Sex Makes the World Go Around

It is well known that Freud laid great emphasis on sexual matters. In the years that followed, a distinction was drawn between sex and gender—the idea of gender identity was introduced. Human beings do not spend every minute of their lives copulating, but at every minute of their lives their gender identity is present, thus the statement that sex really does make the world go around.

Of course, as far as material reality is concerned, money and other economic factors also make the world go round. But we can never get away from our gender identity, and sexuality is so pervasive, that we can indeed say that they are the most important things in being human. Sexuality ensures reproduction of the species—but humans are the only species in which it is also dissociated from oestrus and from the reproductive process; it is infiltrated by ideology.

Colette Chiland in this book discusses the importance of sexuality and gender in human life and looks how sexual difference is interpreted in different societies and different arenas. She argues that these various interpretations can, and must be, challenged.