[This entry is taken from a chapter of Part II of the open-source textbook Spanish-English Cognates: An Unconventional Introduction to Spanish Linguistics.]
[Go to Part 1 of Words about sex and gender]
Eng. sexuality ~
Sp. sexualidad
Another pair of related cognate words are Eng. sexuality
~ Sp. sexualidad. These are supposedly derived from the New Latin word sexuālĭtās (genitive: sexuālĭtātis, regular stem: sexuālĭtāt‑), derived from the
adjective sexŭāl‑is
by means of the Latin suffix ‑ĭtas/‑ĭtātis that derives nouns
from adjectives (sexu‑āl‑ĭ‑t‑āt‑;
cf. Part I, Chapter 8). However, it might be more accurate to say that Eng. sexuality
was developed in English in the late 18th century from the English adjective sexual
plus the Latinate English suffix ‑ity that ultimately derives from that
same Latin suffix, ‑ĭtas/‑ĭtātis. This word is first
attested in English in 1797 in the context of the scientific study of plants with
the meaning ‘the quality of being sexual or possessing sex’, the antonym of asexuality
(OED). Other senses arose decades later.
Eng. sexuality is first attested in 1879 with the
meaning ‘possession of sexual powers, or capability of sexual feelings’ (OED), and
by 1897 it is also attested with the sense ‘sexual orientation’ or preference
(OED), as in What is your sexuality? To this day, those two are the main
senses of this word, though dictionaries differ as to how they define them or
break them up. Some dictionaries do not mention the ‘sexual orientation’ sense
explicitly and they either neglect to mention it altogether or mention it
rather vaguely. Thus, the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary defines
sexuality simply as ‘someone’s ability to experience or express sexual feelings’
(CALD), with no mention as to preferences. The American Heritage Dictionary
gives two main senses for the word sexuality, the first one of which has
three subsenses, the first one of which is ‘the quality of being sexual, especially
sexual orientation and behavior’ (AHD). The Concise Oxford English
Dictionary as usual has one of the pithiest definitions, one sense divided
into three parts, including all the senses: ‘capacity for sexual feelings. ▶ a
person’s sexual orientation or preference. ▶ sexual activity’ (COED). Other
dictionaries have even simpler definitions, such as the one found in Longman
Dictionary of Contemporary English: ‘the things people do, think, and feel that
are related to their sexual desires’ (LDCE). Merriam-Webster’s Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary manages to mention all senses in one simple definition: ‘the sexual
habits and desires of a person’ (MWALD).
French dictionaries tell us that these words’ French cognate
sexualité [sɛksɥaliˈte]
is first attested in 1838, which is a few decades after the first attestation
of Eng. sexuality. Thus, it is quite likely that French calqued the
English creation, though French dictionaries prefer to say that the word was
created in French as a learned derivation of sexuel with the suffix ‑(i)té.[i]
Most dictionaries, such as the HarperCollins bilingual dictionary,[ii]
give a perfect correspondence of meaning between Eng. sexuality and Fr. sexualité.
The Oxford Hachette English-French dictionary, however, gives two senses
for Eng. sexuality, a ‘sexual orientation’ sense that translates as sexualité
and an ‘eroticism’ sense that it translates as érotisme ‘eroticism’,
related to the adjective érotique ‘erotic’. The French-English version
of this same dictionary translates Fr. sexualité as sexuality,
without any further qualifications or explanations.
According to the IEDRA search engine, the Spanish cognate sexualidad
is first attested in a dictionary in 1853 and it does not appear in the
Academy’s dictionary until 1914 (IEDRA).[iii]
It is thus quite likely that this word was copied or calqued from either
French, English, or both, following the regular correspondence: Fr. ‑ité
~ Eng. ‑ity ~ Sp. idad. The senses of the Spanish cognate sexualidad
seem to be very similar to those of Eng. sexuality. Curiously, however,
the sense ‘sexual orientation’ is not mentioned in any major Spanish dictionary
as one of the senses of this word. Thus, the academies’ dictionary gives us two
senses for sexualidad: ‘set of anatomical and physiological conditions that
characterize each sex’ and ‘sexual appetite, propensity for carnal pleasure’
(DLE).[1]
Clave also provides these two senses, with only slightly differently
worded definitions, but it additionally gives examples for those two senses:
(1) La sexualidad masculina es diferente de la femenina ‘male sexuality is
different from female’, and (2) Ese actor ha sido tan censurado y adorado porque
desprende sexualidad en cada movimiento ‘That actor has been so censored and
adored because he exudes sexuality in every movement’ (Clave). As for bilingual
dictionaries, they tend to give a perfect meaning correspondence, though
according to Collins, Sp. sexualidad may be used as a synonym of sexo
‘sex’ in biology, as in the phrase determinar la sexualidad de ‘to
determine the sex of’.[iv]
The ‘sexual orientation’ sense is expressed into Spanish as orientación sexual.
[1] The
original says: (1) ‘Conjunto de condiciones anatómicas y fisiológicas que caracterizan
a cada sexo’ and (2) ‘Apetito sexual, propensión al placer carnal’ (DLE).
[i] Cf. https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/sexualit%C3%A9
(2022.06.26)
[iii] IEDRA is the new name of
DIRAE, which stands for Diccionario Inverso de la Real Academia Española.
The name change was due to a complaint from the RAE. Cf. https://blog.iedra.es
[iv] Source: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/spanish-english/sexualidad
(2022.10.03)
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