Talk:Sex/Archive 2

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Material Archived 23 June 2006

Contents

One Small Thing

Why is "Usually both sexes: Pubic Hair, Underarm Hair" relevant here? It seems out of place to me. I would change it, but I can't (not registered). 61.9.204.168 12:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Intersex

1. The primary reason I added the text in this article is that I have been (and will be) working on a series of articles about intersex conditions. (The first completed are sexual differentiation and androgen insensitivity syndrome--- comments welcome. Several articles on various forms of ambiguous genitalia and CAH are underway, which is why the links are red, but will be done soon.) I used the concepts of "genetic sex" and other levels of definition but realized that these weren't necessarily defined or referenced as well as I wanted, so I am trying to rectify this. I am not intending to be controversial and hope no one finds any of it politically objectionable.

§ One of the problems that will impact what you are trying to do is that while the normal human tendency is to dichotomize, e.g., into males and females, Mother Nature is not so lacking in inventiveness. There are other chromosomal possibilities besides XX and XY, and the additions or deletions of chromosomes are not irrelevant to the reproductive capabilities and/or the behavioral traits of the individuals so endowed.P0M 02:11, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Does it seem to you that anything I wrote disagrees with what you say here? Alteripse 05:15, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I am not sure whether you were the one who wrote it or not, but the problem I see is with the chart in the section on "Sex in humans." It assumes that what is statistically the most common is the only way nature works. (I modified the lead-up to the chart to try to indicate to readers that the chart discusses only the "vanilla" case. P0M

2. I note that there are separate articles on gender identity and sexual identity. Both have worthwhile content but I consider the two terms interchangeable and I don't think I have ever heard anyone make a distinction (a preference maybe but not a distinction) in an academic or medical setting. I don't know the history of the two articles, but why not conflate them and post a redirect from the less-preferred term? I will mention this also at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles but I am not planning to do the merge. I wonder if the writers included some of the aspects of sex of assignment or were trying to distinguish sexual behavior from other aspects of gender-associated behavior? Perhaps the terms mean something different to some of the writers here? If so, I am requesting that someone write a brief explanation of the usage distinction to put into the two articles (and link them) to avoid confusing some of us-- the paragraph on semantics of sex and gender already in this article (which I moved without changing) doesn't quite address it. Thanks. Alteripse 18:42, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

§ You should check out the website of Dr. Milton Diamond who is a recognized authority. The terms "gender role" and "gender identity" were either invented by or "revived" by Dr.John Money because he saw a need, in systematizing and explicating his research, to distinguish between the apparent sex of an individual (based on external genitalia) and what the person experienced himself or herself to be. I wrote to Dr. Diamond, because his website appeared as a solid pane of black on my old browser and I thought it had gone down. I mentioned the information I was looking for, and he was kind enough to respond personally. He said that when sexual identity and gender identity are congruent, nobody even notices that there is a difference between the two, but when they are at odds the situation then becomes very problematical for the individual who does not fit the expectations of his/her society. P0M 02:11, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
By true coincidence I found Dr Diamond's website today and noticed he had written an article distinguishing between gender identity and sexual identity but I didn't have access to the article. I am afraid the distinction still isn't clear to me after looking at your paragraph above and the two wp articles but I am willing to be educated as to the nuances of distinction. As you say below, can you make it clearer? Alteripse 05:15, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Try this analogy. Freemartins are fairly well understood. Basically, a female bovine fetus is affected by excess androgens due to its transfer from a male fetus with whom it shares the uterus of the mother. The result is that the genitalia of both offspring are normal. There is an XY calf with male genitalia, and an XX calf with female genitalia. But while the adult behavior of the male is the expected behavior of a bull, the adult behavior of the female is not normal. When it reaches sexual maturity it begins to try to mount other females as would a male. Assuming the rather unlikely idea that the female could have anything to say about it, it might claim to be a bull (a bull in a cow's body). The gender identity of this individual would then be "masculine", but the sexual identity of this individual would be female. P0M

3. I find the noun "intersexual" deplorable. I realize I am writing from a medical perspective, but people with these conditions are people, not conditions, and I have never heard the term used even informally in a medical setting. When I mentioned this on the [[Talk:intersexual], I got a response that made me wonder if the writer understood the difference between a noun and an adjective. I have gone ahead and "edited boldly" but if community consensus prefers this usage, I won't fight over it here. Alteripse 18:42, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

§ You are right to suspect that there is a community consensus involved. (The discussion also goes the same way for "homosexual", which I have been told is only a noun.) There apparently is a community of individuals who identify themselves as "intersexuals", and it is fine with me if they prefer that term to words that carry heavy connotations. What are people in your profession, I assume you are an M.D., using to refer to individuals with, e.g., one ovary and one testicle?
Yes I am an MD, with lots of experience in this area, but had never heard the usage "intersexual" before. It still seems barbaric to my ears, but I got used to the term "gay" also, though using either term as a noun seems to subsume that person's identity into one aspect of their personality, or at least to imply that that is the only important fact about that person. My opinion but I will not change text over it. Alteripse 05:15, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I think we may need to set up a formal structure (maybe on a separate "sandbox" page) to hash this all out. I do not like the term "intersexual" either, but people who favor that term do not like words like "hermaphrodite." One problem with the latter term is that it applies indiscriminately to several different conditions. It is not clear to me that "intersexual" does any better. P0M

4. As a matter of fact rather than semantics, the paragraph I changed here seemed to confuse discordance of gender role with biological discordance. This is a distinction worth maintaining. Though sometimes congruent, they are two distinct categories of human variation. The other distinction worth making is that between intersex condition and ambiguous genitalia. All three of these categories are inextricably confused in the Intersexual article, which simply needs to be replaced (as I intend to do with a new article entitled intersex). I am making the distinctions here to reduce inter-article conflicts of usage, and offering to discuss and defend it to make sure these distinctions are acceptable to the community and cause no unintended political offense. Alteripse 18:42, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

§ I cannot make out what you mean. "Discordance of gender role" with what? "biological discordance" with what? The discordances that people ordinarily mention are only very occasionally simply a mismatch of, e.g., sex and gender on the one hand and gender role on the other hand. An example of that kind of thing would be an XY individual who has normal genitalia and knows that he is a boy or a man, but who has some part of his ordinary behavior that is stereotypically feminine. There was one person of my acquaintance who was raised by his mother and aunt. Lacking any male role model in the home, his speech and other behavior was atypical. Another example would be cross-cultural cases. Hall gives the case of Japanese males who tilt their pelvices forward to distinguish themselves from females who tilt their pelvices back. (All this is below the conscious level for most individuals.) In an American/European context this part of their gender role is discordant because the pelvice tipping is arbitrary. People in the west do it the other way. Among males, only "Bad Bart" leaning on the bar of the Last Gulp Saloon tilts his pelvice forward. The really problematical cases of discord occur when one's external genitalia are male but one identifies oneself as a girl or woman and also one behaves (dresses, flicks one's hair back, etc.) as would most females in that society. If you do not believe it (assuming you are a male), then go buy a $5 lady's watch at Walmart and wear it for a day. The watch can be identical to a man's watch except for size and people will still give you a funny look. P0M
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I separated the discussion of biological discordance (e.g., chromosomes that don't match genitalia) from psychological/behavioral discordances (e.g., some of the behavior you describe, or transsexualism, or all the "third sex" social categories of other cultures, because the psych/behav discordance rarely involves demonstrable biological discordance and biol discordance sometimes but does not always involve behav/psych discordance. In the current intersexual article the two are all mixed together in a way that someone uninformed would think meant they usually occur together. Is that clearer? Alteripse 05:15, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Yes. And the psychological/behavioral discordances that you mentioned are the factors that influenced John Money and those who followed (or argued with) him to speak of the difference between sexual identity and gender identity. P0M

5. I changed the intersex example from one that asserted the old early twentieth century misconception that there is a unitary "biological sex" that is somehow the "real sex" to an example that suggests a more complex and only partly biological determination of sex and gender identity. Alteripse 18:42, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

§ I haven't studied the changes you have made carefully yet. If you have done as you have stated above, you should include cases where the chromosomal sex is XY or XX, the genitalia are unambiguously male or female, and yet the "brain sex" is discordant. P0M 02:11, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
We could give dozens of examples of every permutation of discordance. I thought it would be overkill and overshadow other parts of the article and better covered in a good intersex article. If you think it would add something additional to put some more examples here, please do so. Alteripse 05:15, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I just meant that the case I mentioned would make clear the difference between sexual identity (e.g., XX + female genitalia or XY + male genitalia) and gender identity ("I don't care whether I have a penis and testicles or not! I am a woman in a man's body.") P0M

_____

For sex vs. gender, see the article by Milton Diamond at http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/intersex/sexual_I_G_web.html

_____


§ Problem. The text of this article says:

..For example, some women may have an XY karyotype. Some boys may have a rudimentary uterus, or an extra X chromosome.

§ The article needs to be clear about whether the word "women" characterizes the individual's sex or the individual's gender. A person of the female sex is, by definition, someone who can produce ova. Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I know an XY individual cannot produce ova. And as for the word "boy", if it characterizes the individual's sex then a boy should mature into someone who can produce semen. And as for "an extra X chromosome," does chromosomal status determine sex? If so, XXY individuals should be a third "sex." If not, then what is it about the individual with a rudimentary uterus that makes "him" a boy? Does the writer in fact mean to describe an individual who appears on casual inspection to be a boy but who actually has a uterus or other biological factors that are discordant with the individual's apparent status? P0M

I am using "woman" and "boy" in the plain everyday sense. If you met them, it wouldn't occur to you that they are unusual and they don't think of themselves as other than a "woman" or a "boy" in the same sense we do. The whole point of the article is that your concept of sex and gender may need adjustment. If you mean it when you say, "correct me if I am wrong", here's a triple correction: First, "one who can produce ova" is often a poor definition of female sex. Although it is usually true, it is not true in a large proportion of females (think girls before puberty, women after menopause, women who don't ovulate, girls and women without ovaries, etc). Your definition might strike a lot of people as an assumption that female is defined by fertility.
There is a problem with the way the article begins. It says, "The female sex is defined as the one that produces the larger gamete." What it needs to say is something like, "If an individual produces ova then it is female," and not, "If and only if an individual produces ova then it is female." Ordinary language lays traps all over the place. When I used the words "can produce ova" I meant to imply "at some time in their lifecycle."
Anyway, I think the problem I was seeing was with what you call "using 'woman' and 'boy' in the plain everyday sense." We are both aware that things are not that simple. When average well-informed readers see the words, "some women may have an XY karyotype," they will be troubled by the obvious conflict with what they have learned about chromosomal sex determination. They will be unprepared to make the qualification "in the plain everyday sense," and they will not necessarily understand that the article means to convey the idea that someone with all the known signs of female sex can still have an XY karyotype. Nor will they be prepared to understand how that could happen.P0M
Second, the whole point of that section of the article is that sex is defined at several levels and many people are not entirely congruent on all levels. We pay attention to different levels of definition for different purposes, but the idea that everyone is congruent in all levels is naive and inaccurate.
I agree completely. We just need to be sure that there is enough context for the general reader to get the right idea.P0M
A third correction: an extra X chromosome does not define sex.
Maybe it depends on what one means by "sex." A (45, X) individual (Turner's syndrome), will experience no onset of puberty, and such an individual will not bear children, right? P0M
It sometimes results in some body features that are at least statistically somewhat female. Try introducing the idea that a "third sex chromosome means you must be a third sex" to men and women with XXX, XXY, or XYY karyotypes.
I am fairly sure that it would be distasteful to them. Rather than their subjective reaction to such a suggestion, I would rather direct attention to the statistical differences pertinent to the "extra" karyotypes. When you add further differentiating characteristics the fan-out goes beyond three, which is greatly at variance with the commonsense idea that the sexes and their normal behaviors are rigidly divided by one and only one line.P0M
In mentioning a "boy with a rudimentary uterus" I intended to describe boys who are boys to the most thorough inspection (not just casual) in every way except that they carry a defect in the gene for producing antimullerian hormone and as a fetus their mullerian structures develop into a "rudimentary uterus." The condition usually goes unsuspected until discovered accidentally during abdominal surgery. If you haven't had abdominal surgery, it might be you.
Well, I already have vestigal nipples and a certain amount of mammary tissue... ;-) P0M
In a small subset of boys or girls with intersex conditions, the external genitalia may be undervirilized or overvirilized. If the degree of virilization is "in-between", the genitalia are described as "ambiguous".

§ Again, this paragraph is quite muddy. If a small subset of the intersex individuals has under- or over-virilized external genitalia, then what characterizes the remainder of the intersex individuals?P0M 03:09, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to be muddy. Let me spell it out and perhaps you can suggest to me how we can make it clearer. Start with the large set of all the people born with defects of the reproductive system (referred to in the medical textbooks as "disorders of sexual development"). That set includes boys with undescended testes, girls with Turner syndrome, boys with Klinefelter syndrome, children of both sexes with pituitary gonadotropin deficiency, girls with no uterus due to mullerian agenesis, polycystic ovary syndrome, etc. A subset of that group of people have "intersex disorders." Though intersex is a slightly elastic term, I prefer one of the narrower definitions: an intersex condition is that of a person whose genitalia cannot be easily recognized as male or female, or of a person whose chromosomal sex is not congruent with the sex of their internal and/or external reproductive organs. Examples of people with intersex conditions without ambiguous genitalia would be women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome or a boy with a uterus due to AMH deficiency. Within the set of people with intersex conditions is a smaller group with visibly "ambiguous genitalia". If larger and more elastic definitions of intersex, such as those favored by some of the wikipedia participants, are used, then the proportion of people with intersex conditions who have ambiguous genitalia is a small minority.
In other words, by any common definition of intersex, not all intersex people have ambiguous genitalia.
Am I still being muddy? I promise to provide a more accurate statistical breakdown in a rewrite of the intersex article. This addition was to provide sort of a "foundation" of definitions for that. Above all I want it understandable and verifiable, so thank you for your questions. Have I satisfied you that the paragraphs make sense, or can you suggest how to make them clearer? Alteripse 05:15, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The above is very useful. With regard to the terminology of "intersex condition" (which I personally find about as awkward as "intersexual", but never mind), I think the key thing to do is to lay out a clear picture of what goes against the "simple dichotomy" picture at each juncture of differentiation, and then let people be aware that some people characterize a larger or smaller subset of the differences as "intersexual." P0M
As with many of the more contentious topics, a major difficulty lies in how to talk about things that seem as simple as black and white without throwing up people's defense systems or getting them confounded when "two" suddenly becomes a hundred or a thousand or more that shade into each other. P0M
One other thing. This discussion "article" has grown over 32k, so I am going to archive the earlier parts of it. I hope nobody will be alarmed. There will be a link at the top of the article that will take you to the older stuff. P0M 03:55, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reorganize Article?

For what it is worth, I have tried to provide a more systematic way to organize information in the article. See what I have produced so far at User:Patrick0Moran/Sex_discussion and edit and/or discuss if you like. P0M 05:35, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I tried to rewrite some of what you described as muddy to make it clearer. I softened a couple of the sentences that seemed to me a little overbearing and a little too US-centric in instructing the reader how to interpret the information provided. Alteripse 03:19, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article now looks very good to me. It should safeguard against anyone considering himself/herself or someone else as some kind of abomination due to not fitting into an overly rigid conceptual scheme. Thank you for your good work. P0M

What should be at Sex?

"Sex" could mean either 1) The biological distinction between male and female, or 2) Sexual intercourse or sexual behaviour. Currently we take the approach of "primary topic disambiguation", but I think this is inappropriate, as "Sex" has (arguably) the slightly predominant meaning of "Sexual intercourse", rather than the biological distinction, when in general use. If someone types "Sex" into the Wikipedia search box, what article will that person be looking for? I'd argue that it wouldn't be this current page the majority of the time (it's the looking-up-naughty-words-in-the-dictionary effect...!).

For this reason, I think we should use "equal disambiguation", and have a disambig page at [[Sex]], and move this page article to Sex (biological distinction), or some such. — Matt

Strongly disagree. This would be a case of disambiguation creating more confusion than it prevents. -Sean Curtin 20:22, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Could you elaborate a little? Thanks. — Matt 23:44, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
"Sex", as a technical term, applies to the area covered by this article. Technical terms should be placed at their actual names, not the common terms used in reference to them (qv heart attack). Sex already says "see also sexual behavior, in particular sexual intercourse" at the very top of the article. A user looking for an article on sex acts isn't going to be brought directly to the relevant article(s) regardless of whether or not a disambiguation page is placed here, but a user looking for what the term "sex" technically applies to will need to follow a link to another page if this one is moved and replaced with a disambiguation. -Sean Curtin 06:38, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree that Sex should redirect to the disambiguation page, and that this article be moved to something else, like "Sex (gender)"; "Sex (biological distinction)" is even better. I streamlined Sex (disambiguation) so that it's less confusing and easier to get to the two most common articles of interest. -- Beland 03:44, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

recent changes to table of usual levels of sex criteria

Anome's edit and most recently DanP's edit miss the point of the text. Anome wanted to emphasize that orientation is only usual, but this is just as true of the other levels, so I added the usual label to all of them. DanP removed it apparently because he thinks male and female are only defined by karyotype but in fact this is not true and there are other male and female karyotypes besides xx and xy. Read the text. Sex is not defined absolutely by any single level of differentiation. Every level, not just orientation, is usual. No level is categorical. Let's be consistent. Alteripse 23:23, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I apologize for not fully understanding. My knowledge of chromosomal sex is that XX and XY are female and male, and that other combinations are perhaps male or female, but not necessarily chromosomally so by definition. The removal of "usual" merely was meant to state that the usual ones are, in fact, the definitive ones when it comes to chromosomes. I did not remove the others, because they are not categorized so readily as the XX XY pairing, but perhaps I am wrong. If you can nail down the other combinations into male/female boxes, that sounds good too. But saying "usual" implies that environment, cultural, or some non-genetic determinant is at work. I did not believe chromosomal implied such things, but please clarify so I understand. Again I apologize for the mixup. DanP 23:49, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
People with karyotypes xxy or xxxy are nearly always clearly male. Some people with XY/X or XY/XX are male. A few people with XX are largely anatomically male. A few people with XY are clearly anatomically female. I'm not even referring to people for whom gender identity is the level of discordance. Every single biological, psychological, and behavioral criterion is only "usual." Alteripse 23:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I still don't get it. Again I apologize. You say "a few" and "anatomically". That is not chromosomal is it? My understanding of chromosomal sex is that you can look at one nucleus in a vacuum and that M or F is your best guess. Anything else goes beyond genetics, right? If you want to remove usual, I think we should remove chromosomal too unless some word enhances it to include anatomy or phenotypical outcome somehow. DanP 00:12, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm willing to try to explain but I'm not sure I understand what isn't making sense. I'd like to think the article spells it out but obviously it doesn't if it doesn't. I wrote the original version of the table and most of the section on biological definitions. The main message of the article is that sex is differentiated at many different levels, but no matter what "level" you look at, there are a minority of people who are discordant, "don't match", or whatever term you want to use. The levels can be roughly considered a "chain reaction," where the status of each level usually determines the next. Like, if the gonads are testes, the external genitalia are usually male. Examples of discordances at this level can occur if the testes cannot make testosterone, or the genital tissue cannot respond to it, or high levels of testosterone come from somewhere else than testes, etc etc. I can give you specific examples of discordances at every single level, so for all of them it is fair to say "usual" rather than "always" or "categorical." Is this explanation helping or am I still not understanding what you are not understanding? Alteripse 01:27, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)


§ Aren't we back to the definitional issue we struggled with some time ago? One definition of "male" is "the ones that produces the sperm", and "female" is "the ones that produce the ova." The problems start almost immediately since newborns are routinely categorized as either male or female or dunno, yet they cannot produce reproductive cells until much later, and castrated males, menopausal females, etc. are still called men and women even though they can no longer produce reproductive cells. A somewhat expanded definition follows from looking at what someone is expected to be able to do in the future, or has been capable of doing in the past, or might have been able to do if s/he had escaped the knife. But another way is to look at body morphology and say, "regardless of whether there are really vestigal testes in these labia, this child looks like a girl so she is a girl," etc.

§ What individuals are, in terms of sexual functionality, is quite complicated. Boiling it all down to "male", "female", and maybe "intersexual" leaves out a lot of the details that will determine how individuals will be able to lead their lives. Is it helpful to say of an individual who has only one X and no Y chromosome in each cell that "she" is female? If you want to talk about how people like her generally act, generally look when mature, etc., then yes. But to speak of her that way obscures the fact that she is sterile. That is a defect of language that must be gotten around somehow, both to help her know what to expect and to help prospective husbands know what to expect. In less extreme cases, not everybody's functionality in the reproductive sphere stands close to the statistical norm. P0M 01:17, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Patrick I think you put way too much emphasis on fertility as the criterion of sex. For lots of different reasons, I think your argument that 45X girls shouldn't be described as female without reservation or stipulation about fertility is incorrect and offensive to boot. Alteripse 01:32, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ I wouldn't want to offend anybody. Talking about, trying to figure out, value-laden terms, however, does carry a high risk of doing that.
§ The word "sex" probably comes from "secare," to cut or divide, or so claims my New World Dictionary of the American Language. We divide many kinds of animals into sexes, bulls and cows, for instance. We do so by inspecting their external genitalia. (In the case of baby chicks, it's a little more complicated than that.) We assume the statistically normal, so we assume that bulls will mate with cows and produce more cattle, but also that bulls will be somewhat more assertive than cows. We note the occasional appearance of freemartins, but we don't call them male even though their behavior is male. We think of them as females that are unlikely to fulfill their normal reproductive potential, not as males that are unable to fulfill their normal reproductive behavior. I believe that choice is made on the basis of a very strongly confirmed association between the appearance of reproductive organs and the reproductive functionality of individuals. (By "we" I mean the majority of speakers of English who write about bovine reproduction.) That is not my preference, it's just the way that human beings use the sometimes rather crude tool that we call language. It is just as crude a division to lump people with common appearance together as it is to lump people with common function together. Both are black and white pictures in a technicolor Universe.
§ Was Bagoas any less worthy as a human being than Alexander because someone had castrated him? I deny that. Both the appearance of his reproductive organs and his reproductive potential had been irremediably altered. Does that disqualify him from being a human being? Does that disentitle him from his share of human affection? I think not. What if he was castrated before his voice and even his brain had fully masculinized. Would that make him a lesser human being? I say no. Some people might look down on him because he was "less than a man," but I would say that it is they who are less than human. I believe that Bagoas must have suffered deeply because they took from him the likelihood of having a wife, the possibility of producing his own children, etc. I would never want to deny his dignity as a human being, but I don't think that I would fail to give him the respect of seriously discussing with him his options for having a family if he wanted to talk about them.
§ I continue to speak of "him," and it is likely that Alexander saw him the same way. What if he had suffered gender dysphoria and had always conceived of himself as a girl even before he was castrated? Maybe to Bagoas, Bagoas was always "she," and nobody else would listen. Where does this thing called sex (or, more properly, gender) truly reside? We start with an interest in reproductive potential (so we have boarding schools for boys and boarding schools for girls, I guess), we think we have it basically figured out when we can observe the physical "format" of bodies, but then we discover that there are components of masculinity and femininity, of experiencing oneself as a man or a woman, that elude both reproductive potential and external genitalia.
§ It is a mistake to look at any shade of green or blue and say, "This is black, and everything else is white." Nor will it do to look at any shade of red or yellow and call it white. But language tends to make us form dichotomies. Once we form the black and white dichotomy, we can latch onto the actinic colors and say, "This is what sex is really basically about," or we can latch onto another part of the spectrum and say, "No, this is what sex boils down to." Who is to say that differences in genitalia are not important? Who is to say that flavors of sexual desire are not important? Who is to say that potentialities for reproductive success are not important? Who gets to privilege one above the other?
§ If you don't privilege your flavor of sexuality over my flavor of sexuality, then you will not communicate by word or intention the idea that my way of being a human being is less valid, less valuable, than your own. That means that you cannot tell me that my flavor of sexuality is really the same as yours, only I seem to be unaware of that somehow and therefore need reassurance and guidance. What is our need, as human beings, to deny differences? Our sexualities are all unique. If somebody needs to "secare" the whole lot of us into two groups, by any standard, then I will look at it, say, "Well, that's his/her need," and let it go at that. But be careful of how you treat my friend whose body is a roughly 50/50 mosaic of XX and XY cells, who looks like a stunning woman, who speaks with a tenor voice... P0M 03:40, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Your whole long passage here is exactly what I was trying to say, and the opposite of what you implied above by making sex hang on fertility. Fertility is one of many criteria for sex and in my mind way down the list in importance. Alteripse 03:46, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

§ Maybe it is not clear from the way the chart is given its context, but what Alteripse seems to me to be trying to indicate is that any of the factors might be "fudged" a bit without destroying the total picture. Somebody might by XYY instead of XY, for instance, and yet he might function very adequately as a husband and a father, so adequately that nobody would even guess that he might be XYY. Somebody might be XX and come into the delivery room to the observation of a nurse, "I...think...you've got a little girl," and yet in the full course of her life she might make a perfectly adequate wife and mother. The alternative to leaving designationa a little fluid this way is to try to make up different names for all possible configurations and then to add another level of qualification whenever someone can be more or less male or female on a sliding scale (as, for instance, when an XX individual has been masculinized in the womb to a greater or lesser degree). P0M

Nevertheless, the anatomy, the genitals, the "total picture", or something or another having to do with the human body is considered. This is phenotype and the expression of the genes -- it is some outcome or another. It is not the genes themselves which are separate from all of this. Suppose we know a person has a recessive blue-eye gene. We do not say the blue-eye gene is "usually blue" simply because such a person can have brown eyes in reality. The blue-eye gene is the blue-eye gene, and that is that. Whether it is expressed biologically is a totally separate issue, and I think "usually" should not apply to the XX/XY nomenclature. It is by definition, not by outcome. DanP 19:06, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, no, no. The most important message of the section is that there is not a single infallible criterion for what someone's "true sex" really is. I know it is counterintuitive and goes against what most people think they know about sex. Not even the chromosomes are absolute. I gave you examples of males with XX and females with XY and it gets weirder than that. There is not a single level of definition of sex which is absolute rather than probabilistic. Thanks for talking instead of changing. If I have managed to persuade you, how can we explain this better so people think, "wow, I didn't realize that," instead of, "that can't be right, I'll fix it..."? Alteripse 02:08, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with that goal completely. But you cannot use the wording "usual chromosomal sex" or "usual genetic sex", as those are descriptors of the DNA (and not of the person carrying the DNA). I would change it to "Usual sex chromosomes" which refers to the chromosomes a person of either sex happens to be carrying, rather than the implying it is the sex indicator of the DNA itself. I know that I haven't mentioned this distinction in other categories in the chart, because they've tied into the person somehow. But analyzing the genes is a different ballgame. Think about this: theoretically identical twins could be different sexes by non-genetic factors, but their "chromosomal sex" cannot be different because it is totally identical, right? No criteria could distinguish one twin's DNA (sex genes or otherwise) from the other. DanP 15:02, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Guess what, I agree with your suggestion and changed the table. Also, genetically identical twins can vary in some of the aspects of sexual differentiation (such as gender identity) that do not seem to be primarily coded for by genes. In that case, I would probably describe them as "discordant at one level of sex or gender" rather than refer to them as "different sexes" (although I can imagine a couple of contexts in which people might use the latter phrase). Alteripse 19:25, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Could I suggest another change? The row labelled "usual level of sex hormones" doesn't contain levels, but which hormones have the higher levels. Should it be labelled "usual dominant sex hormones" or something like that? JPD 15:42, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I didn't notice the change from the original version. I fixed it.alteripse 16:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment moved to talk

An unsigned contributor said the following, which I have moved here from the article -- The Anome 22:40, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I recall reading a statement on this while working at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The position was, roughly, that the various ABS social surveys do not collect data on gender - to do that you'd need a multiple page questionnaire. The ABS does collect information on sex, and "sex" is the correct word to use.
The two sexes are Male and Female, to be abbreviated "M" and "F". While there are transgendered individuals in the Australian population, they are not statistically significant for the purposes of ABS statistics, which are mainly to do with large-scale poopulation trends.
Although gender is the item of most interest sociologically, collecting data on sex alone makes sense because sex is the single most statistically reliable indicator of gender. It's not 100%, but it's very good.
If anyone can copy and paste the actual text of this determination into here, that would be cool.

Hmmm. I wonder whether census takers use the "traditional" method of determining sex. ;-) P0M 02:55, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Too restricted concept

This text is too restrictive. The individuals of many species can be divided into two sexes. This is true. But Sexual processes, sexual reproduction occurs also in species where the partners are practically indistinguishable. The kernel processes are meiosis and fusion (syngamy, fertilization). The article should start out by describing the sexual mode of reproduction. Then describe sexes as special cases. Etxrge 11:06, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good idea. Put a section in on this viewpoint please. An encyclopedia article needs to start from a familiar orientation point to be useful for its readers, so I wouldn't replace what is there. Perhaps entitle it A broader, biological view of sex? Thanks. Alteripse 12:06, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC) .

Wouldn't that be more appropriate for the article on sexual reproduction? -- Beland 22:52, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Androphilia

Just looking at the table under the "Sex among humans" heading, it says that the "Usual sexual orientation" of females is "gynephilic" and that of males is "androphilic". Doesn't that convey the meaning that most people are homosexual? Are they around the wrong way? - Mark 13:48, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yep, you are right. I fixed it. ---lulu- 17:19, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

It's backwards again, and I'm unclear as to if I can actually fix it myself. Usonophile 23:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I've fixed it. Androphilia = male-loving; gynephilia = female-loving. It's pretty straightforward, so I can't imagine why someone would be changing this. --David Iberri (talk) 00:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Insect Sex

This article seems to talk too much about Bee reproduction. Maybe that section should be revised to be less specific. --Phoenix Hacker 05:48, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

Something which may interest editors of this page

(WikiProject Decency template was here, but has since been deleted)

Any help which could be provided would be greatly appreciated. -Godfearing Parent.

OK, here's a little help: talk to your kids and supervise them in an age appropriate manner. If your kid is too young to see something as benign as this article, you should supervise his use of the Internet. Once your kid is old enough to handle this kind of content, hopefully you will have instilled in him enough sense to not have his mind warped by a discussion by adults of sex throughout the animal kingdom.
Just because you refuse to supervise your kids, that does not mean it is our job to do so. The Internet is no more an appropriate baby-sitter than is television. -NickGorton 05:44, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Troll, obviously. Don't jump the way he's trying to manipulate you. ObsidianOrder 01:33, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Long drawn out subject – should one leave the words of trolling (or legitimately protesting, opining, etc) nutjobs out there without response. Personally, having variously been in multiple disenfranchised minority groups my entire life, I tend to respond simply to ensure that such idiocy isn't allowed to stand unchallenged. But that's my style, not necessarily yours. -NickGorton 05:09, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

At this moment, none of the anonymous edits have added useful content, working in good will. This article should be blocked to anonymous edits to given responsible Wikipedians some repite. --Wetman 06:04, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree, even if reluctantly. Since I placed this article on my watchlist about a week ago, I have seen it vandalized and reverted multiple times a day. Andrea Parton 06:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, someone recently vandalized my comment above, and I just reverted it. I also just reverted vandalism to the article page myself, as I have done several times already. I really think this article should be protected from anonymous editing. Andrea Parton 19:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I've semi-protected for the time being. If there are any objections, please discuss. --David Iberri (talk) 02:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Sex in non-animal species

The section "Sex in non-animal species" always disappears after a series of reversions from vandalism. Could anybody think of a good way to avoid it? -wshun 04:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Why no pictures?

I would have thought that this article was crying out for illustration. Seriously. For great justice. 17:03, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Unprotecting

In accordance with WP:SPP, I'm suggesting we lift the semi-protection of this page soon to confirm that it's still a target of persistent anon vandals. I propose the lift be done on 17 May 2006 (UTC), at which point the article will have been semi-protected for two full weeks. (This time period is somewhat arbitrary; the policy says SP should be lifted after a "brief period"). If there are any objections, please raise them here. Otherwise, I'll unprotect on the date given above. --David Iberri (talk) 11:41, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The lift needs to be lifted to check if this article is still the target of vandalism. Although I believe this article may always be a target of vandalism, the semi-protection should be lifted but the article monitored before any other action can be taken as far as protection against vandalism. --SuperLearner 04:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I've unprotected the article -- let's try this out for a few days, and if anon vandals persist, we can re-protect. Get your rollback finger ready... --David Iberri (talk) 03:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, that was fun. Anon vandalism has persisted, so I've semi-protected again. --David Iberri (talk) 19:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Add URI to a sex-informational wiki

I'm not really sure wether this is the right place to post this, but I'm going to assume it is since the original article is locked.

I think this non-wikipedia wiki should be linked to in the sex article: (link removed)

I found it informative and serious enough, and since you even link directly to goatse like material on the goatse page I don't see any harm in adding this.

The link is not appropriate for this article, and links on talk pages are also picked up by google, so I have removed it. Kusma (討論) 20:42, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Italia 90?

I removed the image from inside a table. I really couldn't see how this was relevant. Felixwells 16:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Usual Sexual Orientation

This does not seem to be neutral point of view (WP:NPOV), nor does it appear to be verifiable (WP:V), because the usual sexual orientation is subjective and cannot be reliably externally measured. Also, survey data regarding stigmatized or deeply personal feelings or activities is often inaccurate. Participants often avoid answers which they feel society, the survey-takers, or they themselves dislike. Omgitsasecret 02:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

If you are you telling us that you object to the article stating that the usual sexual orientation of males is toward females and vice versa, you have a deep problem understanding (1) the meanings of several key words, (2) the nature of NPOV, or (3) the nature of human sexuality. Please correct whichever misunderstanding you have, do not pretend the article says things it doesnt say, and don't repeat that edit. Whether you like it or not, the enormous preponderance of the evidence suggests it is in fact "usual". alteripse 03:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Please cite a reliable source, or if you wish, an "enormous preponderance of the evidence", which suggests it is in fact usual. I know that this is a commonly held belief, but that does not mean it is npov. Since sexual orientation is subjective, and ambiguous at best, it would be impossible to compile an accurate source showing the commonality of heterosexuality versus homosexuality, and this is only supported by the fact that results of different reports vary so much. For example, The Kinsey Reports even state something quite different than what you suggest:
Probably the most widely cited findings of the Kinsey Reports regard the prevalence of different sexual orientations — especially to support a claim that 10% of the population are gay. In fact, the findings are not so straightforward, and Kinsey himself avoided and disapproved of using terms like homosexual or heterosexual to describe individuals, noting that sexuality is prone to change over time, and that sexual behaviour can be understood both as physical contact as well as purely psychic phenomena (desire, sexual attraction, fantasy). Instead of three-categories (heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual), a seven point scale was used. The Kinsey scale ranked sexual behaviour from 0 to 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 completely homosexual. A 1 was considered predominantly heterosexual and only incidentally homosexual, a 2 mostly heterosexual and more than incidentally homosexual, a 3 equally homosexual and heterosexual, and so on.
The reports found that nearly 46% of the male population had engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activities, or "reacted to" persons of both sexes, in the course of their adult lives.[1]. 11.6% of white males (ages 20-35) were given a rating of 3 (about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response) throughout their adult lives.[2] The study also reported that 10% of American males surveyed were "more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55"[3] (in the 5 to 6 range).
7% of single females (ages 20-35) and 4% of previously married females (ages 20-35) were given a rating of 3 (about equal heterosexual and homosexual experience/response) on the 7-point Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale for this period of their lives.[4] 2 to 6% of females, aged 20-35, were more or less exclusively homosexual in experience/response.[5]
I am not trying to say how common heterosexuality or homosexuality are, I am simply saying they are too ambiguous to really say that either is "usual". Omgitsasecret 04:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


Sorry your arguments are not convincing. Orientation can be defined by self-profession, or by behavior. None of the Kinsey data can be interpreted to disagree with the neutral statement that the "usual" orientation is toward the opposite sex, when the usual meanings of the words are used. The table in the article simply reflects the current consensus of recognized authorities about orientation, and does not imply that minority orientation is abnormal, just not "usual". Kinsey nowhere said that a homosexual orientation was as common as a heterosexual one, nor does any other recognized authority. If you think an extreme minority view based on some unusual and not commonly accepted definitions or criteria needs to be explained somewhere, it could probably be accommodated in the article on orientation with references, but does not mean that the general article on sex needs to omit the virtually universal consensus. alteripse 05:00, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Your arguments are also not convincing. Saying a certian sexual orientation is "usual" does indeed imply that a minority sexual orientation is abnormal. Antonyms for "usual". I do not think that was the intended meaning and I think it would at least be approprite to reword it to "majority sexual orientation according to [citation here]" or something as a compromise. Omgitsasecret 05:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Central to the entire biological concept of sex revolves around the pairing of male and female for erotic and procreative behavior. While human behavior and human variation is far wider than that, in a simple table in this article, there is nothing wrong with simply acknowledging that a primary erotic orientation toward the opposite sex is the "usual" outcome of that dimension of sexual development. If you take the trouble to review the history of this article the word usually was chosen specifically to make it clear that it is not universal, and the commentary about the table in the article makes this clear as well. You make this article a risible caricature of political correctness when you claim that acknowleging this basic fact is a censorable point of view. alteripse 10:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

First of all you're arguing about two different things and grouping them together. I do agree that the "biological concept of sex revolves around the pairing of male and female for procreative behavior" and I have no problem with that, but that is different than saying "usual sexual orientation of males is toward females and vice versa". Sexual orientation refers to who one is attracted to, which is something extremely subjective and there is really no way at the moment to do a reliable measurement of such. I am not trying to be politically correct, but only scientific. I do not have extremist minority views as you asserted, unless the minority is individuals with an above average intellect, and my extreme view is the use of it. It would be more accurate to at least say "usual sexual partner for males is females and vice versa" or "sexual partner resulting in procreation for males is females and vice versa", but that is NOT what the article says. It appears you lack a fundamental understanding of the proper use of various words or phrases, their precise definition, and their connotation within the English language. Not to mention your use of logic and reasoning (or should I say lack thereof) is founded on so many logical fallacies, I can not even begin to imagine how you come to the conclusions you do, many of which disprove themselves. Since you seem to be more concerned about having it your way than trying to be accurate/correct/right or even compromising to help end the dispute, I do not see this argument going anywhere, and at this point really don’t care. Do as you wish, illogical and incorrect as it may be, whatever makes you happy. -Omgitsasecret 23:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
You live with your language and logic and we'll stick with ours, thanks. alteripse 00:43, 23 June 2006 (UTC)