The author explores the various ways that our beliefs about biological sex and gender have varied historically and why, in her opinion, they are still confused. Beginning on a personal note, Blank reveals the circumstances of her own long-term partnership with a person whose genetic structure is anomalous-his sex chromosome is XXY rather than XX or XY-something he only found out belatedly since to all appearance he was a typical male, albeit with an absence of facial hair. In this chronicle of changing sexual mores, the author challenges the common preconception today that the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality is legitimate. Until then, the term “sodomy” was used to describe proscribed sexual relationships outside of marriage-the presumption being that the purpose of a proper sexual relationship was procreation. She begins with the startling information that the term heterosexuality was invented as an identifying category in 1869. Independent scholar Blank, a social historian who has written extensively on sexual subjects ( Virgin: The Untouched History, 2007 Big Big Love: A Sourcebook on Sex for People of Size and Those Who Love Them, 2000), turns her attention to changing attitudes toward mainstream sexual identity.
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