The module’s reading suggests that in terms of gender and sexuality, culture defines the conditions of sexual response. Thus, cultural conditioning determines which signals the human’s sexual responsiveness can detect. For example, exposure to specific body parts, such as legs, can be received by sexual response systems in one culture, while in other cultures, it presents an example of normal unsexual behavior (Balswick & Balswick, 2019). Furthermore, considering the culture’s impact on gender, the culture defines which traits are associated with masculine and feminine behavior. Thus, while working is essential for women in some cultures, other cultures prioritize female submission to men and perceive working as competition and a threat to men’s masculinity (Guiliano, 2020). The impact of culture on gender and sexuality is observed in immigrant women who replicate the behavior from their country of origin (Guiliano, 2020). Thus, exploring cultural factors plays a vital role in developing an understanding of gender and sexuality.
The biblical understanding of sexuality and gender perceives gender as a result of differences in traditional scripts for boys and girls. Thus, physical strength, competitiveness, and dominance are encouraged in boys, while girls are raised to be more gentle, expressive, and sensitive. On the other hand, sexuality, in biblical understanding, is associated with parental restrictions. Therefore, males are more sexually active because they can freely explore the capabilities of their physical bodies, while girls are raised to resist sexual stimuli. Furthermore, girls raised facing more limitations results in women becoming generally more religious than men (Schnabel, 2018). Comparing the biblical understanding of gender and sexuality with knowledge of cultural factors defines that both are consistent in defining the influence of upbringing. However, while biblical understanding prioritizes the role of upbringing in gender and sexuality, cultural factors allow the external influence of social norms on an individual’s behavior.
References
Balswick, J., & Balswick, J. (2019). Authentic human sexuality: An integrated Christian approach (3rd ed.). Intervarsity Press.
Giuliano, P. (2020). Gender and culture. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 36(4), 944–961.
Schnabel, L. (2018). More religious, less dogmatic: Toward a general framework for gender differences in religion. Social Science Research, 75, 58-72.