The Social Construction of Sexuality: Personal Meanings, Perceptions of Sexual Experience,and Females' Sexuality in Puerto Rico
Abstract
A qualitative study on a sample of 12 Puerto Rican women was conducted in
Puerto Rico. The purpose of this study was to explore the various ways in which
sexual meanings are created, changed, and modified as the nature of social
discourse and personal experience changes. The two theoretical frameworks that
guided the methodology and analysis of the data were social constructionism and
feminism. I assumed that sexuality is socially constructed, shaped by social,
political, and economic influences, and modified throughout life. Feminist
theories assisted in documenting the ways in which females' sexuality in Puerto
Rico is shaped by culture and by institutions that disadvantage females and other
oppressed groups by silencing their voices. The theories guided the discussion of
the contradicting messages about women's sexualities and their experiences, as
these women fought, conformed to, and even colluded with their oppression.
Analysis of the participants' written and oral narratives produced the overarching
theme of sexual meanings/scripts, along with three interrelated sub-themes:
sources and nature of sexual scripts, determining experiences, and social
discourses of female sexuality. Participants reported three institutional sources of
sexual messages: family, religion-culture, and institutions of education. Their
determining experiences follow a common thread that weaves a common story
line: the life-long struggle with the incongruencies between the social
constructions of female sexuality and the realities of these women's sexual
experiences. Sexuality is defined as being challenged and modified through the
participants' lives. Four social discourses of female sexuality emerged from the
analysis of the data: source of guilt and shame, vulnerability and sexual
victimization, ambivalence, and empowerment. A theory of ambivalence was
developed from the data as a means to understand the participants' process of
developing the paradigms for their own sexuality.
Collections
- Doctoral Dissertations [14916]
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