310025kraCh01Lecture..

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Perspectives on Sexuality
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Why Study Sexuality?
•Sexuality is a
central part of who
we are
•Sex is also a
central part of our
relationships with
others
•Sex is involved
with everything
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Why Study Sexuality?
• A study of sexuality may suggest ways to improve
one’s personal sex life in relationships or help in
solving sexual problems that may occur throughout
life.
• Studying sex involves exploring and integrating
knowledge from many disciplines.
• Studying human sexuality leads to respect for the
diversity of sexual expression and a richer
understanding of societal issues related to sexuality.
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Most Sexual Behavior Takes Place in the Context of Relationships
• Sexual relationships exhibit diversity in terms of their
duration, the motivation of the partners involved, the
number of partners involved, aspects of societal
sanction or disapproval, and other factors.
• Sexual relationships usually are less than ideal; “we
do not get exactly what we want.”
• Sexual relationships are challenged by interpersonal
and external factors.
• Sexual relationships take place in a moral context;
upbringing, life experiences, religious beliefs, and
other factors contribute to “a sense of right and
wrong.”
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sexual
1 Ch. 1, p. 5 We use the word “relationship” to refer to any
interaction
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Sex and Identity
• Gender identity is the subjective sense of belonging
to a particular sex; male or female.
• Gender role is the sex-typed social behavior of males
and females.
• A transgendered, or transexual, individual has a
sense of difference from conventionally gendered
men and women.
• Sexual orientation has to do with one’s preferred
sexual partner; people can be heterosexual,
homosexual (gay or lesbian), or bisexual.
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women identify with the sex
1Ch. 1, p. 6 Transgendered men and
opposite to their anatomical sex
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Approaches to the Study of Sexuality
• Because sexuality affects so many aspects of our
lives, it can be studied by many different modes on
inquiry.
• The medical approach focuses on the physical basis
of sexuality and includes the study of anatomy,
endocrinology, reproduction, genetics, psychology,
neuroscience, microbiology, and pathology.
• A valuable medical contribution to sex research has
been the physiological observation of sexual
responses.
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1
1.1 Coitus of a Hemisected Man and Woman (ca. 1492) by
Leonardo da Vinci
• Early study of human sexuality.
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History of Sex Studies
•
Richard von Krafft-Ebbing (1840-1902)
– A German-born neurologist wrote the
Psychopathia Sexualis (or sexual
mental disease) in 1886.
– He specialized in criminal and deviant
sexual activity.
– Strong sexual desires were natural, but
must be managed lest physical and
mental deterioration occurred.
– Psychopathia Sexualis discussed
many different types of sexual
deviations from standard
heterosexuality, but he focused on
homosexuality.
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1
History of Sex Studies
• Richard von Krafft-Ebbing’s views on homosexuality
•Psychosexual Hermaphroditism.
– Attracted to both women and men.
– Treatment: hypnosis, electric stimulation, and no masturbation.
•Congenital Inversion.
– Men are aware of their sexual anomaly from their childhood on
because they suffer from degenerate heredity
– Exhibit varying degrees of effeminacy
• Acquired Anti-Pathic Sexual Instinct
– masturbation delays homosexual feelings, but ultimately
develops into pederasty
–"cultivated pederasts” those men who exhausted themselves on
sex with women.
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History of Sex Studies
•Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
– Three essays on the
theory of sexuality
– Libido – sexual energy
– Stages of development
• Oral Stage
• Anal Stage
• Phallic Stage
• Latent Stage
• Genital Stage
– Perversions from
improper development
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1
History of Sex Studies
•Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935)
– Two neural centers led to sexual
attraction
– Sex hormones dictated which was
dominant
–A third “intermediate” sex possible
– Genes and hormones dictated
sexual behavior
– Sex reform
• Early advocate for gay rights
• Sex Reform League
–Crushed by Nazis
• Institute and contents burned
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History of Sex Studies
Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939)
• 7 volume set on the Studies in the Psychology of Sex
from 1896 – 1928.
– More an anthropologist than a medical doctor
– Concluded that normal human sexuality was
varied and that sexual mores were determined by
social factors.
– Considered homosexuality a congenital variation
– not a pathology or criminal act.
• More progressive ideas:
–Argued that sexual orientation may be a matter of
degree and not dichotomy.
–Noted that it was common for both males and
females to masturbate and coined the term
autoeroticism.
–Legitimized the idea that females could have a
desire as great as men.
–Argued that sexual dysfunction may be a
psychological problem – not a physical problem.
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1.4 Anthropologist Margaret Mead between two Samoan girls,
around 1926
• Margaret Meade
(1901–1978)
–Cultural
Anthropologist
–Coming of Age in
Samoa 1928
–Participant observer
of 56 young Somoan
women
• Smooth adolescent transition
• Casual sex, then marriage and
settling down
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History of Sex Studies
•Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)
– Trained as a zoologist (animal behaviorist),
Kinsey eventually investigated human sexual
behavior.
– His major achievement was applying statistical
analysis to observations instead of relying solely
on personal opinion.
– By 1949 he had gathered detailed sexual
histories of over 16,000 people.
– He soon founded the Kinsey Institute (for
Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction).
– Published
• 1948, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.
• 1953, Sexual Behavior in the Human
Female
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1.2 Sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson,
around 1970
• William Masters
(1915 - 2001 )
• Virginia Johnson
(1925 - )
–Two main goals.
• Measure the human sexual
response.
• Treat sexual; dysfunction.
• They measured physiological
responses of 694 individuals
during masturbation and coitus for
a total of more than 10,000
orgasms.
• Their results were published in
Human Sexual Response, 1966.
• In 1970, they published Human
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• Margaret Sanger
(1879-1966)
–Birth control
advocate
–American Birth
Control League
• Planned Parenthood
–Distributed info on
contraception in
defiance of
“Comstock Law”
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Approaches to the Study of Sexuality
• The fields of endocrinology and neuropharmacology
study the impact of chemical messages, such as
hormones and neurotransmitters, on sexuality.
• The psychiatric approach views sexuality in terms of
health and disease.
• The biologic approach expects to find similarities in
the basic sexual and reproductive functions of
humans and other animal species.
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Approaches to the Study of Sexuality
•
Surveys
– National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS).
• National survey of sexual behavior in the US
• Now a decade old, but still informative
– General Social Survey (GSS)
• Ongoing surveys of US population since 1970s
– Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures
• CDC
– National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles
• British survey
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Approaches to the Study of Sexuality
• The feminist approach emphasizes the goal of female
equality with males regarding issues:
– Contraception, sex roles, abortion, sexuality
• Sex educators and researchers historically have
faced opposition from religious conservatives.
• Today, sexology or sex research is becoming a
discipline in its own right.
1The World Association of Sexology’s Declaration of Sexual Rights
• Sexual rights are universal human rights based on the
inherent freedom, dignity, & equality of all human beings.
•
•
1. The right to sexual freedom.
2. The right to sexual autonomy, sexual integrity, and safety of the
sexual body.
• 3. The right to sexual privacy.
• 4. The right to sexual equity.
• 5. The right to sexual pleasure.
• 6. The right to emotional sexual expression.
• 7. The right to sexually associate freely.
• 8. The right to make free and responsible reproductive choices.
• 9. The right to sexual information based upon scientific inquiry.
• 10. The right to comprehensive sexuality education.
• 11. The right to sexual health care.
Sexual Rights are Fundamental and Universal Human Rights
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1.5 Sex survey pioneer Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) and his
colleagues
•Alfred Kinsey, Clyde Martin (standing), Paul Gebhard, and
Wardel Pomeroy.
Clara Bracken McMillen
Kinsey
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