9/10 Flashcards
Do men really think about sex more than women
Yes, Men have on avg 34.2 sexual thoughts per day while women have 18.7
This difference not only for sex, men thoughts abt food and sleep more too
Maybe men think about their needs more then women
What’s up with our primal inclination toward novelty and lust in direct contrast with societal inclinations toward monogamy?
Esther Perel:
Love tends to dampen the mystery and erotic spark after being together for a long time and becoming parents
Self expansion (Esther Perel)
1)people want to expand their experiences and extend identities
2)this desire of expansion helps explain why we enter into relationships with others
We like to meet new people get to know them
3)a relationship is successful when it expands both partners’ identities;relationships stagnate when expansion stops (infidelity?)
Goals of sex research
Basic knowledge
Understanding to influence behavior
Understanding to inform public policy
Provides facts that inform personal decisions/opinions
Research methods
Population vs sample
~random sample
~issue in sex research: people choose a small sample of undergrad students and generalize this info to all young adults
generalization
selection/volunteer bias
Generalization
the closer the sample matches the population the more generalizable
selection/volunteer bias:
its possible our sample is biased with people whom are willing to participate in sex research
Ethical principles
Tri-Council policy statement:ethical conduct for research involving humans
Protection from harm
Informed consent
Debriefing
Tuskegee study
Studied untreated syphilis in African people
Did not get informed consent, did not get the treatment that they were promised, and coerced with incentives
When penicillin was invented as treatment, they were denied that
methods of research
surveys, qualitative methods, and experimental design
Survey
self-report
~Questionnaire vs interview
Problems associated with self-report
Purposeful distortion, social desirability
~People lie about their data to make sure their answer is socially acceptable
Ability to estimate (hard to estimate the answer on some questions)
Faulty memory (people forget)
Interpreting the question (people interpret questions diff)
Cross-sectional(give us data abt a person at a specific point of time)
~Don’t know what causes what, no causality
Survey methods
Kinsey survey, NHSLS, NSSHB, British national survey
canada doesnt have national survey they leech off of USA
Canadian surveys
Canada youth sexual health and HIV/AIDS study (Boyce et al)
Canadian community health survey (rotermann)
2014 health behavior in school aged children
BC Adolescent health survey(2018)
Canada youth sexual health and HIV/AIDS study (Boyce et al)
Student in grades 7,9,11
Percentage of people who have engaged in sexual intercourse
23% boys, 19% of girls in grade 9
40% of boys, 46% of girls in grade 11
This data had lower percentages than data from 1987, kids were becoming less sexual
Canadian community health survey (rotermann)
Examined sexual health behavior of youth 15-24 during two time periods (2009 with 2003)
66% of youth aged 15-24 had sexual intercouse at least one time (consistent with 2003)
30% of teens age 15-17, 68% of teens ages 18-19, 85% of youth aged 20-24 had sexual intercourse at least one time (consistent with 2003 data)
2014 health behavior in school aged children
Percent of grade 10 students having sexual intercourse fairly consistent in 2014 with 2002
BC Adolescent health survey(2018)
30,00 grade 7-12 students
19% of students reported ever having intercourse
23% reported ever having had oral sex (compared to 26% in 2008)
main theme of survey results
despite popular belief, adolescents are not having sex at more and more younger ages
contraception use going up, teen pregnancy going down
Quantitative research
responses are quantified and given numerical values
Qualitative research
results are conveyed with words; make sense of experiences in terms of meanings people give
Qualitative methods
Intensive investigation of a small group of individuals
interviews
problems with qualitative methods
Hard to recruit representative sample bc less participants
Lew and Maticka study of exotic dancers N=30
(qualitative method of investigation of small group)
Snowball sampling
2 diff types of dancers:
1)temporary job (dance, get the bag, leave)
2)career dancers: more heavily involved in strip club culture, use drugs, have sex with customers
Direct observation
Observation in semi-public settings
(sex parties)
Eye tracking
Use eye tracking device to see how long/where someone looks
Straight women/men look at opposite gender where bi people look at both women and men
Biological measures
Penile plethysmography (measures erection)
Vaginal plethysmography (measure sexual arousal)
thermography(measure blood flow to genitals)
Media Content Analysis
Examine what goes on in media
First researchers decide where to look for information(magazines), then what type of magazines (magazine for women), then coding protocol (organize the factors in categories), then check if this code is reliable
Experimental research
Random assignment:
Experimental group
Control group
Advantages
~Most sex research is correlational, but experimental can determine causality
Problems
Costly to do
Cant address some questions
Pseudoscience
Reader’s surveys in magazines
~Not the best on reporting data
~Magazines can frame data incorrectly
What is a theory?
Set of ideas or concepts that help explain behavior or attitudes
No unified field theory of human sexuality, we must draw upon multiple theories
Evolutionary Perspective theory
Natural selection
Sociobiology: examine social behavior due to biology
~Examples:
~~Physical attractiveness
~~Parental investment
conclusion/critique: this theory believes sex is only for reproduction (not correct)
Psychoanalytic theory
Freud
Key concepts:
Libido
Stages of psychosexual development (people can get stuck at early stages which leads to issue later in life)
Evaluation:
~Critiques: cant be tested, and sampled from patients coming to him with issues, therefore it is based on people with disturbances and not normal people
However the idea of stages is used by other researchers
Learning theories
classical conditioning (Pavlov)
social learning (bandura)
operant conditioning (skinner)
Criticisms: ignore cognitive processes in relation to behavior
Cognitive theories
Perceptions and evaluation of events (Our thoughts) affect emotions and responses
example:Partner says “im not in the mood”
~Some can think oh my partner doesn’t think im attractive another may think oh they must have had a hard time at work
Cognitive Schema
general knowledge framework that a person has about a particular topic
Perception of events affected by schema
We remember things better when information is consistent with our schema
Ie:gender schema (Bem)
When finding out a gender of a baby we say aww so precious after we find its a girl or hes so handsome after finding its a boy
Sociological Perspective
Socialization leads to:
1)shared sexual scripts (script theory: expected sequence of behavior)
Symbolic communication -> human nature
~We Need similar meanings to communicate
Can people distinguish between 4 types of casual sex relationships?
1)One night stand
2)Booty call
3)Friend with benefits
4)Fuck buddy
Yes, people are able to define and agree on what the 4 phrases mean
Dr.Lisa Wade Book “American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus” 2018
4 types of students in college “hookup culture”
Enthusiasts (love it) (only 1 in 5 students)
Abstainers (hate it)
Dabblers(mixed feelings/experiences)
Strivers (want to take part but are excluded)
Medicalization of sexuality
Occurs when certain sexual behaviors or conditions are defined in terms of health and illness and are medically treated
Viagra
Addyi
traditional approach to sexual health
illness model (fix issue with this pill)
Health model
“Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being related to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dyfunction”
WHO definition of sexual rights
Sexual rights embrace human rights already recognized in national laws
Positive rights(right to): sexual education, privacy
Negative rights (protection from): sexual violence, discrimination
Legal institution
Criminal law is only able to be passed by federal government
What are the main sexual offences in the criminal code of canada in 2023
sexual assault, sexual interference, bestiality, incest
changed/updated laws:
offense used to be: Anal intercourse between 2 people if either under 18 or in public place; Now the law has changed to 16 years old
Offence for bestiality has now changed to any sexual activity with animals is prohibited
Types of laws
To prevent Exploitation and force
prevent Crimes against taste/morality
~Crimes can not be passed because of religion
Canadian charter of rights and freedoms
1969 omnibus Bill (Trudeau)
~removed laws about contraceptives, oral sex, anal sex
Influence of the law
Determine social norms
Mechanisms for social control
impose ideology
