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5 Pathologizing Black Sexuality
- Rutgers University Press
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101 5 Pathologizing Black Sexuality The U.S. Experience KEVIN MCGRUDER The era of racialized science is typically assumed to be in the past. Now often referred to as “pseudoscience,” various European studies dating back at least to the sixteenth century sought to explain racial differences, usually of non-Europeans , but were also used to establish the inferiority of Asians, Native Americans, and people of African descent (Jordan, 1968). As a corollary to these studies, theories on matters related to the sexual activity of these “inferior” groups were typically developed with conclusions indicating that in matters related to sex and sexual activity, the behavior of these people was inferior, bestial, or pathological . These racialized theories are now viewed by many as misguided attempts to use science to support prejudice and racism. But this conclusion suggests that the motives were only animosity or ignorance. In reality, racial science served a more fundamental purpose for its proponents. Racialized science, whether instinctively or by design, was used to establish and maintain the dominance of one group over another, and conversely to restrict the activities of the subordinate group. The elements of racialized science that pathologize the sexuality of certain groups were an essential component of these theories (Cell, 1982; Gilman , 1985; Nagel, 2000; Van den Berghe, 1967). While extreme examples of racialized science may be in the past, the practice has not ended. It has become more subtle. Vestiges of racialized science remain in the social sciences, particularly in the study of sexuality. A review of the literature of research related to the sexuality of people of African descent in the United States indicates that a subtle but powerful legacy of racialized science remains in the perspectives and interpretations of some studies of Black sexuality. The resulting effect is one in which the sexuality of Black people is pathologized and that of people of European descent is normalized, and these assumptions affirm the social hierarchy in which people of European descent have been dominant. The persistence of pathologization of Black sexuality is not due to primarily the irrationality or the hostility of its purveyors but continues 102 KEVIN MCGRUDER because it serves as a device to establish or consolidate the dominant status of the purveyor of the technique and to attempt to restrict the actions of the targeted group. This holds true regardless of the race of the purveyor (Nagel, 2000). There are policy implications regarding the continued presence of theories that pathologize Black sexuality. The assumptions inherent in the practice obscure real causes and solutions to social problems. This chapter provides a historical examination of Black sexuality and contemporary implications. Black Love and Sex in Boston A 2006 issue of Harvard Magazine contained an article entitled “Love, Street Love: Sex and the Inner City” that reported preliminary findings from an unpublished paper on inner-city Black male sexual behavior by Nathan Fosse (Coe 2006).1 In the article, Fosse noted that “we’re constantly talking about inner-city Black men, but very rarely do we ever actually talk to them and listen to what they have to say” (p. 15). The first page of the two-page article included the headline in small print “Love, Street Love” under which the headline “Sex and the Inner City,” was provided in larger print. The page also included a color drawing of a young scowling Black man with tapered sideburns and wearing a white do-rag, a baseball cap turned backward, a diamond stud in his ear, and a sleeveless black T-shirt. In the background of this dominant image were three smaller figures in tones of gray and black. To his left was a naked Black woman seated in semidarkness on an unmade bed, her back to the viewer, combing her Afro hairstyle by the light of a single, unshaded light bulb. On the right of the drawing, in the light of day, a Black woman dressed in a polka dot dress was depicted, her back also to the viewer as she lifted a young, smiling boy above her head. Just in case readers were not quite sure what to expect from the article, the author provided a familiar introductory framework for discussing Black sexuality: The sexual and romantic habits of urban Black males have long been a subject of scrutiny. Forty years ago, the Moynihan Report—The Negro Family : The Case for National Action decried the prevalence of female-headed households in urban ghettoes and focused on the absence of...