John Money
From Free net encyclopedia
John Money, Ph.D. (1921–) is an eminent psychologist and sexologist well-known for his specialized research in sexual identity, gender identity and gender roles. He is now professor emeritus of pediatrics and medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University.
Born in New Zealand, Money was an early supporter of the nation's arts, both literary and visual. He was a noted friend and supporter of the late Nobel Prize for Literature-tipped author, Janet Frame. In 2002, he donated a substantial portion of his art collection to the Eastern Southland Art Gallery in Gore, New Zealand.
Contents |
Sexual identity, gender identity and gender roles
Money's definition of gender is based upon on his understanding of sex differences among human beings. According to Money, the fact that one sex produces ova and the other sex produces sperm is the irreductible criterion of sex difference. However, there are other sex-derivative differences that follow in the wake of this primary dichotomy.
These differences involve the way urine is expelled from the human body and other questions of sexual dimorphism. According to Money's theory, sex-adjunctive differences are typified by the smaller size of females and their problems in moving around while nursing infants. This then makes it more likely that the males do the roaming and hunting. Sex-arbitrary differences are those that are purely conventional; for example, color selection (baby blue for boys, pink for girls). Some of the latter differences apply to life activities, such as career opportunities for men versus women.
Finally, Money created the now-common term, gender role, which he differentiated from the concept of the more traditional terminology, sex role. According to Money, the genitalia and erotic sexual roles were now, by his definition, to be included under the more general term "gender role;" including all the non-genital and non-erotic activities that are defined by the conventions of society to apply to males or to females. For example, that society dictates that women wear dresses and males do not. If this social convention is violated, then the person is aware that the mores of the society have been violated, by other persons. Some violations of social convention can have serious repercussions, and may be treated as violation of law.
Money made the concept of gender a broader, more inclusive concept than one of male/female. Now, gender includes not only one's status as a man or a woman, but as a matter of personal recognition, social assignment, or legal determination; not only on the basis of one's genitalia but also on the basis of somatic and behavioral criteria that go beyond genital differences.
Gender identity is one's own categorization of one's individuality as male, female, or ambivalent as experienced in self-awareness of one's own mental processes and one's own actual behavior.
Gender role is the public manifestation of one's gender identity, the things that one says and that one does that gives people a basis for inferring whether one is male, female, or fits neither of those categories.
To stress the idea that gender identity and gender role are two aspects of the same thing, Money coined a new term: Gender-Identity/Role, which he frequently abbreviates as "G-I/R."
Money also coined the term lovemap.
Critiques and comments
David Reimer
Money's ideas relating to gender and gender identity formation have come under criticism. Money maintained that a child's gender identity is fluid up to a certain age, after which this gender would become consolidated and more-or-less immutable. This theory was applied in the case of a male child, David Reimer, whose penis was destroyed due to a botched circumcision. This became to be known as the John/Joan case. The child was subsequently sexually reassigned as female. However, even though David Reimer was raised as a girl and never knew his early history, he behaved in a masculine way appropriate to a boy while he was a young child. Later attempts to socialize him as a girl failed. Money knew this yet never revealed this information for years, and his decision to "cover up" the facts of the case caused Money great difficulty in the medical community.
As for Reimer, when he finally reached the age to make his own medical decisions, he was so distressed by Money's demand for further surgery to complete his "female" genitals, that his parents decided to reveal his medical history to him. He immediately re-transitioned to a male gender role and later underwent genital reassignment surgery again, in order to complete his male gender identity with male genitalia. He underwent four rounds of reconstructive surgery to facilitate his reappropriation of the male sex. Towards the end of his life he lost his job, was separated from his wife, failed a financial investment, and mourned the suicide of his twin brother Brian. He committed suicide on May 5 2004. John Colapinto, who publicised Reimer's story in a Rolling Stone article and the book As Nature Made Him, speculated that Reimer never psychologically recovered fom his childhood trauma:"David's mutilation and his parents' guilt were tightly entwined, multiplying the mental anguish to which the family members were already prone. [...] David's blighted childhood was never far from his mind. Just before he died, he talked to his wife about his sexual "inadequacy," his inability to be a true husband." [1]
Other problems
Societal conventions of male and female behavior can be conflicting. How should one dress and behave? Many times, society does not recognize the "true sex" of a person when only using superficial characteristics such as the length of a person's hair, or occupation. In other words, people may incorrectly infer a gender identity which can convey a false indication of that individual's sex. This is problematical when the psychological gender favored by an individual is discordant with the individual's external genitalia (transgender, transsexual or intersex people). Money's writings seem not to have taken these logical extensions of his own ideas into account.
On pedophilia
John Money was critical in the debate on pedophilia. He felt that both sexual researchers and the public do not make distinctions between affectional paedophilia and sadistic pedophilia, including infantophilia (occasionally referred to as nepiophilia), pedophilia and ephebophilia. For Money, affectional pedophilia is about love and not sex. His view was that affectional pedophilia is caused by a surplus of parental love that became erotic, and is not a behavioral disorder. Rather, he felt that heterosexuality is another example of a societal and therefore, a superficial, ideological concept.
References
- Money, John. Hermaphroditism: An Inquiry into the Nature of a Human Paradox. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1952.
- _____. The Psychologic Study of Man (1957)
- _____. A Standardized Road-Map Test of Direction Sense (1965)
- _____. Sex Errors of the Body and Related Syndromes, 2nd ed. Baltimore: P.H. Brooks Publishing Company, 1994. ISBN 1557661502
- _____. Man & Woman, Boy & Girl: Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1996. Originally published: Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972.
- _____. Sexual Signatures (1975)
- _____. Love and Love Sickness: the Science of Sex, Gender Difference and Pair-Bonding, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980. ISBN 080182317X, ISBN 0801823188 (pbk.)
- _____. The Destroying Angel: Sex, Fitness & Food in the Legacy of Degeneracy Theory, Graham Crackers, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes & American Health History. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1985. ISBN 0879752777
- _____. Lovemaps: Clinical Concepts of Sexual/Erotic Health and Pathology, Paraphilia, and Gender Transposition in Childhood, Adolescence, and Maturity. New York: Irvington, 1986. ISBN 0826408524
- _____. Venuses Penuses: Sexology, Sexosophy, and Exigency Theory. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1986 ISBN 0879753277
- _____. Gay, Straight, and In-Between: The Sexology of Erotic Orientation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0195054075
- _____. Vandalized Lovemaps. (1989)
- _____. Biographies of Gender and Hermaphroditism. (1991)
- _____. The Breathless Orgasm. (1991)
- _____. The Kaspar Hauser Syndrome of "Psychosocial Dwarfism". (1992)
- _____. The Adam Principle: genes. genitals, hormones, and gender : selected readings in sexology. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1993. ISBN 087975804X
- _____. The Armed Robbery Orgasm. (1993)
- _____. Principles of Developmental Sexology. New York: Continuum, 1994. ISBN 082641026X
- _____. Reinterpreting the Unspeakable. New York: Continuum, 1994.
- _____. Gendermaps: Social Constructionism, Feminism, and Sexosophical History. New York: Continuum, 1995. ISBN 0826408524
- _____. The Lovemap Guidebook: A Definitive Statement. (1999)
- Colapinto, John. "Gender Gap - What were the real reasons behind David Reimer's suicide?". Slate. June 3, 2004. Retrieved December 4, 2005.
- Krivacska, James J., and John Money, eds. The Handbook of Forensic Sexology: Biomedical & Criminological Perspectives. (1994)
Further reading
For more information on the main topics discussed above, see his many books, including:
- Love and Love Sickness, pages 8-12, 12, 15ff, 24, 32ff, 68, 86-87, 98, 118, 129-131, 144, 146, 151, 167, 191, 192, 215. ISBN 0-8018-2318-8
- -- Colapinto, John. "As Nature Made Him; the boy who was raised as a girl" Harper Collins, New York, 2000 279 pp. (written for and with David Reimer). Money's former patient describes the "work" with him and Money's subsequent "professional" representations as completely fraudulent. ISBN 0060929596.
External links
- Colapinto, John. "The True Story of John/Joan." The Rolling Stone December 11, 1887: 54–97.
- www.iatrogenic.org American Iatrogenic Association, 2513 S. Gessner, #232 Houston, Texas 77063da:John Money