Last week’s lecture by Professor Greta LaFleur touched upon the history of sexuality in relation to the environment. While seemingly a bit less related to the lecture series topic at the beginning, it became clear that the way in which we think about sexuality has undergone a distinct change given the evolution of our planet (even within a relatively short time period) and this did indeed tie well to the presence of the past. Without a doubt, one of the biggest crowd reactions during the lecture came from the introduction (or reintroduction to those who were already familiar with the idea) of the notion that intimate relationships and the search for a partner become more widespread during the colder months of the year. Spending time at Colby, and therefore in one of the colder climates in the country, this likely hit close to home for most students in the lecture yet hearing a bit more about the history of this notion was enlightening when looking to understand sexuality and the environment at a higher level.
As it has been stated already by other reflections on this lecture, it was quite interesting to hear from LaFleur about the effect that environment and geography have on the sexual decisions made by human beings. When she spoke about a locations ability to change the way people view sexuality (and she used Las Vegas as an example), I found myself contemplating the ways in which this has likely gone poorly (and in some places, well), in some specific locations. I would imagine that understanding this, and more so, understanding the ways in which these viewpoints are created, could be of value for places like colleges and universities as they are constantly working on creating positive environments of culture. If sexuality and more specifically behaviors surrounding sexuality change when an individual is in a certain location, I would imagine this process could be seen in other realms of life that can struggle to work well in isolated communities.
Thinking more generally about how this lecture fits into the series, the presence of the past, I found it interesting to consider the continual mention of the environment in the lectures we have had so far. While the topic of the environment (and its continual change due to human impact, global warming, etc.) is a hot topic for good reason, it has been surprising how many of our lecturers have based their explorations of cultural behavior in the environment, using this as a common thread to explain change between past and present. While some lecturers have used the environment to alleviate blame on humanity, LaFleur simply used the environment to process the ways in which humans behave sexually, while giving a short history of how this has likely changed during the time in which we have noticed relevant changes to the planet. This straightforward methodology was much appreciated, and I found it very relevant, as likely there were at least a few examples that everyone in the room could find themselves relating with at some level. As students have already mentioned many times in their responses, the reference to “cuffing season” got the crowds attention for a reason.