GROUP 1 Reading Questions

Excerpt from Peter N. Stearns, Sexuality in World History 2nd Edition (NY: Routledge, 2017): 154-155. This is from Stearns’s conclusion to his chapter “Sex in the Modern World, 1750 to 1950.” After discussing changes in local practices due to Western colonization/imperialism. For example, institutionalized polygamy was supplanted in part by the serial monogamy expedited by the increasing availability and social acceptability of divorce; local acceptance of same-sex sexual practices and 3rd or alternative gender systems were suppressed. After discussing how the rise of prostitution and other forms of sexual activity spurred by urbanization was mirrored by attempts to protect women and minors from unwanted/illegal sexual activity and unanticipated deterioration of women’s economic status in many places and a rise in gender/sexual violence., Stearns identifies “three other factors [which] shaped and constrained world history in the decades between 1750 and 1950” worldwide. Birth control is the first in his list, homosexuality the third. Here’s his summary on venereal disease, which we’re referring to as sexually transmitted infections or sexually transmitted diseases (STIs/STDs).