Typically, where sociology has addressed sexuality it has been subsumed into areas such as the family and deviance, as either the preserve of the heterosexual conjugal family for reproductive purposes, or arising from some pathological distortion of human instinct. For example, Marx discussed sexuality primarily in terms of biological procreation within the private domain of the family. What little else he may have said concerned prostitution, as this represented to him a form of public exchange. Throughout the modern period sexuality has largely been located within the disciplines of medicine, biology, psychology and curiously enough anthropology. Medicine and biology constitute sexuality primarily in terms of its physiological mechanics.
Psychology constitutes sexuality in terms of the individual's psychic structure.
The sex lives of savages . Sexology was also instrumental in what might be called the rationalisation of sexuality. This distinction, or what has recently been termed binary opposition between nature and culture - individual and society reside at the heart of classical modern sociological cannons. As you can see, this network of concepts is very familiar to Modern Western understanding. Not only are these concepts firmly embedded in modern sociology, but form an integral part of our everyday language, expression and understandings of ourselves and in relation to one and another.