Sexuality

“Sexuality,” the word and concept, emerges out of discourses that have produced both problematic and useful ways to understand black sexuality in all its complexities, contradictions, and expansiveness. In its most common understanding, sexuality is the quality of being sexual or possessing sex; it is understood as what one does in terms of sex acts and practices and who one is, often (inadequately) defined as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual (Burgett 2007). Sexuality can be best understood, conceptually, as a category that entails desire, pleasure, practice, and more that interact with each other in complicated and often contradictory ways. Sexuality has also been used to denote sex assignment or male-­versus-­female differences, largely on the basis of genital and secondary sex characteristics and reproductive functions. It is a concept that has been applicable to the social organization and formation of human and nonhumans alike.