Chapter 13 Sexual orientation

Question 1

Sexual orientation?

Answer 1

a person’s erotic and emotional orientation toward members of their own gender or members of the other gender

Question 2

Heterosexism?

Answer 2

Prejudice against LGB persons

Question 3

Sexual fluidity?

Answer 3

Changes over time in sexual attractions, identity or behavior

Question 4

Minority stress model?

Answer 4

Stigma, prejudice, and discrimination create a stressful social environment that causes mental health problems

Question 5

Conversion therapy methods?

Answer 5

electrical shocks while watching nude men, castration, brain surgery

Question 6

Freud’s theory on why some people are LGB?

Answer 6

-Humans are polymorphously perverse: derive pleasure from almost anything.
- Everyone is inherently bisexual, possessing the capacity to develop an attraction to men or women
-Homosexuality stems from fixation while passing through certain developmental stages or from heterosexual experiences that are distressing

Question 7

Genetic factors for being LGB?

Answer 7

-Concordance is substantially higher for identical twins (52%)
-Multiple genes might contribute to sexual orientation but research is still in its infancy

Question 8

Prenatal factors for being LGB?

Answer 8

-Fraternal birth order effect
- Lower 2D:4D finger-length ratio may reflect more prenatal androgen exposure in lesbians
- Gay men and lesbians are more likely to be left-handed, suggesting a hormonal effect
-Epigenetic factors may make the fetus more or less sensitive to androgens

Question 9

Fraternal birth order effect?

Answer 9

• Gay men are more likely to have a late birth order and have more older brothers
• Hypothesis: with each successive pregnancy with a male fetus, the mother forms more antibodies
  against a protein produced by a gene on the Y chromosome
  -Effect not found for lesbians

Question 10

Brain factors for being LGB?

Answer 10

• No well-documented anatomical brain differences
• Modern functional brain scanning methods show that lesbians are turned on by women’s pheromones and gay men are turned on by men’s pheromones

Question 11

Hormonal imbalance as a factor for being LGB?

Answer 11

-Research has not found any hormonal differences
-Attempts to ‘cure’ male homosexuality by administering testosterone failed- and seemed to result in even more homosexual behavior

Question 12

Learning theory of why people are LGB?

Answer 12

-People are born sexual, not gay or straight
-Rewards and punishments shape the individual’s behavior
-Sexual orientation is a learned behavior
-Evidence is mixed in this explanation

Question 13

Reiss’s Sociological Theory for why people are LGB?

Answer 13

• Emphasizes the effects of labeling in explaining homosexuality
• Being labeled homosexual may be a self-fulfilling prophecy
• Societies that have great maternal involvement with infants and low paternal involvement and have rigid gender roles have the highest incidence of same-gender sexual behavior in males

Question 14

Gender differences between gay men and lesbians?

Answer 14

-Women are more likely to be bisexual than men
-Women show more sexual fluidity than men
- Gay men reach developmental milestones earlier than lesbians

Question 15

Deprivation homosexuality?

Answer 15

Homosexual activity that occurs in certain situations, such as prisons, when people are deprived of regular sexual activity