> What I'm saying is that we should define things in a way that's
> definable
Human beings can define ourselves in potentially infinite ways. After all, biology is continuum, even at the level of chromosomes. "Approximately 1.7% of all live births do not conform to a Platonic ideal of absolute sex chromosome, gonadal, genital, and hormonal dimorphism" (Melanie Blackless, Anthony Charuvastra, Amanda Derryck, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Karl Lauzanne, Ellen Lee, "How Sexually Dimorphic Are We? Review and Synthesis". American Journal of Human Biology 12, <http://bms.brown.edu/faculty/f/afs/dimorphic.pdf>, p. 161). That's about 110 million individuals who don't fit into "male" and "female" categories. Considering the large number, we might say that two sexes capture biological differences less adequately than three sexes -- male, female, and intersex -- can.
By now, it's a convention -- across disciplines, from natural to social sciences -- to refer to biological differences as sexes and distinct social roles and statuses in a society's particular division of labor (which changes over time and varies across cultures) as genders.
Here is an example of momentous social change: <blockquote>Historically, fathers had the right to custody and control of their children. This right complemented the father's obligation to support and discipline the child and stemmed from the original assertion that wives and children were men's property. The father custody rule was attacked in the latter part of the nineteenth century by feminists and social welfare advocates who urged placing the child's interests above paternal privilege. Maternal custody became practical only when the system considered paternal financial obligations to be appropriately fulfilled through the institution of child support payments. The primary judicial inquiry as to custody thus became what was "in the best interest of the child."
Courts quickly evolved rules to assist in making the best-interest determination. Fit mothers were given custody of children under the age of seven or so and the "same-sex" preference dictated that preparation for adult roles mandated older boys went with their fathers while girls remained with mothers.
For most of this century, maternal custody has been the norm, with over 85 percent of children residing with their mothers after divorce.
<http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/women/html/ wh_010100_divorceandcu.htm></blockquote>
No change in men and women's bodies caused the big change in assignment of custody. It was a social movement that changed distinct rights and duties assigned to men and women respectively -- in other words, genders.
That is not to say that our bodies and our biological experiences of
sexuality, unlike genders, are unchanging. Probably the most
significant change is that average life expectancies in rich
countries have become so long. In ancient Rome, life expectancy at
birth was about 25, and even the Romans who managed to survive till
15 could expect to live till only about 52 (at <http://www.utexas.edu/
depts/classics/documents/Life.html>). Today in the United States,
life expectancy at birth is 74.5 for men and 79.9 for women (<http://
www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus04trend.pdf#027>). On one hand, that
means men and women today have longer sexual lives than they used to
(well-nourished, their bodies mature sexually faster than their
ancestors' and they live much longer than their ancestors); on the
other hand, men and women today live for a long time -- about three
decades (cf. <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-
Mon-20051114/024833.html>) -- after their hormone level declines
diminish their sexual capacity and sometimes interest as well.
That's the changed biological reality that today's men and women have
yet to fully assimilate well into their conceptions of themselves.
Far from putting sexuality into perspective and enjoying the last
years of their lives non-sexually, they are expected to remedy their
"problem" through pharmaceuticals.
> Yoshie,
> Again, GAY.
> boddi
The idea that there are distinct categories of human beings --
homosexuals and heterosexuals -- who have distinct group sexual
personalities is a really historically new one -- it was born in only
the late nineteenth century, and to this day it is not a universally
accepted idea. Some pre-modern societies approved of and even
philosophically exalted same-sex love and sex -- (e.g., ancient
Greece and pre-modern Japan) -- while others disapproved of it (e.g.,
much of the Christian West from at least the 12th century till the
mid-20th century), but among pre-modern societies, whether they
approved or disapproved same-sex love and sex, none had a notion that
some are homosexuals while others are heterosexuals.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>