Sexuality, gender, and the couple: a sociohistorical perspective

My purpose is to tackle the major issues concerning the relation between sexuality and conjugality in a sociohistorical and cross-cultural perspective. The starting point is a critical reading of an excerpt from Sexual Conduct (Gagnon & Simon, 1973). I address the nature of changes, over the centuries and in the last few decades, in the relationship between marriage and sexuality, focusing on the reversal of the traditional dependency of sexuality on conjugality. An important issue in marital sex research, which deserves a truly sociological approach, is how sexual activity evolves over the duration of a couple's relationship. Another major issue is that of gender and sexuality, as conjugal sex life is an ideal observation point to examine how gender relations in everyday interaction mold the sexual conduct of men and women, and what is and is not changing in gender interaction. The place and specificity of sexuality in same-sex conjugal construction are also considered.