Talk:Sex/Archive 1

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Material Archived 16 June 2004

Nothing on this page indicates in any way that it is fun. Don't you see something wrong?

There is an increasing awareness that the two sexes are not discrete, but rather a continuum...

Some mention should be made of how this relates to the biological sexes as defined by role in reproduction and more generally by chromosomes (Y = male), which are very definitely discrete if not binary.

Yeah. The above sentence sounds like cultural theorist tripe. Maybe gender is a continuum, but sexes aren't. --Robert Merkel

There are other sex chromosomes other than XX and XY, including XXX, XXY, etc. There are also some individuals who are mosaics -- i.e. some of their body cells are of one chromosomal sex, while others are of another. So chromosomal sex isn't a discrete dichotomy. -- SJK

The Y chromosome is dominant, so XXY counts as male while X and XXX count as female, at least with regards to the bulk of the anatomy, but I was already thinking of these when I said discrete if not binary. Mosaics are harder to categorize but they are pretty much inherently a mix of the two sexes, rather than a third sex separate from both (noone describes the truly hermaphroditic worms as having non-male-non-female sex). In any case, I think the distribution is sufficiently bimodal that emphasizing the continuity over the discreteness is a mistake. Evidently some people disagree, and in the spirit of NPOV I'm all for including what they have to say, but I'd include more details.

Also, IIRC some people have a different anatomical sex to their chromosomal sex, due to excessive levels of hormones in utero. If someone has male anatomy, but XX chromosomes, or vice versa, what then should we classify them as?

There is not one defintion of sex, but many -- chromosomal sex, internal anatomical sex, external anatomical sex, gender identity, social sex role, legal sex -- and although these different defintions most commonly coincide, they need not, and often don't. -- SJK

In animals, sex is determined by a special sex chromosomes, whose alleles are called X and Y. Males typically have one of each, while females typically have two X chromosomes.

No way. For example in insects there are at least these systems: male XX/female XY, male XY/female XX, male X/female XX, male XX/female X and male haploid/female diploid. (X and Y are arbitrary sexual chromosomes, some of these combinations more frequent than others) There are more problems, because for many animals, sex is determined hormonally, not genetically, and can even change during adult live time.

Typically means for the majority of forms, and it is true for the majority of forms. Others are special cases and deserve to be treated as special cases, and barring the male XX/female X, they are already covered by the text on the page. Can you give an example of this last category? I've never heard of any such insect. Anyways, if hormonal determination is more important, go ahead and add more stuff on it, as I'm not qualified. This is my main complaint: the page insists on continuity and various people here on cutting up the various forms of sex, but nowhere are there relationships to one another explained. It's like creating a page saying the Latin alphabet does not have 26 letters. Fine, and...?

Witness crocodiles -- their sex is determined by the temperature at which the eggs are incubated. So doesn't look like their sex is determined by their chromosomes.

In humans at least, it is not the chromosomes, but the presence or abscence of genes for the production of testis-determining factor and mullerian inhibiting factor which determine sex. These genes are normally found on the Y chromosome, but sometimes they are damaged or absent. In which case you get a woman with XY chromosomes. -- SJK

It gets more complicated than just that. You could also have damage in the gene that codes for the receptors for these factors, and have similar symptoms. Here are a few disorders:

Turner's syndrome: missing second chromosome (the individual has X nothing)

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia: Endocrine system disruption: Cortisol, produced in the adrenal glands, is normally produced in the adrenal glands and it inhibits the productions of its precursors in the brain. In this disorder, production of cortisol is nill, and the precursors get over produced. One of the precursors for cortisol is an angrogen, thus it leads to masculinized external genitals. It has less effect on men than women.

Androgen Insensitivity: testosterone receptor defect: little effect on women, leads to men with testes but no reproductive tract (both the mullerian and wolffian ducts regress). Individual appears female, but has no menstrual cycle. (this is straight from my notes, so I guess this also means that the testes don't drop).

Hormonal sex also has a direct effect on the brain (so those "sex is a social construct" people can blow it out their &#*$&). There is less experimental evidence in humans (darn experimentation laws ;), but consider this:

Mammals, like rats, exhibit mounting behavior "instinctively." Females enter a posture called "lordosis," an arching of the back that permits mounting to occur, and males exhibit mounting behavior. When researchers castrated males at birth, they no longer showed mounting behavior as adults. When they injected newborn females with androgens, the females exhibited mounting behavior but not lordosis. Effecting these changes when the rats were older had no effect on this behavior.

The funny thing about this is that there are those who insist that gender is a social construct (often feminists), and there are others who insist that sexuality is inherited (generally those supporting homosexual rights). I wonder if these two groups realize how contradicting these two views are, and if they argue about it... (FWIW, I think it's both: heredity provides the initial conditions and the landscape, events then effect the individual from there)--BlackGriffen

Increasingly, the term "sex" (when applied to humans) is distinguished from the term "gender." Supposedly, "sex" would refer to the biological division into male and female, while "gender" would refer to the division as a social and cultural construction. However, in actual practice in the United States at least, the term "sex" is restricted to mean "eroticism," while all distinction between male and female is called "gender."

"Sex" is restricted to mean "eroticism"? If you fill out a form at the doctor, it will have a box "Sex: M/F". And people will often say "The sexes are different." "Sex" can mean "sexual intercourse" of course, as the article says earlier, but it also means biological male/female distinction, even in humans. And I don't think it ever means "eroticism" (what is that anyway?) --AxelBoldt

I think I agree. Article changed appropriately.

Some time ago someone vandalized this article by placing strange remarkes throughout the text. I recently changed the paragraph explaining the difference between sex and gender, which as stated was innacurate. Then Anome reverted to remove the vandalism -- and incidentallyr emoved my correction. I have changed the paragraph on sex and gender; any other problems with the article are not my doing, Slrubenstein

Thank you for restoring that paragraph -- my apologies for inadvertantly deleting it. The Anome

I'm considering moving this to biological gender and using this page as a disambiguation page between sociological gender, biological gender, intercourse, and SEX. What do people think? -Martin

That's a horrible idea. This article should introduce both meanings and then link to the specific articles. --mav
I agree with mav. "biological gender" is a euphemism -- sex is the scientific name for this concept. Also, we have an article for sexual intercourse: intercourse should be a disambiguation page. SLR would probably know better than me what the proper title for "sociological gender" should be. The Anome
Uh, that's what a disambiguation page does, no? -Martin
I have never heard (or read) any one in the social science literature refer to "biological gender;" except colloquially, I only know of its linguistic and social meanings. Oh, and I guess the gender of a plug/outlet -- still, metaphorical.
I agree with Mav. There is a separate article on gender, and this article I think does the bare minumum to distinguish sex from gender. Slrubenstein
Sex is the name of a concept in biology. It is also one of the crucial facts of human existence. It needs an article. I vote for keeping the current form, which mentions the sex/gender confusion and points to other articles on these and similar subjects. The Anome
How about sex (biology) then? -Martin


I think one article on gender is fine, with a section on gender in linguistics and gender in society. At some point this article might be developed to the point where there could be a disambiguation page for "gender in linguistics" and "gender in social organization" or "social structure" or something like that... As for "sex" -- what other senses are there besides the biological one? The point the article makes at the end is not that there is a separate topic (sex: cultural construction), but rather that social scientists have been questioning the whole way we think of biological things. As such, it is appropriate to this article and shouldn't be separated, at least not yet... Slrubenstein
Gender in linguistics -> grammatical gender
Various articles link to gender when they mean sex (biology), others when they mean grammatical gender, others when they mean social gender - that's why I've just made it a disambig page...
other senses of sex: sexual intercourse, primarily. Various articles link here when they mean sexual intercourse. -Martin

sorry about the postover it was my first day 216.129.198.41 onward.

There is a great need for a quick primer on construction. There is no need to study french cultural theorists; just follow objections to platonic theory of forms (which have been written about for hundreds of years in the English language). Virtually any book store will have something on this topic. If you find it interesting you might want to buy a text book or take a course in philosophy some day Here is an incomplete list of limitations list of a various scientific constructs:

  • quantum mechanics fails over large scale space
  • race is completely meaningless with regard to skin colour
  • gravity completely undefined (its the poorly named acceleration due to gravity that gets defined. There is no proof that the inverse square rule is cause by mass attraction )
  • plant or animal ? photosynthetic bacteria
  • life are virus alive? are prions?

Human constructs have their limitations. Every theory has limited domains where it is valid . Even a straight forward question about the length of a shoreline needs the length of the measure to get a meaningful answer.

Accordingly the categories of male or female break down when specimens are found with both "male" and "female" internal and external organs. Plastic surgery on humans ( for sex assignment ) is one horrible and thankfully refuted outcomes of this human construct.

to call something a construct should not be considered denigration 216.129.198.41

Plastic surgery on humans ( for sex assignment ) is one horrible and thankfully refuted outcomes of this human construct -- Refuted by whom? -- Zoe

this is what the wikipedia says in intersexual:

"Corrective" surgery is generally not necessary for protection of life or health, but purely for aesthetic or social purposes. It very frequently leads to negative consequences for sexual functioning in later life, which would have been avoided without the surgery. Defenders of the practice argue however that it is necessary for individuals to be clearly identified as male or female, for proper "social functioning". However, some individuals have been so discontented with their surgically assigned gender as to opt for sexual reassignment surgery later in life.


Inded. What of plastic surgery for sex change chosen consciously by an adult? Is that not also a construct? Ortolan88

---Holy Jumpen! yes it is a construct! 216.129198.41

I think this line is stupid: "Pictograms of a man and a woman, to indicate the respective toilets, show the man with broader shoulders and the woman in clothing that is rarely worn by men, a dress." First of all, I doubt that this is consistent around the world. It is sometimes common to just see "men" or "women" instead of symbols. Secondly, I have NEVER seen the symbol of a man having broader shoulders. Or at least I have never noticed it, therefore who cares? The main difference between the two symbols is just the dress. And I think some people would object to this portayal of men and women on washroom signs. Which is probably precisely why there are not many bathrooms which use these symbols anymore anyways. Lastly, why is this even in this Wikipedia article? Why don't we just put a paragraph that says: "men usually have broader shoulders, and women often wear dresses." Because really this is all that this line is saying in the context of "Sex". If you want to move it to an "International Symbols" page, then that is the perfect place for it. In fact, my hardcover encylopedia at home has such an article, with largely internationally recognized symbols such as stop signs, yield signs, caution signs, no-smoking signs, etc.. Patrick, I think it should be removed.

Sorry that I did not respond earlier, I did not see it before. I have clarified the text. The pictogram is an example. The shoulders are clearly broader. I have not heard about objections against the pictogram, but that would be an interesting fact that could be added. - Patrick 09:00 29 May 2003 (UTC)

I have heard that there are some living organisms with different reproductive strategies than male/female intercourse. Is it a myth that slime molds have seven genders? I'd like to see something written in the article that gives examples of other reproductive strategies. Kingturtle 04:23 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)


please read external link 1