Socio-cultural Attitudes

Intersexuality - Dealing with Intersexuality

Socio-cultural Attitudes

Human sexual attitudes are shaped by many individual and socio-cultural factors. Very important among these are religious, legal, and medical traditions. This is true of both the ancient and the modern world. In prehistoric times, when there was no written law and no scientific medicine, some sacred doctrine explained health and sickness, right and wrong. This explanation then also implied the proper course of action. Even in modern secular societies with their elaborate legal codes and great medical institutions, traditional religious values still exert their influence, if only in indirect ways.
Some of the traditions go back several thousand years. Others are more recent in origin than many people realize. Some very old religions have, in the last few centuries, developed “modern” ideas, becoming either more “liberal” or more “conservative” in the process. To a certain extent, this is also true of the legal traditions. In the last few decades, Western law has slowly, but steadily become more “liberal” with regard to sexual variations. On the other hand, some non-Western countries have newly adopted a much more “conservative” Islamic law. Medical doctors, of course, have always treated obvious female and male physical problems, but it was not until the middle of the18th century that they also began to worry about sexual norm violations and to claim the authority to explain and correct them. In the 19th century, this claim came to be widely accepted, and certain diagnostic and therapeutic standards were established. However, with the growth of non-medical sex research in the 20th century, the medical profession was forced to become more self-critical and to question some of its traditional assumptions. As a result, many medical procedures were changed and, in fact, continue to be changed at the present time. The issue of intersexuality is a good example.
The following sections provide brief summaries of the religious, legal, and medical traditions with regard to the sexual variations discussed in this course. A final section offers a sketch of the current situation.

[Course 3] [Description] [How to use it] [Introduction] [Problems in Females] [Problems in Males] [Intersexuality] [Introduction] [Intersexual Spectrum] [Dealing w. Intersex.] [Additional Reading] [Examination]