N EW I NSIGHTS FROM THE S CIENCE OF S EXOLOGY

Sexology today has vastly broadened its scope beyond its earliest roots in psychoanalytic theory and the biology of sex. Profoundly interdisciplinary in nature as has been noted, it has borrowed concepts from the other sciences and the humanities, even as it has given them some of its own principles. Many of the most important sexological ideas of the latter half of the twentieth century have come from the writings of John Money (1985 et seq.), considered by many to be one of the most important contemporary theoreticians, who has vigorously criticized the rampant antisexualism in American society. Money’s pioneering work in

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gender identity/role, sexual rehearsal play, and in the paraphilias, for example, is at the foundation of much of today’s scientifi c understanding of sexuality and gender, although not without controversy. Paraphilia, which is now an established part of the psychological lexicon, for example, is the scientifi c terminology popularized by Money for those sexual behaviors that are often called perversions in the legal system and kinky practices or fetishes colloquially. In fact, the word gender itself, was Money’s contribution to sexological theory to distinguish between the socio- cultural manifestations of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny and the biological aspects of being male, female, or intersexed. Money (1995) has since come to somewhat regret that invention, which he borrowed from linguistics, because it has since been misused by some social scientists as distinguishing between the “clean” part of the “dirty” world of the genitals: Gender is above the belt and sex is below. In other contexts, such as surveys, gender and sex have become synonymous where the mere mention of sex might be held as suspect.

Nevertheless, the impact of sexologists’ potential contributions to understanding the role of sex on the Internet is confounded by a lack of respect gen- erated by their failure, for the most part, to clarify some of the muddy waters of subjects currently in their domain—often compounded by a similar failure in their predominant disciplines of psychology, sociology, medicine, or otherwise. Salient examples include some of today’s critical issues defi ned by so-called political cor- rectness, such as child sexual abuse and recovered memories, sexual harassment and date rape, and misconceptions about AIDS. Many sexologists appear to have uncritically accepted, as have many other social scientists, some of the popular myths surrounding these issues without looking more closely at their ramifi cations. In addition, sexologists have failed to wrest moral authority on other sexual issues, such as monogamy and premarital sex, from the traditional religionists, despite the prevalence of alternative moral systems that have evolved in today’s world (e.g., Lawrence, 1989). The problem in both instances lies in the misuse of science either to promote personal biases while excluding confl icting facts or to disguise moral precepts as scientifi c assertions. Scientists (and sexologists) can and do have moral positions that are infl uenced by scientifi c understanding, but it is not within the realm of science to broadly dictate such moral positions. For example, I would argue that mental health professionals should do more to emphasize that using mental erotic stimulation to enhance sexual arousal is a normative and generally healthy aspect of sexual expression; yet, this is in marked contrast to some professionals’ moral position that it may not be so. It is, perhaps, in the context of such clashes that the diffi culty in dealing with sex on the Internet becomes exceedingly clear. We can understand politicians’ usurpation of morality for political gain, but many of us have a diffi cult time excusing it in mental health professionals.

Dysfunctional behavior, both specifi cally sexual and more generally psychological and social, may be thought of as resulting from an individual’s system failure in response to internalized confl icts because of his or her metaphorically separating

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the genitals from the rest of the body. This may also be conceptualized as com- partmentalizing the genital experience as distinct from and/or incompatible with the experience of the whole person in the process. Money (1986a,b) has described paraphilias, the possible manifestations of such unfortunate responses, as the turning of the tragedy of such distortions of one’s sexuality and the self into the triumph of the survival of eroticism itself, albeit distorted in its mode of expression or object choice. The lovemap was posited as the locus in which they operated.

Money (1986a) coined the term lovemap to describe the highly individualized mental representation a person has of the idealized lover and the idealized program of sexual and erotic activity or imagery that arouses him or her. Such lovemaps may be normophilic or paraphilic, depending on their congruence with the statisti- cally normal incidence of the arousing object or activity in the relevant culture. A lovemap is said to be vandalized if a sexually traumatic experience occurs during early psychosexual development, which results in its paraphilic expression (Money & Lamacz, 1989). Later, Money (1995) coined the extended term gendermap to describe the mental representation of one’s gender identity/role. The gendermap encompasses the lovemap and codes it as masculine, feminine, or androgynous, as well as endows it with whatever is gender-encoded socially, culturally, vocationally, and so on. In defi ning both terms, Money stressed that the locus of each representation was in both the mind and the brain. As the reader will see in the next section, the paraphilias are well represented on the Internet—and, in some respects, have attained a status of near-uncritical acceptance not afforded to some normophilic sexual behavior.

Several issues are on the horizon that also may impact the ways professional sexologists approach their science—and these will affect how we approach sex on the Internet as well. Among the issues is continuing research on biological entities such as pheromones and their role in sexual attraction (Kohl & Francoeur, 1995) and the biology of sexual orientation. In addition, professionals in the social sciences are seeking new paradigms to counteract repressive trends that threaten to undo some of the social gains made in the past. In addition, technology holds a promise of future gains, as in the treatment of sexual dysfunctions such as impo- tence, although not without controversy. The Working Group on a New View of Women’s Sexual Problems (2000), for example, has reconceptualized the sexual “diffi culties” of women that diverges from the “medicalization” of sex that is inherent in technology. Many men, too, have begun to rethink their relationships with women in light of the insights they have gained from various aspects of the women’s movement—and all of these changes have found voice on the Internet.

The most noteworthy aspect of some of the ongoing work in sexology is the often-predominant focus on some of the potentially and distinctly negative aspects of sexuality. Such poorly supported notions as sexual addiction (Fienberg, 2000; Henkin, 1991, 1996; Klein, 2000) or the risk of heterosexually transmitted AIDS in the absence of the IV-drug vector (Fumento, 1990; National Research Council,

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1993) are good examples. The generally sex-negative perspectives inherent in the promotion of these unwarranted beliefs may be another refl ection of the conservative trends that have dominated American society over the past three decades, which will, in all likelihood, continue in some form for several more decades as a result of recent Supreme Court nominations by the Bush administration in the United States. It defi nitely has been felt in the approach to sexuality on the Internet by various government and private bodies, such as the continuing efforts to limit access to various types of materials in certain venues or to conduct Internet sting operations against sexual predators, although some of it may well be justifi ed. Fortunately, however, this focus is one that appears to be cyclical. Reiss (1990) has outlined how American society has experienced two major sexual revolutions in the twentieth century alone, and he argued for taking a proactive stand with respect to shaping the next one, the seeds of which he predicted would be sown in the fi eld of the 1990s. Others might argue that there have been several smaller revolutions, including those dealing with expansion of women’s rights and gay rights in the sexual arena, but their work is not yet complete. And much work remains—and is being undertaken in various venues on the Internet—on some of the neglected rights of men and heterosexuals, particularly with respect to interactions in which various rights are in apparent confl ict (see, e.g., http://www.SexQuest.com/alt.sex. conference/).

Within the arena of sexual politics, for example, heterophobia has only been recognized in the past two decades (Noonan, 1996a, 1998c; Patai, 1996, 1998; see Noonan, 2004a, for the most comprehensive examination of this topic), although it does not yet have the popular recognition that its sibling, homophobia, has. (Both are good examples, as well, of the blurring of political and psychological sensitivi- ties that often confound our understanding of sexual issues—in this case, the suffi x -phobia implies something that may or may not be accurate. I have encouraged the use of homonegativity and heteronegativity as more exact alternatives where appropri- ate in Noonan, 2004a, after Weis, 2004a). Heterophobia has been defi ned in various ways, from a fear of things different (such as other cultures) to the reverse of homophobia, only with heterosexuals as the target. Because I believe it is primarily enabled by the general antisexualism of American culture, I have broadened it and used it more as a synonym for this generalized sex-negativity that has crystallized around heterosexual behavior—particularly against heterosexual males—and espe- cially against heterosexual intercourse (see Noonan, 1996a, 1997a, 1998b, 2004a). Internalized heterophobia, then, becomes the mechanism by which such distortions of normophilic behavior becomes normalized. As such, recognition of its impact on sexual health, research, and education in American culture is on the cutting edge of contemporary sexology. In effect, heterophobia has become an unacknowledged—and often unmentionable—force that infl uences public policy, and, in silent alliance with conservative religious and other social forces, determines how sexual issues as a whole are addressed or not in important domains of human

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living, both in real life and in cyberspace. Patai (1998), for example, applied the concept to contemporary sexual harassment theory and what she called the Sexual Harassment Industry (SHI), which was being used, she argued, to separate men and women for often personal or political gain or self-interest. She defi ned heterophobia as the “fear of, and antagonism toward, the Other—in the present context men in general—and toward heterosexuality in particular” (p. 5). She went on to docu- ment how this hostility, which “is not limited to the lunatic feminist fringe where it originated in the late 1960s” (p. 14), was being implemented by the expansion of sexual harassment indoctrination sessions and laws.

Some of this emerging consciousness, to be sure, may be nothing more than

a backlash to some of the excesses of the feminist and gay movements that have rippled through American society since the 1990s and before (Noonan, 2004a; cf. Patai & Koertge, 1994; Patai, 1998). Money (1995) has referred to some of those excesses as a sexual counterreformation and has criticized the concurrent development of the false science of victimology, with recovered memories and the like as their pseudoscientifi c tools. Yet, some of it is clearly the awareness that sexual pluralism, to use Reiss’s (1990) paradigm, ought to be the ideal for which we as a society strive. By extension, it will help to sort out the crosscurrents that continue to confound our responses to sex in cyberspace.

Feminist contributions have been important in this respect because they highlight the need for alternative interpretations of personal perspectives and social interactions in the study of human sexuality. Such social constructionist theories have undoubtedly advanced our understanding of many aspects of the human sexuality complex, and have become an essential part of social science research. Yet, some social scientists appear to have adopted uncritically some of the more radical ideological rhetoric of contemporary feminist, gay, and other minority discourse, which illustrates the political aspects of sexuality in which some responsible debate is beginning to be heard because of the Internet. Too often, proponents of these radical views seem more interested in promoting the limited self-interests of their particular group or of themselves personally. Often allied with others who believe their perspectives and needs are also not being heeded, they often seek to create

a political movement that would place their group as the one that defi nes social norms and entitlements in opposition to the groups perceived as the dominant ene- mies. The well-known alliance between antipornography feminists and ultracon- servative political and religious groups is a prime example, the infl uence of which has the potential to undermine sexual expression on the Internet by limiting other sexual discourse and perspectives. Although they each oppose pornography for different reasons, their agendas are often centered on other sex-related and unre- lated concerns (Klein, 1990/1992). Thus, information on abortion, sex education, and gay and lesbian rights, for example, could be restricted, as the now-defunct Communications Decency Act (CDA) demonstrated. It is likely that these dynam- ics, along with the common association of heteronegativity with feminists in the

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popular mind, are part of the reason that so many of today’s young women refuse to be identifi ed with feminism, although they typically recognize the opportunities that they have because of its gains.

Although this purpose of promoting primarily self-interest and one’s own position of political power and authority has typically not been explicitly acknowl- edged (although it has been occasionally recognized), the end result, nevertheless, has been the paradox that these groups are often seeking to establish a social order for themselves that they want to wrest from others. Discourse then becomes a means to justify their existence, and so false dichotomies, with the opposition set up as straw fi gures ready to be knocked down, are created. Money (1995) has noted it, for example, with respect to the resurgence of the nature/nurture debate that is inherent in how strict social constructionists posit a picture of biological determinism that many of its proponents would not recognize. The centrality of the political positioning of these various social constructionist ideas is buried in Tiefer’s (1995) critique of naturalism in sex. Tiefer found that the use of arguing that sex is natural was a defense of sexology rooted in seventeenth- and eigh- teenth-century political philosophy defending the revolutionary movements of the day. She did not, however, make the conceptual jump to recognizing that today’s social constructionists are, in effect, often doing the same things they criticized in their opponents—seeking only to change those who were in control. Thus, efforts at eliminating such destructive attitudes as racism, sexism, and heterosexism have often had more success in stimulating counterbigotry, only more broadly based in its targets, than in eliminating or reducing them. This is refl ected in some com- monly held myths, such as that minorities who have been traditionally oppressed cannot be racist and that women cannot engage in sexual harassment. On the Internet, such arguments become open debates in which all interested parties can participate and contribute.

N EW I NSIGHTS FROM THE S CIENCE OF S EXOLOGY