Practice question · Multiple choice
Rich argued in 1980 that heterosexuality should be analysed as an institution rather than as a preference. What does treating it as an institution license a sociologist to investigate?
Hints
- Ask what questions become askable once something is treated as an institution rather than as a taste.
- Institutions have rules, rewards and penalties, and those can be studied directly.
Show the answer
C. Social arrangements, incentives and sanctions sustaining it beyond individual desires
Why
Calling something an institution turns attention to the arrangements that reproduce it: law, property, employment, family expectation, and the sanctions attached to departing from it. That is a research programme about structures, and it can be pursued without making any claim at all about the origins of individual desire.
Practise Intimacy, Gender and Sexuality
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