Sexual Fluidity

The most defining characteristics of modern sexuality are elasticity and fluidity. The walls of binary genders and heteronormativity are beginning to break down, and with that, people are continuing to embrace their own personal definition of sexuality. More importantly, people are able to outwardly express their sexuality. This shift is also beginning to do away with the societal norms that kept people in their respective sexual boxes all throughout history. Previously, people were categorized by their sexual desires, practices, or identities, determined correct or incorrect by the “normal” sexual system of that person’s culture and society. The transition from this way of thinking to the modern notion of sexual fluidity and freedom is slow …show more content…
Morality Wars alone explores many different views on sodomy in particular, but at its core is the relation to sexual desire and love. In Islamic society in the 1560’s, love and desire were one in the same, and with it came the practice of sodomy. These actions only served as a characteristic in religious settings. The practices were not specific to one class or family. Instead, the idea of a sexual identity was more correlated with one’s religious identity. In contrast, Aristophanes theory of the origin of love plays greatly into the idea of sexual identities that people are both with and from that identity, they are given specific sexual desires that lead to proper sexual practices. Overall, it is nearly impossible to make concrete connections between the societies depicted in each of the texts due to the differences in time and geography, but there appears to be a gradual shift against categorizing people based on the type of person they desire. In studying history, one must not assume that contemporary ideas are any better than ideas of the past, but if, in this transition, society is able to become more accepting, free thinking, and unbiased, it would be difficult to view this shift as anything but