The question of sexual education at schools still remains one of the most controversial issues which are widely discussed by the scholars and public on several levels. In 2000 Janice Irvine presented her vision of the problem in her article “Doing It with Words: Discourse and the Sex Education Culture Wars”, which was published in Critical Inquiry.
To express her own opinion on the issue whether the problem exists and by what peculiarities it is characterized, Janice Irvine analyzes the nature and peculiar features of the discourse on the aspects of the sex education in connection with the culture wars in society.
Thus, the main purpose of the article is to discuss “the allegation that sex education speech is performative”, the historical contexts of the social and cultural debates on the problem, and the development of cultural wars based on the Christian Right sexual speeches (“Doing It with Words” 59). In her work, Irvine states that the issue of the sex education has a long history of public debates during which two opposite viewpoints are traditionally expressed.
They are that “speech about sex unhealthily stimulates sexual thought and practice among students” and that “speaking about sex is sex” (“Doing It with Words” 60). Nevertheless, presenting these ideas in the article, Irvine only accentuates their inappropriateness without sharing this or that one. She emphasizes that these two controversial visions of the problem of sex education involve other aspects than the education itself and greatly depend on the political, social, and cultural factors.
Determining historical, political, social, and cultural contexts for the development the debates on the problem of the sex education, Irvine critically discusses all these aspects with references to the social and political events in the USA, and particularly in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and New York City in the 80s-90s.
One of the main issues of the article is the problem of performativity of the sex speeches, which in the social context is closely connected with the question of the public’s fears and prejudices about the sex education, which are supported with the allegations by the Christian Right. Is it possible to consider sex education as the sex abuse?
According to Irvine, providing such ideas is supported by the policy’s needs and the goals of definite parties who consider the usage of the public’s fears of sexual abuses as the advantageous ones for describing sex education as the “mental molestation” (“Doing It with Words”).
To create the complete picture of the situation in society according to the issue, the author also determines the significant controversial aspects of the discussions. They are the debates on the speeches about homosexuality at schools, the opinion that “sex education speech actually performs harmful sex”, the threat of words’ abuse, and the analysis of the performativity as a kind of provocation (“Doing It with Words” 65).
She concludes that all the discussed positions are not useful for solving the problem of the effective implementation of the principles of the sex education in the curriculum. Moreover, “by using extremely provocative sexual speech to inflame anxieties and mobilize support, the Christian Right can at times create the circumstances for public resistance to its moralism” (“Doing It with Words” 76).
Examining the development of the debates on the problem of sex education, Irvine states that there is no well-argued position according to which it is possible to describe clearly the advantages and disadvantages of the sex education for the public, its benefits and threats because the current discussions concentrate on the issues of the cultural and moral character more than on the certain question.
Janice M. Irvine, “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sex Addiction”
What is the correlation between such notions as sex, sexuality, and gender? What should be considered by physiologists and psychologists as sex disorders? What are the public’s visions of the issue? In her work “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sex Addiction”, Janice Irvine tried to answer these questions with references to the historical context for the development of the problem and with providing a wide cultural perspective. The article was first published in Social Text in 1993 and later was presented as a chapter in Irvine’s Disorders of Desire.
In her work, Irvine analyzes the aspects of two phenomena, which are inhibited sexual desire (ISD) and sexual addictions characterized by sexologists and the public as sexual disorders. The main peculiarity of the work is in the fact that Irvine discusses not only physical aspects and medical constructions of these disorders but also the social factor in analyzing the problem.
Thus, these “new diseases emerge within the triangulation of medical imperatives, the demands and experiences of individuals, and cultural traditions and anxieties” (“Regulated Passions” 164). That is why the complexities of the definition and treatment became the focus of the public’s attention and were actively discussed by sexologists and the leaders of the social movements from the middle of the 20th century.
Janice Irvin presents the logical discussion of the debates within sexology and addictionology according to the nature and origin of the disorders. Those aspects of sex that at the beginning of the 20th century were discussed only by psychologists began the main topic for debates in the middle of the century. “Sexual expansion and freedom” of the 1960s result in working out the researches by Harold Leif, Helen Singer Kaplan, William Masters, and Virginia Johnson in the 1970s (“Regulated Passions” 167).
Now the notions of sex therapy, sex disorders, inhibited sex desires, and sex addiction are argued by sexology and addictionology and become the cause for the development of the conflict. The author states that “the historical narrative, then, of the construction of ISD and sex addiction reveals a clear bifurcation between two professional cohorts, marked by ideological tensions and distinct border anxiety” (“Regulated Passions” 168).
Irvine emphasizes that the border between physical and social aspects in the discussion of sex, sexuality, and gender is almost invisible. This fact contributes to the development of conflicts between those people who support the brain-centered theories with their biological basis and those persons who determine the social aspect as the main one. The followers of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous movement as well as feminists argue their social positions, not only the problems with their sexual activities or gender roles (“Regulated Passions”).
In her work, Janice Irvine discusses social and scientific (sexual science) aspects of the concepts of ISD and sexual addiction with accentuating the main peculiarities of the developed debates on the topic in society and connecting them with definite social movements.
Works Cited
Irvine, Janice M. “Doing It with Words: Discourse and the Sex Education Culture Wars”. Critical Inquiry 27.1 (2000): 58-78. Print.
—. “Regulated Passions: The Invention of Inhibited Sexual Desire and Sex Addiction”. Disorders of Desire. Ed. Janice M. Irvine. USA: Temple University Press, 2005. Print.