex.
B) Sexual behavior may include sex between humans and other animals.
C) Sexual behavior and activity remains fixed over the course of a lifetime.
D) Sexual behavior is best understood as a continuum.

Question 6

In addition to humans, which other mammals engage in sexual activity for fun rather than exclusively for procreation?

A) elephants
B) dolphins
C) cats
D) gorillas

Question 7

For the Victorians, masturbation was a form of self-abuse and seen as dangerous. Why was this particular sexual activity strongly condemned?

A) It was known to be a vector for sexually transmitted infections.
B) Masturbation was considered a form of homosexuality.
C) Many people felt it was not actually pleasurable.
D) Sex was for procreation only and masturbation did not result in children.

Question 8

According to contemporary cultural anthropologists, why do humans in most cultures seem to engage in sexual activity?

A) They do it mostly for fun.
B) They do it mostly for procreation.
C) They do it exclusively for fun.
D) They do it exclusively for procreation.

Question 9

Which of the following best describes machismo in Nicaragua?

A) It is a kind of gender performance.
B) It is a sexually deviant act.
C) It is simply a display of sexual bravado.
D) It confers a special status.

Question 10

Under the rules of machismo, the machista is considered what kind of person?

A) a manly man
B) a cochon, or gay man
C) a type of sex worker
D) a weak man

Question 11

How did Margaret Mead's work contribute to a greater understanding of human sexuality?

A) Her work provided evidence that men and women are naturally sexually promiscuous.
B) Her work challenged the assumption that sexual practices should be private rather than public.
C) Her work challenged the assumption that U.S. attitudes toward sexuality were universal traits fixed in human nature.
D) Her work explored the commonalities between human sexual practices and the sexual practices of other primates.

Question 12

Why do the "salary men" of white-collar Japan go to hostess bars?

A) to find suitable companions for the evening
B) to build and strengthen office relationships and corporate culture
C) to relieve their sexual tensions
D) to enjoy banter about women's breasts

Question 13

The stereotype that men have an excessive, sometimes abusive, sex drive is often blamed on testosterone. In light of this, what does physical anthropologist Helen Fisher believe is important to note about this neurochemical?

A) It is only found in humans when they are highly aroused.
B) Testosterone is found in much higher levels in women.
C) Testosterone is found in all mammals.
D) Testosterone is found in both men and women.

Question 14

Roger Lancaster found that in Nicaragua, men who received anal intercourse were stigmatized while men who penetrated other men during anal intercourse were still considered properly masculine. What does this reveal about the concept of machismo?

A) Machismo has nothing to do with sexuality.
B) Only heterosexual men can fulfill the ideals of machismo.
C) Machismo stigmatizes every type of homosexual behavior.
D) Machismo creates a strong contrast between aggression and passivity.

Question 15

Which of these best describes sexuality?

A) desires, beliefs, and behaviors related to erotic physical contact, and cultural ideas about these desires, beliefs, and behaviors
B) the biological predispositions that cause desires, beliefs, and behaviors related to erotic physical contact
C) cultural ideas that determine what kinds of physical desires and behaviors are considered normal
D) desires, beliefs, and behaviors related to erotic physical contact for pleasure rather than procreation

Question 16

Which of the following statements about the mati of Suriname is correct?

A) "Mati work" parallels European ideas of lesbianism.
B) Mati regard sexuality as a flexible behavior rather than a fixed identity.
C) Mati marry men for children and economic stability while maintaining "visiting relationships" with female partners.
D) "Mati work" is a practice that originated in the Netherlands and was transferred to Suriname during colonization.

Question 17

What have geneticists found regarding the genetic code and human sexual orientation?

A) There are clusters of "gay" and "straight" genes that determine sexual orientation.
B) There is a "gay" gene but not a "straight" gene.
C) There is a "straight" gene but not a "gay" gene.
D) There is no gene or cluster of genes that determines sexual orientation.

Question 18

The Victorian ideal of sexuality was focused on procreation and discouraged the idea of having sex for pleasure. Having sex "for fun" was considered out of keeping with what aspect of society at that time?

A) government edicts
B) Christian teachings
C) scientific facts
D) medical knowledge

Question 19

Mapping the global scope of diverse human sexual beliefs and behaviors, or ethnocartography, offers the chance for a deeper analysis of one's own culture. What else does such work provide?

A) a complete history of human sexuality
B) a good understanding of the biological causes of sexuality
C) a reexamination of what seems "normal"
D) the ability to determine which sexual behavior should be considered immoral

Question 20

The mati in Suriname form intimate spiritual, emotional, and sexual relationships with other women but may maintain a "visiting" relationship with men for the purposes of children and economics. To some, this might suggest that these women are what?

A) machista
B) homosexual
C) lesbian
D) bisexual

Question 21

Which term describes people whose sexual attraction to others can include both sexes?

A) bisexual
B) transgender
C) homosexual
D) Two-Spirits

Question 22

What was one of the main outcomes of Emma Sulkowicz's "Carry That Weight" project?

A) She was ultimately expelled from the college.
B) Federal law was changed in the Title IX Act to define rape.
C) Her assailant was fined $471 for the violation.
D) Consent standards on more than 1,400 college campuses were changed.

Question 23

In contemporary U.S. weddings, one common ritual is the act of the father "giving away" the bride. How does this tend to perpetuate a power dynamic that places women at a disadvantage?

A) The groom and the groom's family pay for the entire wedding.
B) It effectively considers the bride as property to control.
C) Weddings are an affair of the church, which is a patriarchal institution.
D) The idea of whiteness in weddings serves as a reminder about inequality.

Question 24

How do many governments in Africa regard homosexuality?

A) Many governments believe homosexuality is the result of the Western influences that have flooded Africa for years.
B) Homosexuality is considered a threat to many local economies because resources cannot be shared when two men combine households and do not have children.
C) Most governments accept homosexuality because the practice is tied to precolonial traditions.
D) Most governments in Africa do not attempt to control or regulate sexuality in their countries.

Question 25

How does Mignon Moore's work describe the experience of being a middle-class black lesbian?

A) It is the same as the experience of being a middle-class white lesbian.
B) It is the same as the experience of being a middle-class black heterosexual woman.
C) It is a unique status reflecting the intersectionality of race, class, and sexuality.
D) It is the same as the experience of being a middle-class black heterosexual man.

Question 26

'Yan daudu challenge the dominant norms of what aspect of northern Nigerian culture?

A) sexual
B) domestic
C) colonial
D) marital

Question 27

Many different cultural institutions and systems of power interconnect to regulate sexuality, affecting both individual lives and group experiences. How do anthropologists refer to this aspect of overlapping systems and institutions in our daily lives?

A) intersectionality
B) hegemony
C) sexology
D) sexual discourse

Question 28

Cultural and governmental institutions define the age of consent, how marriage and divorce can be obtained, and reproductive rights such as abortion. In regulating these things, what are cultural and government institutions attempting to do?

A) control family planning by using the full extent of legal government power
B) limit the negative influence of practicing "sex for fun" in mainstream culture
C) control sexuality by regulating who can do what with whom and when they can do it
D) limit the spread of disease by regulating acceptable sexual practices

Question 29

Recently, the government of China began a crackdown on the practice of hiring strippers to perform at funerals in rural parts of the country, a practice that many see as normal, but to others might seem odd or even bizarre. What effect might such a prohibition have?

A) It allows the government to regulate sexual behavior norms.
B) It helps regulate commerce in rural populations.
C) It can foster negative attitudes toward stripping as a profession.
D) It enforces traditional funeral practices.

Question 30

How did European colonial powers use sexuality in their strategy to control colonized populations?

A) Colonial soldiers were encouraged to marry women in the colonized populations in order to legitimize European domination.
B) Colonial powers spread rumors about the physical illnesses of "mixed race" babies in order to discourage sexual relations between Europeans and colonized populations.
C) Europeans portrayed men in the colonized populations as dangerous sexual threats to European women in order to discourage racial mixing.
D) The high prevalence of sexual violence made the enforcement of curfews and other restrictions easy to accomplish.

Question 31

Sociologist Mignon Moore found that openly gay sexuality among minority communities was seen as an affront to what?

A) womanhood
B) lesbianism
C) respectability
D) marriage

Question 32

According to the work of Don Kulick and Jens Rydstrom, how do most governments regard the sexuality of disabled persons when providing them with living assistance?

A) The erotic lives of the disabled are largely ignored.
B) The erotic lives of the disabled are respected as a biological need.
C) Disabled persons are generally denied access to sexual health testing.
D) Disabled persons receive greater access to sexual health care.

Question 33

Michel Foucault was a gay man whose writing about sexuality was informed by his own lived experience. What was his view about sexuality in every culture?

A) Each society's members define the political and cultural powers that shape sexuality.
B) Sexuality is an arena where relations of power are worked out.
C) Sexuality allows human beings to express the full meaning of their lives.
D) It is the responsibility of the medical establishment to make sexual activity safe.

Question 34

The work of Mignon Moore describes the experiences of lesbian African American women. Why do these women often struggle in their lives?

A) They are forced to choose whether to remain loyal to their race.
B) They are forced to negotiate several different identities of race, class, and sexuality.
C) They are forced to be openly lesbian in a hostile environment.
D) They must participate in the black community, but not the lesbian community.

Question 35

Where does the dual categorization of sexuality as either homosexual or heterosexual come from?

A) the early Christian church
B) Western cultural history
C) Near Eastern theology
D) ancient Greece

Question 36

The text notes that having a term to describe the sexual activities between opposite-sex persons (heterosexuality) is a fairly new concept in the United States. What led to the development of the term heterosexuality?

A) Alfred Kinsey's finding that sexual behaviors could shift over the course of a lifetime
B) the greater cultural currency afforded to homosexuality
C) the shame that Victorians experienced when talking about sexual activity
D) Richard von Krafft-Ebing's book Psychopathia Sexualis

Question 37

Some studies have found that 61 percent of men believe women give consent nonverbally through body language, though only 10 percent of women say they give consent through body language cues. To which issue are these finds related?

A) the safety risks involved in sexual behavior, such as sexually transmitted infections
B) the worldwide problem of gender discrimination
C) the criminalization of sex work in the United States
D) the need for improved consent policies advocating "only yes means yes"

Question 38

The work of early sexologists such as Kinsey tended to reinforce the idea of heterosexuality. In spite of this, what was one of the surprising results that Kinsey and his research revealed about sexual behavior in the United States?

A) Most people who were having sex used condoms.
B) Fantasies and same-sex attraction were much more common than expected.
C) Married women cheated with a higher frequency than married men.
D) Most people did not consider marriage between a man and a woman desirable.

Question 39

Pornography has been attacked, censored, and subjected to legal controls for a long time. Each attempt seems to result in an increase in its dissemination and consumption. Why do governments make such efforts to stop pornography?

A) Governments want to stop pornography to support the rights of women.
B) Governments seek control of the economic output of the pornography industry.
C) Local governments seek ways to enforce zoning laws more effectively.
D) Governments want to regulate the discourse around sexuality.

Question 40

The wedding industry appeared in part due to the intense growth of capitalism and the appearance of social institutions that celebrate marriage. Where has the idea of the wedding become a particularly powerful force?

A) in the creation of same-sex marriage in the United States
B) in the continuance of Victorian ideals about sexuality
C) in the way U.S. society talks about and understands heterosexuality
D) in perpetuating the view of sexual activity for procreative purposes

Question 41

Some envision sex workers walking on the street, trying to solicit strangers for money in exchange for sex. The account of the hostess bars in Japan offers a different portrait of sex workers. What are these hostesses selling that makes them part of the sex industry and, thus, sex workers?

A) massages
B) the idea of sex
C) the physical act of sex
D) alcohol to enhance client pleasure

Question 42

The spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), such HIV/AIDS, is a global challenge. Some areas of the world are experiencing higher rates of STIs than others. What might be one of the reasons for these increases?

A) The number of individuals being tested is going up.
B) The way individuals conceptualize what "having sex" means is different in different places.
C) There is an increase in laws that make it illegal to get tested for an STI.
D) There is a severe lack of funding for U.N. sexual education programs.

Question 43

Philosopher Michel Foucault describes sexuality as "an especially dense transfer point for relations of power." Discuss his claim. How does the private act of sex become a transfer point for power? What are the public channels in which we might expect to observe this process?

Question 44

In Kano, Nigeria, Rudolf Gaudio found that men who have sex with other men use a special "code word" to describe themselves. What is that word?

A) mati
B) 'yan daudu
C) masu harka
D) machista

Question 45

Using historical and cross-cultural examples provided in the text, evaluate the anthropological approach to sexuality. What do historical and cross-cultural cases of sexuality tell us about sexual norms? Did you learn anything in this chapter about sexuality that you had previously taken for granted? If so, what did you learn? If not, provide an example of something discussed in the chapter that you think someone might be surprised to learn.

Question 46

Gloria Wekker's work in Suriname has led her to suggest that the imposition of our "Western folk knowledge" places limits on how we understand sexuality. What does she urge students of sexuality to do instead?

A) focus on the different ways that individuals define sexuality
B) notice that identical sexual acts have identical social meanings
C) regard sexuality as a manifestation of a fixed identity
D) focus attention on behavioral variation

Question 47

In which ways does scientist and author Jared Diamond suggest that human sexuality is distinct from other mammals? Identify three ways in which humans differ from most other mammals, and discuss the possible implications of these distinctions as they intersect with other areas of interest for cultural anthropologists (e.g., kinship, gender, class, and religion).

Question 48

Compare and contrast the perspective on human sexuality offered by evolutionary biologists and cultural constructionists. What factors do evolutionary biologists study to learn more about human sexuality? How does this compare to the factors an anthropologist with a cultural constructionist perspective might investigate? Which approach do you find most valuable?

Question 49

What strategies did European colonizers use to control the sexual practices of people under their rule? Discuss the role of colonialism in how ideas about sexuality were altered in colonial domains such as Nigeria and Suriname. How does attention to intersectionality in this case help to illuminate the connection between power and sexuality?

Question 50

In the research by anthropologist Denise Brennan, both Dominican sex workers and the sex tourists have fantasies that define their work. What do many sex workers fantasize about?

A) marrying a tourist and starting a new life
B) creating transnational economic links for themselves
C) persuading a sex tourist to remain in the area for a long period of time
D) connecting with the hotel where the sex tourist is staying to find work

Question 51

How did sexology contribute to establishing heterosexuality as the dominant erotic ideal in the United States? Despite his findings that human sexuality is marked by diversity, flexibility, and fluidity, in what two ways did Kinsey's research contribute to the establishment of heterosexuality as the dominant erotic ideal? Do you think this ideal remains in U.S. culture today? Why or why not?

Question 52

According to Chrys Ingraham, the heterosexual imagery in "white weddings" makes the patterns of heterosexuality seem natural and unchanging, rather than cultural. Which wedding ritual helps normalize the idea that men have more power than women?

A) The bride's father walks her down the aisle and "gives her away" to the groom.
B) The bride wears an expensive white dress, symbolizing her affluence.
C) The wedding takes place in a church to promote the influence of religion.
D) The bride and groom allow the government to regulate their sexuality by taking vows.

Question 53

Gloria Wekker believes that anthropologists should not impose their views about sexuality onto other cultures. How does she categorize the labels of "homosexuality" and "heterosexuality" for describing sexual orientation?

A) as fixed, biological categories
B) as limited, but useful, labels for studying sex across cultures
C) as useless, since homosexuality does not exist outside of Western cultures
D) as Western folk knowledge

Question 54

What is one result of the anti-gay rhetoric found in many countries, including the United States?

A) It makes it easy to "out" homosexuals worldwide in order to better manage HIV/AIDS.
B) It helps unify different religious groups.
C) It has led to an increase in the recognition of sexual diversity.
D) It provides opportunities for anthropological research.

Question 55

Define sexuality and, using a minimum of three examples from the text, describe the ways in which culture influences sexual beliefs and behaviors.

Question 56

Discuss the role of language in sexuality and how it both controls behavior and gives license to perform certain behaviors. How do prominent public figures use language around sexuality? What are the consequences of direct and honest discussion in both a public and private setting?

Question 57

In White Wedding: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture (2008), sociologist Chrys Ingraham asserts that brides are not born but rather made. Identify some examples of the enculturation process. Discuss the implications of the romanticized ideal of weddings. How do these ideals differ from the reality of the "white wedding" as they intersect with gender, class, and racial inequalities?

Question 58

Many governments attempt to criminalize sex work through legal and social sanctions. How do these sanctions impact sex workers?

A) They must conduct their work covertly.
B) They have to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
C) Sex workers must register with a government agency.
D) Sex workers pay taxes that are higher than others.

Question 59

How do the 'yan daudu in Nigeria see homosexual behavior?

A) It is both incompatible with marrying women and with their Muslim faith.
B) It is compatible with both marrying women and their Muslim faith.
C) It is incompatible with marrying women but is compatible with their Muslim faith.
D) It is compatible with marrying women but is incompatible with their Muslim faith.

Question 60

Among college students, what percentage said that oral sex constituted "having sex"?

A) 3 percent
B) 20 percent
C) 40 percent
D) 82 percent

Question 61

Discuss the influence of international campaigns for gay and lesbian rights on local practices using the case study of Nigeria as an example. Compare and contrast the masu harka and 'yan daudu sexual beliefs and practices with ideas about Western homosexuality. How does globalization affect ideas about sexual norms?

Question 62

Partly as a result of the "Carry That Weight" project by Emma Sulkowicz at Columbia University, colleges now have sexual-offense policies that describe their expectations for how men and women are expected to act toward each other. Discuss the underlying problem, the nature of sexual assault on campus, and some aspects of the outcome of Ms. Sulkowicz's work.