Disputatio:Sexus

Sexus fuit pagina mensis Novembris 2022.

Disputatio duplicata ab Usor:Rolandus/Most important 1000 pages/Sex

We needed an interwiki link on page en:Sex. --Rolandus 07:25, 5 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)

Sexus.--Ceylon 10:55, 5 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)

The English article Sex covers both 'sexual reproduction' (although that is a separate page as well) and 'biological gender'. I think Latin Sexus has only the second meaning. But perhaps the problem lies with the English wikipedia, where 'sex' should have been disambiguated better: Sexus is okay by me. --Fabullus 11:06, 5 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)

Disputatio Nova

Iacobe, notice that Engl. sex is more polysemous than Lat. sexus, which doesn't denote a "process" but the "state of, or special qualities associated with being male or female" (Oxford Latin Dictionary), i.e. sexus is tantamount to German Geschlecht, Italian sesso, Swedish kön, etc.; also relevant here is: "Sexo hace referencia al género (Masculino y femenino, hombre y mujer) y no a la actividad sexual" (from Sp:Wiki). Thus, there's really no reason for putting "sexibus" in quotes. I'm afraid sexus can't be defined in the English way. --Neander 07:19, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

That's good to know. Cassell's defines sexus with the unqualified word 'sex', implying that the Latin word bears the main senses of the English word. For the title of the article, would the modern term sexualitas then be better? IacobusAmor 12:41, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

Sexualitas may be an appropriate substitute since it refers to the property of having distinct sexes.

However I am not convinced that sense that "sexus" in the title of this article calls for is inappropriate. It does not specifically refer to a process "the sexual act" but to "a manner of joining genetic properties which requires a specialization into male and female sexes." This sense seems an apt application of the latin term sexus to biology.

Although Iacobus used the english article as his reference for translation, the english definition seems defective in mentioning a process. And it is great that Iacobus' defintion avoids this defect. For indeed, the biological concept of sex is mostly about the FACT that organisms are divided into male and female sexes which then requires sexual activity for procreation.

The various linked articles in other languages differ a lot in how they crafted their pages. Indeed, the spanish page is about "sexual identity", not the biological concept of sex. They are evidently not entirely reliable as sources for definitions.--Rafaelgarcia 14:35, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a better definition would be "Sex is a specialization of organisms of a single species into female and male which allows the mixing of genetic properties of distinct individuals during procreation." (Sexus est specializatio singulae speciei organismorum in feminas et mares quae sinit geneticas proprietates singulorum organismorum confundere dum procreantur". I say "allow" (sinit) since there are hermophroditic species that dont' require the mixing.--Rafaelgarcia 14:47, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

(My answer to Iacobus clashed with Rafael's. Maybe it's not needed but...) Cassell's definition is unduly incautious (or is it old-fashioned?) though the examples given may give an inkling of how sexus is to be understood. I guess sexualitas might be better – but can 'sexuality' be applied to plants as well? – though actually I'm not quite sure how to deal with the present article. It appears to be concerned mainly with biological reproduction, whereas sexus refers to sexual identity, both qua social construction (i.e. gender) and and qua biological qualification (of humans, maybe also of animals) for reproduction. At present, Sexualitas is a pagina discretiva, and the whole subject looks like a mess. Somebody wants to redirect Sexualitas humana to Actus sexuales, which in turn somebody else wants to redirect to Coitus, which in turn somebody else wants to redirect to Actus sexuales. Nice! Frankly speaking I fail to understand why people are so prone to reductive redirections without a general grasp of the subject area. --Neander 15:40, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

One finds other strange misredirections too, but that's a subject for another day. ¶ As to the sex of plants: yes! Dioecious plants have sex! ¶ The German article on de:Sex has some interesting angles; but, like many casual attempts to address the subject (and unlike en:Sex), it misses much of the nonhuman biology. ¶ As for sexual identity, gender identity, etc., the English discretiva page offers useful discriminations. ¶ De: "Nice!"—or does Onslow usually say "Oh, nice!"? IacobusAmor 16:13, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

You detected me! Now you see where I have learned my English. :-) --Neander 21:38, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

Sex in the widest most general sense is sex in the biological sense (sexus biologicus seu sexualitas sensu latissimo est...): the fact of a species being divided into two (or more ?) sexes for procreation.

This is subdivided into plant sex (completely passive) (sexualitas vegetalis?) and animal sex (involving mating behaviors) (sexalitas animalis). Of which human sex (sexualitas humana?), involving emotions and consent, is a further subcategory. Human sex (sexualitas humana?) entails further concepts such as "sexual psychology" (psychologia sexualis), "gender identity" (identitas sexualis), "gender roles" (partes sexuales), "cultural taboos and laws concerning sex" (consuetudo culturalis et religiosa de sexu), "matrimony" (matrimonium), "prostitution" (prostitutio), "sexual act" (coitus), "sexual techniques" (ars sexualis).--Rafaelgarcia 16:46, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

Yes, definitely! All those links—and more!—should lead to separate articles, many of which should in turn be linked to this page. That's why it's one of the 1000 famous pages: it's a general exposition of a topic that branches out into all sorts of specifics. IacobusAmor 19:46, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It's sobering to have a good disposition such as Rafael's. But beware of "partes sexuales" as 'gender roles'. At best, it's amusingly ambiguous. --Neander 21:33, 12 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

Is there a better way to translate it?--Rafaelgarcia 23:59, 15 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)

"Personae sexuales"?

I don't know about completely passive. My apple trees get quite excited at this time of year. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:08, 16 Aprilis 2009 (UTC)