Sex Flashcards

1
Q

Functions

A
  • Reproduction, pleasure, bonding or intimacy, self esteem
  • Assert masculinity or femininity, power, dominance or hostility
  • Risk taking for excitement, material gain or reducing tension
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2
Q

Sex and hormones

A
  • Animals’ hormones are linked to sexual activity

- In human’s puberty triggers sexual interest

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3
Q

Masters and Johnson (1966)

A
  • Studied 328 women and 312 men (mostly married couples) and recorded 10000 sexual reposes
  • This led to the discovery of the four stages of sexual response: excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution
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4
Q

Males vs females

A
  • Males are programmed for promiscuity and in most cultures favor youthful looking women with a specific hit to waist ratio
  • Females are programmed for settling down and in most cultures look for cues that suggest protection and masculinity. However, when shown morphed faces, they did not find more masculine faces attractive
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5
Q

Criticisms of the sociobiology/evolutionary approach

A

-Can’t be falsified and focuses on ‘normal’ stereotypical heterosexual couples.

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6
Q

Learning

A

-Sexual behaviour can be learnt and modified through operant conditioning e.g. behaviour modification techniques used to treat sexual variations and disorders

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7
Q

Cognitive

A

-Influence of thoughts and perceptions on sexuality e.g. past experiences

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8
Q

Eysneck personality theory

A
  • Suggested there are genetic and physiological differences in need for stimulation and emotional stability e.g. extroverts are psychologically dampened (less sensitive to stimulation) and Introverts more law-abiding and conventional
  • Co-actional: physiologically primed to respond differently to social environment
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9
Q

Eysenck views of sexuality

A
  • Introverts approach sex warily whereas extroverts are eager and passionate (antisocial sexual behaviour due to poor socialization, habituate and seek novelty
  • Support: Self-report of 6000 students suggests results are reliable
  • Criticism: sexist as women are described as prudish and objects
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10
Q

Freud

A
  • Sex energy/libido is major influence on personality and behaviour
  • Believed everyone is born bisexual and becomes heterosexual or homosexual depending on experience with parents or others
  • Psychosexual stages: oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital
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11
Q

Liberalism

A

-o Combines liberation and regulation e.g. individuals discipline themselves and seek pleasure and satisfaction. Public life regulated but promotes freedom in private life

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12
Q

Liberalism: Victorian Era

A

-Emancipation of women 1882 (married women’s property act), but no public bathrooms for women, expected to withdraw during menstruation. Regulated working class women by stigmatizing illegitimacy and legislation against prostitutes

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13
Q

Liberalization of sexuality

A
  • Aspects of sexuality liberalized e.g. homosexuality and others regulated e.g. pedos
  • Liberation league and British society of the study of sex campaigned for liberalizing laws over illegitimacy, marriage, divorce and free love
  • Germany, 1927, World League of Sexual Reform: Legal equality between males and females, provisions for single parents, greater access to sex education, abortion and contraception, control of prostitution and greater acceptance of sexual deviance
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14
Q

First research into pornography and erotica

A
  • Short term effects of erotic behaviour but no impact on long term sexual behaviour
  • Women are presented as willing victims of sexual violence and rape which may encourage assault (Ethical implications make empirical studies almost impossible)
  • Rape myth: women protest to seem feminine, keep going and shell like it
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15
Q

Michel Foucault - social control

A
  • Suggested sexuality is socially and culturally constructed (specific to time and place)
  • This is a form of social control through (socialisation, Hystericization, Pedagogization and Psychiatrization)
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16
Q

Conventionally ‘normal’ behaviour

A
  • There must be a large degree of predictability of behaviour for society to function
  • (sexual acts should match expected and understood patterns of behaviour or will be labelled deviant).
  • Criticism: ‘normal’ behavior in one culture ,ay be unnatural in another
17
Q

Biologically ‘normal’ behaviour

A
  • Natural purpose of sex is reproduction

- Criticism: what about erotic kissing, sex after menopause and celibacy

18
Q

Psychologically ‘normal’ behaviour

A
  • Behaviour that enhances our well-being (does not create guilt, shame, anxiety etc.)
  • Criticism: we learn to feel good if our behaviours fit society’s expectations
19
Q

Morally ‘normal’ behaviour

A
  • Morality is justified by traditions and reasoning of religions e.g. celibacy
  • Criticism: Religion is culturally relative
20
Q

Socialisation of procreative behaviour

A

-Procreative sex is legitimate in long term, heterosexual couples, anything else is deviant or less meaningful

21
Q

Hystericization of women’s bodies

A

-Women’s sexuality central to their identity (walking wombs)

22
Q

Pedagogization of children’s sexuality

A

-Children are off limits (surveillance and control of children’s sexuality)

23
Q

Psychiatrization of perverse desire

A

-pathologizes ‘abnormal sexuality’ to justify regulation

24
Q

Sexual orientation

A

-A person’s erotic and emotional orientation towards members of his or her own gender or members of the other gender (distinct preference over clear alternatives)

25
Q

Same sex sexual behaviour is normal

A
  • Cross-cultural data has shown that same-sex behaviour is universal
  • Same sex-sexual behaviour is seen in primates, penguins etc. in their natural habitat it is biologically ‘normal’
  • Expression and social value of homosexual social role is extremely variable
26
Q

Acceptance of same-sex sexual behaviour

A

-1600s (sin) - 1700s (crime) - 1800s (illness) - 1900s (immoral choice) - 2000s (natural)

27
Q

Methods of conceptualizing sexuality

A
  • The typology: heterosexual and homosexual
  • Kinsey’s continuum: from heterosexual - Bi - Homosexual
  • Two-dimensional scheme: High vs lov homoeroticism and high to low heteroeroticism with homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual and asexual
28
Q

First sexual experiences (Kinsey, 1947)

A
  • 30% of girls had sexual experience by age of 13 (17% - intercourse)
  • 40% of boys had sexual experience by age 15 (55% attempted intercourse)
29
Q

Recent research into first sexual experiences

A
  • 48% girls and 36% boys have had intercourse before 16
  • 18.7% of girls & 27.6% of boys under 16
  • Younger cohorts have sex earlier overall and more likely to have more partners
30
Q

Adult sexual experiences (16-59)

A
  • > 90% have engaged in vaginal sex, 50-60% have had oral sex and 5-6% have had anal sex (small influence of social class - higher social class = slightly higher)
  • High frequency of sex among women aged 20-29 and men aged 25-34 (married/cohabiting couples reported higher frequency of sex)
  • 50% of women aged 55-59 reported no sex in the past month
31
Q

Homosexual experiece

A
  • 6.1% of men and 3.4% of women reported same-sex experience over their lifetime (only 1% of men and 0.8% of women were mostly or only homosexual)
  • Impacted by higher social class and attendance at boarding school
32
Q

Male homosexual experience

A
  • 90% of men who had same-sex experience had non-penetrative sex
  • 33.7% had anal sex and 35.4% had receptive anal sex (most experienced both)
  • Gay men vs those with only experiences had different numbers of partners, over 90% of the latter were more likely to report female partners vs 60% of the former
  • Over 50% only had one same sex partner but 3.9% had more than 100
33
Q

Female homosexual experience

A
  • 95.1% of women with homosexual experiences were exclusively homosexual
  • 3.4% of women reported at least one homosexual experience
  • little variation in age, higher for those who attended boarding school
  • Chances of homosexual encounter constant across age whereas for men, decreases after 30 (also have fewer sexual partners)
34
Q

Bisexual experience

A

-0.5% of men and 0.2% of women reported attraction to both men and women (half had experience with both men and women)

35
Q

Problems with data

A
  • Data is constrained by the questions and categories given e.g. data does not look at transgender individuals or political lesbians
  • Data lacks detail e.g. children under 13 with sexual experience may have been abused and increase in oral sex may be due to feminism (women more assertive about their needs) or magazines etc. normalizing sexual practices
  • Research areas constrain data e.g. avoid studying children due to ethical issues, lots of research into homosexual relationships due to HIV/AISDS
36
Q

Normalisation

A
  • Until 1973, homosexuality categorised as mental disorder
  • Replaced by ego-dystonic homosexuality (persistent lack of heterosexual arousal, persistent distress from unwanted homosexual arousal)
  • Removed from DSM completely in 1986