Final lectures Flashcards
Female Sexual Dysfunctions (FSDs)
*Forms of female sexual dysfunction (DSM-V and other diagnostic manuals):
–Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) (“asexuality)
–Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD) (“frigidity”)
–Hyper-sexuality (HS) (“nymphomania”)
–Female Orgasmic Disorder (FOD)
Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (Asexuality)
A recurrent lack of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity, as judged by a clinician
- 1% of the population
-Is it legitimate to want a romantic relationship without sex?
- Do we as a society see it as a legitimate thing?
- In 90’s (DSM-4), this condition had to cause distress or interpersonal
difficulties → this is when it’s a disorder
- Has strain on relationships
Distress for whom? And why?
- First we should ask, how do we measure distress?
- According to DSM; the clinician is defining who is distressed
- Clinicians are a product of our own society
- Maybe distress has to do with social pressure/perceptions
- If everyone around you is telling you there is something wrong for you not
wanting to have sex; this would cause distress in itself
- 25% young adults claimed they never had a sexual partner by age 25
- Maybe we should define this as a legitimate sexual orientation, and not a mental disorder
- In this case, being gay is not a disorder/mental illness; the stress the person deals with is a product of social problems, it’s not something that needs to be treated
Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (“Frigidity”)
- A desire for sex but an inability to become aroused OR when the genitals do not respond and sex becomes painful
- Up to 43% of women (according to some estimates)
- What would we not want to treat this with drugs that can help those who suffer?
- We know viagra for men, why not have the equivalent for women?
The problem with this, it treats women as an extension of men - When men cannot have an erection, it must be a physiological problem so we made Viagra
- For women, we have a similar situation thus we must have a pharmacological approach.
- This approach ignores that women are different in terms of factors that lead to sexual desire and attraction and women’s needs are different
- This problem comes from the medicalization of disorders for profit
- Campaign to recognize sexual dysfunction to be defined as a disease that requires a cure
- We can’t treat bodies as machines; as something that needs to be fixed and not working
- Moynihan (2005; BMJ): The medicalizaion of disorders for profit (the Proctor and Gamble campaign)
Pharmaceutical companies focus on the body and the genitals (trying to fix them), when the problem is often social - Need to consider larger context of the problem (social, psychological, clinical)
–Alternative non-physiological explanations for “Frigidity”
*A dysfunctional relationship
*Body image (e.g. overweight)
- Decreases sexual desire and ability to perform sexually
*Same-sex attraction
- - Not a viable option in the social environment you were raised in so you may become uninterested in sex
*Sexual abuse
- Can’t simply fix by giving pharmaceuticals
- Once we consider the context, there are serious disagreements about the frequency and what to do about these cases
- Is this an actual problem (frigidity) or a by-product of another issue (social issue) that must be addressed for someone to be comfortable with sex
Hyper-Sexuality (“nymphomania”)
Desire to engage in sexual activity at a level that is considered abnormally high
- The history of nymphomania
–Men’s control of women’s sexuality and personal freedom
Historically, men were expected to be very sexual and always ready/looking for sex
- Problematic assumption that causes distress in men
- For women, high sexual desires were problematized
- Doctors were concerned with women who had too much sex / showed interest
- In history, mental institutions said nymphomania was a mental illness
- Victoria times, Nymphomaniacs were considered mentally ill:
- Victims of sexual assault
- Those who had illegitimate children
- Those who masturbated (“abused themselves”)
- Those considered promiscuous
These women were often forced inside mental institutions where they were
forced to have pelvic exams
- If doctors decided clitoris was too big; they would prescribe all kinds of
treatments, induced vomiting, cold showers, restricted diets, surgery to
remove the clitors
- All of these were used for methods of control - controlling women and policing
their sexuality
- All of this used to suppress women
behaviour
- Family “Honour” - fears of sexual behavior of young women
- In our society, most people do not subscribe but we still have a double standard
- When James Bond have sex with multiple women, they’re celebrated and have lots of masculinity
- A women who has sex with many partners, she’s a slut, she’s lose, nymphomania
Female Orgasmic Disorder (Anorgasmia)
- Recurrent sufficient arousal without the ability to achieve an orgasm
- 10%-50% (depending on definitions and diagnoses)
- is this really a disorder? - consider non-biological factors
– Much of the critique about the diagnosis of female orgasmic disorders, isn’t the
idea that women are entitled to have an orgasm (of course we are), instead, the problem is that women, like men, should or must have an orgasm every time they have sex - Male-centric approach (our perception of sex)
- Women’s sexuality has always been problematized (too little/too much)
- Problematized as a tool for control
- Male doctors, male psychiatrists/psychologists, families
The history of female orgasms
Pre-Modern Europe
- Men and women were considered to have equal amounts of sexual
desire, where women actually have a bit more
- People believed, if women wanted to become pregnant, they
had to have an orgasm during intercourse
- Here, lack of female orgasm would be considered a serious
problem
The Victoria Age (19th century)
- Perceptions completely changed
- Women were considered non-sexual creatures
- Men had all the sexual desire
- Women are expected to treat sex as a necessary evil
- Women do not have sexual desires or needs
- They were never supposed to masturbate
- Women were very repressed
- Female orgasm is now out of the question
Freud, Psychology, and Sexology
- Female orgasms started to become less controversial
- Some doctors believe that female orgasms can help solve many of their neurosis and mental problems (hysteria)
1950’s (Kinsey; Masters and Johnson)
- The Kinsey report on sexuality found that almost half the women
reached orgasm every time they had sex
- Sampling issues, not realistic numbers
- Masters and Johnson speak about women having multiple orgasms at once
The Rise of feminism
1960’s and the sexual revolution
- The idea that women are entitled to have orgasms
- With this, comes commercial interests
- Doctors, pharmacists
- Classifying non orgasms as a medical problem
Historical context of porn
- The use of the term pornography started in Victorian Era = Prostitutes
- In 19th century in the west, public pornography distribution was outlawed and criminalized but still was privately consumed
- Porn films were one of the first films made when technology developed
- In early 20th century, we see pornographic movies
- In 1969, Denmark was first country to legalize pornography
- Led to a big growth in pornography
- 1-2 decades ago, it was already 10 billion dollar industry
- 1960-1980 = Golden age of pornography
- Mainstream people went to watch these porn movies as cultural
phenomenon - Big revolution with VCR’s → Didn’t need to go to theater
- Can watch from home in the early 80’s (end of golden age) - Then invention of internet
- Porn channels now completely control the market
Pornography
- the explicit description or exhibition of sexual activity in literature, films, and other media, intended to arouse erotic rather than esthetic feelings.
- There’s a whole industry called mainstream pornography
- We can discuss consumption in terms of prevalence to understand if something
is normal or not
Prevalence
- Everyone in the class has seen a pornography video
- According to some studies, most people in North America consume porn
- More than 70% of male internet users (under 35) visit porn sites at least once a month
- The more secular you are, the more educated you are , the higher the rate of consumption
- Women are not that far off
- This class survey demonstrates that most young liberal people are not ashamed
of seeing porn and not being afraid to hide it
-in our society, it’s become deviant to say you’ve never watched porn - how normalized watching porn has become
Anti-pornography perspectives
- Porn promotes abuse and violence against women
- Porn is misogynistic in its nature
- Large majority of videos out there (mainstream) are abusive to women and promote negative opinions and violence against women
- Porn as sex ed is a terrible idea
- It’s actually terrible sex education
- Porn teaches unrealistic sexual practices and produces unrealistic expectations
- Porn is harmful for romantic relationships
Also harmful because many men and some women become addicted to
porn - It also means they’re less interested in having sex in actual relationships
- Their partners don’t compare well to the unrealistic performers in porn
- In terms of how they look and what they’re willing to do
- Like any addiction, it only gets worse with time - Over time, the effect decreases
- So men need more and more; more extreme porn acts
- Porn exploits and abuses (female) performers
- Porn is a capitalist enterprise
- Performers don’t make that much many and are taken advantage of
- Producers make the money
- In the end, performers end up broke and are stuck with stigma that follows them for a long time and it makes it difficult to find other jobs
- Argument: Develop feminist porn
- More realistic bodies/acts and focus on women’s pleasure
Functionalist Perspective (POV)
- It’s about finding the beneficial and functional parts of porn
- Porn teaches and educates people about sexual practices
- Helps releasing sexual urges (catharsis) and reducing sexual frustrations
(reducing sexual assaults)
- Helps releasing sexual urges (catharsis) and reducing sexual frustrations
- Helps in maintaining marriages (less infidelity?)
- Masturbating instead of cheating - Provides many people with a good living
- For people who work in the industry
- Porn is seen as much better than regular prostitution
- Only dark regimes outlaw porn
- The countries that outlaw porn today; communist russia, nazi germany, north korea etc.
- Porn is fictional enjoyable entertainment
- Similar to other fictional entertainment that’s enjoyable to watch like action
movies (so porn is seen as not harmful) Quite a few people disagree and think porn IS harmful - Religious people - Conservatives
- Feminists
- For religious leaders, most christian/muslim/jewish leaders speak strongly against porn
- See it as a major sin & social problem - both the industry itself and the act of watching it
Porn facts
- Age where a typical boy in our society is exposed to the first adult video?
10 years old - Most boys and girls are exposed to sexually explicit material at even a much younger age
- Exposed to porn through peers & access
- How often does the average man watch porn?
- 3 times a week
- 40 minutes a week
- Every other day
- Are relationships watching porn? Majority do
- Do women watch porn? Yes
- Women make up 35-40% of all porn viewers
- In some countries, 50%
The negative effects of porn
Direct effects:
- sexual aggression
- rape is encouraged more/always non-consensual?
Indirect effects:
-Fostering ideologies seeing women as sex objects and justifying their humiliation
–The sexual needs of men as more important
–Decoupling of sexual relations and emotional intimate relations
The positive effects of pornography
- mystify the misconception that women are not as sexual as men
- celebrates women’s sexuality/freedom
- Porn as more realistic sex education - primary source to learn about sex
(Might be better than traditional media (Hollywood)) - Helped self-confidence - already knew something about sex going into sex
- Helps sexual minorities explore their sexuality and see representations of marginalized sexualities
- People are capable of separating porn from real life
- Depictions of graphic violence in specific cultures don’t lead to higher rates of rape
- say problem is not the practice but the stigmatizing label
Recent research findings on Porn (Shor and Seida 2021
CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ~600 POPULAR PORNOGRAPHIC VIDEOS (PORNHUB)
- The large majority of popular videos are not violent
Lack of consent is rare
–Affection and passion are much more common than violence
–Is porn becoming “harder and harder”?
Because viewers (mostly men) become addicted and desensitized to it then need more extreme content to get aroused
larger share of videos include spanking = aggression?
Choking becomes more common
–Is porn just “violence of men against women”?
Prefer videos of women showing pleasure
Dont prefer nonconsensual violence
- compare heterosexual and non-heterosexual videos (more violence in male on male)
Recent research findings (Shor 2022)* Interviews with 300+ pornography viewers
- Most prefer videos with no aggression/little aggression
- Many would like to see less aggression in mainstream
- Violence is about dominance/humiliation/being put in their place
- In terms of aggression - more women said they had a preference for aggression in porn
- About losing control - all day is making decisions - after a long day someone else tells you what to do
- pleasure/pain argument
- Enjoyed watching it but wouldn’t want to try it
- Fantasy based
- Both men and women cared more about women’s pleasure and climax - what they wanted to watch
Authenticity in Pornography
Argument its too authentic - portrays sexual abuse
Argument its too inauthentic - doesn’t show us what it looks like
What is authentic?
Giving verbal consent
Do women enjoy the act? = If women is demanded to show pleasure when she doesn’t really feel it - is this genuine - fair to demand they show enjoyment?
More details of performers full body
Fewer scripts and more naturalistic production values
Showing what should be or showing what is?
Categories of sex workers
*Adult film performers (porn “stars”)
*Strippers (exotic dancers)
*Telephone sex operators
*Prostitutes, call-girls and gigolos–
-Independent escorts
–Escort agencies
–Brothels (massage parlors; saunas)
–Bars and Casinos–Streetwalkers
Most in-person forms have been replaced by online services
Social worker approach
- shown in “somebody’s daughter” video
- says sex workers are people who have been corrupted
- being one is shameful and they need to be saved/salvaged
- People who use their services should feel ashamed/embarrassed about it
- represents a view of many feminists/social welfare people
- The hot girls documentary also comes from same approach
- No one in their right mind would want to do this
- most girls last a year at best in the industry
- teen is most searched word on sites
Ex- difference between stripping and modeling
- Modeling vs stripping is about the framing
- Why do we as a society make these judgements when professionals have overall similarities - service in exchange for money, not always wanting to do it, might find it intimate or degrading,
why do people enter the sex trade?
The happy hooker myth: a liberated free-spirited woman who chooses to work in the industry, enjoys her work, and makes great money
- Better than being homeless, living in poverty, abusing drugs
- Story often told in tv and movies
- Do 96% of workers choose this profession?
- Less than 4% of sex workers in Canada are forced (railroaded) to become sex workers
Facts about women in the sex industry
*Coming from a lower socio-economic status
*Disproportionally ethnic minorities and immigrants
*A history of early sexual activity
*Sexual abuse
*Life course discontinuity
*Running away from home
What is the process of becoming a sex worker?
Hell - learning theories come into play
Sometimes secrets of the profession are transmitted by someone already involved in the trade: The madame is the teacher
- Obtain and retain clients
- Need to understand how to be careful not get hurt/catch stds etc
- Learn techniques (performing acts)
- How to hustle to maximize profit
- What language to use
- Learn how to deal with stigma
- Learn proper etiquette (exploit client because client is exploiting workers)
- Justifications
Prostitution and the Law
Common legal modes for prostitution:
Prostitution is legal in many countries - pay a licence for a brothel
- Issues with having to obtain a licence
the weakest of sex workers (poorest, immigrants) are usually not able to get into legal businesses and get a licence making them work illegally
Prostitution is legal but pimping is not - providing sexual services is legal but pimping is not
Prostitution is illegal - punishment is lighter
Providing sexual services is legal - but illegal to purchase them
- Public comms, purchasing, pimping (illegal)
- Charges client instead of worker
Criminalizing clients
- rarely enforced in Canada - but forced to still work in unsupervised spaces (leading to greater risk of violence/mispractice) as clients need to be made anonymous/cant be traced
-Gives police a lot of power to extort/abuse sex workers - Makes sex work less safe - protection from std’s - proven to not reduce/deter prostitution even when there is a severe punishment
- How are they supposed to advertise services if being a client is illegal and procuring is illegal
- Unable to work in the street or unable to sustain a home - must work in isolated locations
- Need to pay a fine after being caught
Should policies be determined by a moral argument?
Moral objection - means normalizing sex work to decriminalize it
Decriminalizing sex work
- NZ decriminalized sex work - reduced the harm to the sex workers the most
- Safest policy
- Worked with sex workers to develop policies
Homosexuality is deviant?
Religious arguments
- based on scripture and convictions
Biological/evolutionary arguments
- Mixed with moral arguments
- Heterosexual relationships are needed for reproductions (necessary for reproduction of the human race)
Counterargument: Why do we need more people (overpopulation)
You can still have kids in a homosexual relationship
Why is sex linked to reproduction - many reasons why - unnatural - Errors of nature (no gay animals)
Counterargument: why does natural mean good?
Not true! - animals be gay
How can ideologies shape science? For the last decades, zoologists ignored/underreported homosexuality in animals (believing behaviour does not exist or should not exist)
Aside from morals - arguments like Animals cant be homosexual like people are because they don’t have self-identity/culture
Animals aren’t homophobic - a uniquely human trait
Most of our beliefs are culturally conceived
- Universality
- Nothing universal about rules and norms against homosexuality
- Sex was not considered sinful in many Indigenous communities
Becoming Gay
How do we develop sexuality?
From a religious point - sin
but we can help them choose differently
by limiting certain factors
Biological perspectives: genes, brain structures, chromosomes, parental hormones
- The biological claim has support among gay rights activists - “Remove choice” - it is something innate
- Evidence is inconclusive
- To date: not one simple biological cause
No specific gene
- Doesn’t mean biology has nothing to do - hormone composition can be evidentiary
Psychological perspectives
Freud - believed it was a biology/problem in the process of sexual development
Did not believe tendencies could be changed by treatment
Adrienne Rich: Compulsory Heterosexuality
The argument is that; if our erotic bond (first one) is to our mother; the natural sexual orientation of both men and women is - we are all naturally attracted to women (bond with our mothers)
- Based on Freud’s psychology
- Mother is caregiver/nurturer
- Compulsory heterosexuality – the idea that heterosexuality is the only normative/viable practice (for both men and women)
*The lesbian existence – A broad spectrum of women’s relationships with other women
- She talks about it in historical context, the continuous creation of it and repression of it
*The lesbian continuum – the realization that lesbianism is about more than just sexuality. It also includes erotica, comradeship, compassion, etc.
- She’s saying, a woman doesn’t need to identify herself as
lesbian or engage in sex with women to feel a sense of natural closeness to other women which is part of this continuum
- The most important point is this questioning of heterosexuality being the natural way of being
3 dimensions of sexuality:
Behavior:
100% of sexual acts with same sex → 0% with same sex
Orientation:
100% of fantasies involve same-sex→ 0% involving same sex - Can be anywhere in between
Identity:
100% self defined “Homosexual” → 100% self defined “heterosexual” -
You’re near the middle if you’re bisexual
- Often there’s a correlation between the 3 behaviors - Can also be independent
- Don’t need to be dichotomous
- You could identify as heterosexual, have 50% of fantasies of
members of your own sex and occasionally have sex with people of
your own sex
Identity and sexual encounters
“Straight all” (OkCupid: 250,000 profiles)
Study shows lack of correlation between identity, fantasies, behavior
- Study asks, have you ever had a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex?
- 66% of straight men said no and I would never
- Different for straight women: More than half either had or would like to have sex with another
women
- “Bisexual - both men and women”
- Only 23% send messages to both men and women
- Most who identify as bisexual only send messages to one gender or
another
- This is discrepancy between self identity (bisexual) and behaviors
- These studies show how people self identify, what kind of fantasies (sexual orientation) and how they actually behave in their real life
The Dimensions of Sexuality Reading: Laud Humphreys - Tearoom Trade
- There is difference between self-identity (heterosexual) and behavior (having sex with men - homosexual)
- Almost half the people who participated in these sex trades did not self-identify as homosexual, not even bisexual; they had self-identity of heterosexual and yet they engaged in homosexual behaviour
- Discrepancy between identity & behavior as well as identity & orientation
- It’s hard for people to accept this continuity and different dimensions of homosexuality
Tea room trade issue:
Subjects did not know they were being studied → Deception - No consent
- He was following people home
- He tracked down their license plates, found out their addresses,
went to their homes, knocked on the door, and pretended to be
doing a survey on health
Sociological perspective critiques
- Dichotomization of sexuality
- Oversimplify complex behaviours (gay, straight, bi, etc) - No recognition of various dimensions
- Much more fluid
- Not simple explanation (complex) - The assumption of hetero-normativity
- Homosexuality is deviant and needs to be explained (assumption)
- This implies we don’t need to explain heterosexuality and it’s just already there
Hetero-normative Mechanisms
Religion
- Grew up surrounded by religious ideas where homosexuality is considered a sin
Language
- “Husband & Wife” “King and queen”
- Homosexual slurs “That’s so gay”
Psychology
- Up until 1988, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder in the DSM
Science and the education system
- Elimination of gays and gay practices from history books
- Homosexual practices in animals was completed eliminated from biology and zoology books
The mass media
- Disney movies; princess and prince
The legal system (gay marriage)
- Challenges to gay marriage, adoption
- Early legislation that had punish for homosexuality (other countries still
punish for being gay)
Politics
- - Still relatively few gay politicians
- Being a good family man is a precondition in US
Health care
- Discrimination in medical treatments for gay/bisexual people
Sports
- “Manly non gay masculinity sports stars”
Adrienne Rich - Critiques
- The vilification of heterosexuality and of men:
- There is also a beautiful, soft, non repressed version of heterosexuality - Not all women are repressed by men
- History of heterosexuality is not only about exploitation and power relations - Essentialist assumptions
- You assume all women have lesbian feelings - repressive assumption
- We shouldn’t go to the other extreme and present homosexuality and lesbianism as natural
- The assumption that lesbianism and male homosexuality is essentially different is also problematic
How do we know someone is gay in the media?
- Various cues like higher voice, sassiness, showing emotion
- Homosexuality is gender non-conforming (anything that is not masculine enough)
- Today, it’s mostly about being more like a woman and being
feminine - Gayness is a discourse of deviance from normal feminine/masculine
- Gay bashing is not actually about sexual preferences; it’s more about finding a victim that’s not manly enough
Homosexuality as gender nonconformity
We can think about homosexuality as a modern witch-hunt
- Men constantly have to prove that they’re not gay (not a witch), especially during adolescence and in certain social groups
- There’s a continuous test and you can never fail it
- Constantly doing impression management on others and yourself
- ou can never really prove that you’re not gay
- Not even by getting married or having children
- Because it could always be what Freud called reaction formation
- If you’re an out of the closet gay, it’s a form of liberation in some ways
- You can let go of some of these defenses and try to prove all the time that you aren’t gay even though you really are
Seinfeld: On one hand, there’s nothing wrong with being gay, on the other hand, men are scared as being perceived as gay/feminine/non-masculine
The damages of Homophobia
- Emotional constipation:
- Unable to express feelings even in their families
- Need to explain and justify yourself
- Gay bashing
- Fear of violence
- Knowing people don’t accept who you are
- Fear of coming out
- Legal discrimination; workplace discrimination
- Homophobia is harmful not just for gay people but also for straight men
- Not showing pain or fear towards family - Avoiding friendships with other men
- Avoiding “girly” activities
- Constantly demonstrating (hetero)sexual libido
- Chasing women
- Always wanting to have sex (always ready)
- Performing in a manly dominant way
- Not trying too hard in school because it’s gay to be a good student - Actively engaging in unhealthy and risky behaviour
- Overdrinking
- Not wearing a seatbelt in the car (don’t show weakness)
Homophobia is also affecting women
- All women need to police themselves so they’re not seen as “too manly” or “not feminine enough” = gender non-conforming
- Pressured to fulfill “good wife/mother” roles
- Avoiding taking charge or speaking out because that’s not feminine
- Being careful about not being too aggressive
- Follow feminine ways: grooming, makeup etc.
Toxic masculinity has to do a lot with the conflation of sexuality and gender
An age of sexual inclusion?
Video: Love has no labels: “I can’t change, even if I tried, even if I wanted to”
- Rethink bias
- Certain relationships are changing from the realm of deviant to the realm of being normal
- Love is love and it has no boundaries… to an extent
- Canadian census
- There is an option for relationships with different genders, but not an option for have multiple partners
