Chapter 1 Flashcards
What can the word “sex” refer to?
Anatomic sex (female or male)
Anatomic structures called sex organs
The physical activity involving sex organs for reproduction or pleasure.
Human sexuality
refers to the ways in which people experience and express themselves as sexual beings.
Which types of scientists study human sexuality
Anthropologists, biologists, medical researchers, sociologists, and psychologists
Our society is pluralistic. Why does that mean?
It embraces a wide range of sexual attitudes and values.
What shapes people’s sexual attitudes, experiences, and behaviors?
Cultural traditions and beliefs.
According to feminists why is there variability in sexual behavior between males and females?
reflects power rather than choice
Where might our value systems arise from?
Value systems provide a framework for judging the morality of sexual options. They have many sources: parents, peers, religious training, ethic subcultures, the larger culture, and our own appraisal of these influences.
Legalism
Ethical behavior is derived from an external source, such as religion
Situational Ethics
Ethical decision making should be guided by the situation and by genuine love for others
Relativism
There is no objective way of justifying one set of moral values over another.
Hedonism
Pursuit of pleasure is the guide
Asceticism
One denies sexual desires to devote oneself to spiritual pursuits
Utilitarianism
Moral conduct brings about the greatest good for the greatest #
Rationalism
Sexual decision should be based on intellectual and reason, not blind obedience
What do critical thinkers need, to believe something is true?
They don’t believe something is true because an authority figure says it’s true. They demand evidence.
Critical thinking
scrutinizing definitions of terms and evaluating the premises of arguments and their logic.
core: skepticism
- analysis
- probing of claims and arguments
How does history asses sexual behaviors?
By placing them in context
What can history tell us about sexual trends
- there is little evidence of universal sexual trends. Attitudes and behaviors vary extensively from one time and place to another?
Prehistoric sexuality
- Art from stone age suggests that women’s ability to bear children was worshiped
- After ice age, when people raised animals, they realized that women got pregnant after sex with male. This kick-started phallic Worship.
Incest in early society
- may have been first human taboo
- prohibited in all societies but to varying degrees (for example, the aristocracy and royalty were permitted in some cultures, but commoners were not)
phallic worship
Worship of the penis as a symbol of generative poweer
phallic symbol
An image of the penis
incest taboo
The prohibition against intercourse and reproduction among close blood relatives.
Sex for the Aincent hebrews
- sex fulfilled God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, and could be enjoyable, but God put rules in place to keep it moral
Sex for the Aincent greeks
- sexually adventurous as long as it didn’t interfere with family life
pederasty
Sexual love of boys
courtesan
A prostitue- especiially the mistress of a noble or wealthy man
concubine
A secondary wife, usually of inferior legal and social status
bestiality
Sexual relations between a person and an animal
sadism
The practice of achieving sexual gratification through hurting or humiliating others.
fellatio
A sexual activity involving oral contact with the penis
cunnilingus
A sexual activity involving oral contact with the female genitals.
fornication
Sexual intercourse between people who are not married to one another
Sex in Aincent Rome
- upper class was sexually adventurous, less true for the average Romans
Which society do we trace many of our sexual terms to?
Rome
Sex in Islam
- treasures marriage and sexual fulfillment in marriage
- marriage represents the road to virtue
- Men permitted to do more than women (ie have up to four wives while women can only have one husband.
Sex in Aincent India
- sexual pleasure as a spiritual idea
- Hindu sexual practices were codified in a Manuel (the Kama Sutra)
- Saw sex as religious duty
- Indian society grew more restrictive towards sexuality after about 1000CE
Sex in the Aincent Far East
- sexuality was akin to spirituality
- Taoist beloved sex was a sacred duty- a form of worship that led toward harmony with nature and immorality
- Men have sex to absorb the yin
- Unacceptable for man to wastefully spill his seed (masturbation, wasteful ejaculation)
Sex in the Victorian period
- Prim and proper on the surface
- Women viewed it as a marital duty to satisfy their husband’s cravings
- Women not believed to experience sexual pleasure (even though they did)
- A lot of prostitution
Havelock Ellis
published ‘Studies in the Psychology of Sex.
- argued sexual desires in women were natural and healthy
- sexual problems were psychological rather than physical
- Saw homosexual orientations as inborn dispositions rather than character flaws
Richard von Krafft Ebing
wrote Psychopathial Sexualis, about case histories about people with sexual deviations (ie bestality or necrophilia)
Alfred Kinsey
- interviewed people to learn about American sexual hehavior. Published books, Sexual behavior in the Human Male& Sexual Behaviors in the Human Female. Even though they were dry reads, they were great sellers.
- Despite there being methodical flaws, critics focused on how immoral it was
The Sexual revolution
- Durring the Sixties
- The sexual revolution came out of a timely mixture of economic, scientific, social and political forces
- The “Me Decade (message that you should do what feels right)
- tyed to social permissiveness and political liberalism
- Sex less of a taboo in media
Features of the sexual revolution that remain today
- Liberation of femalee sexuality
- Widespread willingness to discuss sex
What does studying the biological perspective of sex tell us?
- Informs us about the mechanisms of reproduction as well as the mechanisms of sexual arousal and response
Genes
The basic units of heredity, which consist of chromosmal segments of DNA