Understanding Sexual Health and Its Historical Context
Reference: Sexual Health Promotion. Recommendations for Action. Pan American Health Organization, World Health Organization, World Association for Sexology. Guatemala, 2000. Available complete document.
Sex
The term “sex” refers to the set of biological characteristics that define the spectrum of humans as females and males.
Sexuality
The term “sexuality” refers to a fundamental dimension of being a human being based on sex, including gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, eroticism, bonding and love, and reproduction. It is experienced or expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, activities, practices, roles, and relationships. Sexuality is the result of the interaction of biological, psychological, economic, cultural, ethical, and religious or spiritual factors.
While sexuality can include all these aspects, it need not be experienced or expressed in all. However, in summary, sexuality is experienced and expressed in all that we look, feel, think, and do.
Sexual Health
Sexual health is the experience of the ongoing process of achieving physical, psychological, and sociocultural well-being related to sexuality.
Sexual health is observed in the free and responsible expressions of sexual skills that promote harmonious personal and social welfare, thereby enriching individual and social life. It is not merely the absence of disease or dysfunction. To achieve sexual health, it is necessary for the sexual rights of individuals to be recognized and guaranteed.
Gender
Gender is the sum of values, attitudes, roles, practices, or cultural characteristics based on sex.
Gender, as it has existed in historical, cross-cultural, and contemporary society, reflects and perpetuates particular power relations between men and women.
Gender Identity
Gender identity defines the degree to which each person identifies as male, female, or some combination of both. It is the internal framework, constructed over time, which allows individuals to organize a self-concept and social behavior in relation to the perception of their own sex and gender.
Gender identity determines how people experience their gender and contributes to a sense of identity, uniqueness, and belonging.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is a specific organization of eroticism and/or emotional attachment to an individual in relation to the gender of the partner involved in sexual activity.
Sexual orientation can manifest as behaviors, thoughts, fantasies, or sexual desires, or a combination thereof.
Sexual Identity
Sexual identity includes how the person identifies as male or female, or a combination of both, and the person’s sexual orientation.
It is the internal framework that forms over the years, allowing an individual to formulate a concept of themselves based on sex, gender, and sexual orientation, and to function socially in accordance with the perceptions of their sex.
Eroticism
Eroticism is the human capacity to experience subjective responses that evoke physical phenomena perceived as sexual desire, arousal, and orgasm, which are usually identified with sexual pleasure.
Eroticism is constructed both individually and socially, with symbolic and concrete meanings that link it to other aspects of being human.
Bonding
Bonding is the human capacity to establish ties with other human beings that are built and maintained through emotions.
The bond is established both personally and socially through symbolic and concrete meanings that link it to other aspects of being human. Love is a particularly desirable class of emotional attachment.
Sexual Activity
Sexual activity is a behavioral expression of personal sexuality where the erotic component of sexuality is most evident.
Sexual activity is characterized by behaviors that seek eroticism and is synonymous with sexual behavior.
Sexual Practices
Sexual practices are patterns of sexual activity engaged in by individuals or communities with enough consistency to be predictable.
Safe Sex
The term “safe sex” is used to specify sexual practices and behaviors that reduce the risk of contracting and transmitting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
Responsible Sexual Behavior
Responsible sexual behavior is expressed at the personal, interpersonal, and community levels. It is characterized by autonomy, maturity, honesty, respect, consent, protection, pursuit of pleasure, and well-being.
A person practicing responsible sexual behavior does not intend to cause injury and refrains from exploitation, harassment, manipulation, and discrimination. A community promotes responsible sexual behavior by providing information, resources, and rights that people need to participate in such practices.
Historical Context of Sexuality
Sexuality has evolved along with the mentality of human beings. In prehistoric times, it was a simple satisfaction to breed. Concerns about sexuality likely did not count much in the first cave communities due to the insecure life of early humans. The pursuit of game forced a constant shift in shelters. Sexuality began to occupy an important place in civilization with the discovery of agriculture, allowing tribes to settle for prolonged periods in fixed territories, enabling men and women to experience the joy of bonding.
At that time, humanity identified women (who give life) with land (which bears fruit). Thus, a cult of female sexuality was born, which was later relegated by religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Hellenistic and Latin cultures, sexual intercourse became a religious manifestation. Orgies dedicated to Dionysus or Bacchus, gods of male sexuality, were the first true love rituals, offering gifts to the gods in exchange for their favors, such as female fertility and land.
Over time, this belief became distorted into religious and hedonistic excesses, particularly during the Roman orgies, which reached monstrous proportions at certain periods of their imperial history. This period also strengthened the exaltation of male sexual potential through divine images like Zeus and Apollo. Greco-Roman mythology is full of erotic adventures involving these characters, with Apollo representing both physical and spiritual beauty.
However, the introduction of Stoic morality during the height of the Roman Empire led to various thinkers and leaders condemning homosexual behavior. The images of debauchery and sexual perversion associated with the Greeks and Romans are often exaggerated. The Jewish religion was the first to repress sexuality, particularly that of women, who were regarded as mere sexual objects. In the Old Testament, the role of women was to procreate, perpetuate, and serve their children.
Christianity changed this view but, by becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, it also became a political force of repression, labeling sexuality as impure. Islam has even more fiercely repressed women, and this unfair practice continues to this day, as evidenced by the heavy veils imposed on women in countries where Islam is the official religion.
In the Middle Ages, society sought to understand and develop sexual functions. In India, famous Hindu texts like the Kama Sutra teach ways to enjoy sexuality in an almost mystical experience. However, this does not mean that the development of sexuality was successful in these cultures, as political expediency and sexist conceptions led to heinous and repressive practices against women and lower classes.
Among the worst aspects of sexual ideas in these cultures was the custom of suttee, where a widow was incinerated alive on her husband’s funeral pyre. Fortunately, this practice has been virtually eradicated by social changes in recent centuries.
In the West, political and religious repression of sexuality persisted well into the twentieth century. However, between the eighteenth century and the present, several changes in social attitudes have occurred, some of which were spectacular and perceptible. The sexual revolution of the 1960s marked a decisive change, leading to the current concepts of sexuality.
For example, in the late eighteenth century, the Marquis de Sade introduced a new vision of sexual pleasure in France, which was misunderstood as mere incitement to debauchery and crime. Even today, it still receives misinterpretation. During the nineteenth century, sexuality began to be studied with greater serenity, although the repression of Puritan societies like England during Queen Victoria’s reign continued.
Victorian society held various moral contradictions, demanding sexual continence from “decent” women while tolerating prostitution as an inevitable outlet for the needs of “dirty” men. The Victorian concept of sexuality marked the years following with a series of misunderstandings.
The beginning of the twentieth century also saw the important principle of the female liberation movement, aiming to place women on an equal footing with men. This led to the discarding of taboos surrounding the body and sexual prowess. At the same time, psychologist Sigmund Freud unveiled his revolutionary theories about human sexuality, which contributed to a sexual revolution.
Men and women became increasingly concerned with understanding the development of their sexual skills. The two world wars increased sexual permissiveness in society, leading to a short-term conceptual release about sex. Modern research allowed the rise of sexology as a science, with significant studies conducted by figures like Dr. William H. Masters, Virginia Johnson, Helen S. Kaplan, Shere Hite, Wilhelm Reich, and Alfred Kinsey, among others, between 1920 and 1980.
The 1960s, with its youth movements advocating for political, economic, and ethical change, brought a decisive shift in how sexuality is perceived, recognizing it as a unique quality of human beings and changing societal attitudes towards the knowledge of sexuality and its manifestations. Nowadays, the expression of sexuality holds an important place in everyday life.