Sexuality in Perspective Flashcards
, sexual behaviour
s behaviour that produces or that is intended to produce arousal.
Historical Perspective
- Close link between religious & historical perspectives
- Now religion, science, courts, & media
Historical Methods to study sexuallity
- Examining documents, art, artefacts (ancient or modern)
- information at that time was based on Biases
- and we ourselves bring our own biases
-Class bias
-Sexist bias
-Education bias - ** Ethnocentrism:** the belife that their groups belifes are the norm and compering everthing else to that
A Brief History
Prehistoric
worship of women’s ability to bear children
Ancient Hebrews
procreation and pleasure, polygamy
Ancient Greece
homosexuality, bisexuality, pederasty(older man would take an adolecent boy in a relationship),
prostitution (courtesans and concubines)
Ancient Rome
sexual behaviour between man okay,between woman not okay,orgies (Caligula)
The East
Muslims
sex within marriage, no premarital sex,
polygamy
Taoists
sexuality and spirituality (yin)
Hindus
sex as virtuous and natural, celebrated within
marriage
Early Christians (400 AD)
sex for procreation only; non-
procreative sex as sin; virginity (St. Augustine’s
Confessions)
Middle Ages (500-1500 AD)
wet dreams, sexual
dysfunction, lust blamed on witchcraft
Protestant Reformation (1517-1648)
some sex not only for
procreation, but to enhance the marital relationship
(extramarital/premarital sex still punished)
Victorian Era (1837-1901)
extreme sexual repression,
marital duty for procreation and men’s pleasure
* Dr. Clelia Mosher:-study women sexuality,and discovered that women enjoyed sex and orgasms
The Sexual Revolution (1965-1970s)
social upheaval
in science, music, art, fashion
the pill was intrudeced
gay activism
Today:Sexuality and Media
Netflix/TV programs:
* average of 17 instances of sexual talk/behaviour per hour
Media has 3 types of influence:
- cultivation: belife that what people see in the media represents real life
- agenda-setting: algorithem choose what to report and what to ignore send a massage what is important and what is not important
- social learning what see in the media serves as model for us to emitate
Conclusions
- All societies regulate sex
- Different societies have accepted different behaviour,
attitudes - Great differences across religions and within religions
History of Sex Research
- Began in 19th Century
- Names to know: Freud, Havelock Ellis, Krafft- Ebing, Hirshfeld, Kinsey, Masters & Johnson
- Currently many sex researchers, professional societies, sexuality journals
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
victorian era
- psychodynamic theory:
how early experiences and uncouseous motivation interacts to determines someones personality and behaviour
he also created the concept of libido - as psychlogical motivation
also psychosexual development
Havelock Ellis (1859-1939)
victorian era
- British physician
- Studies in the Psychology of Sex
- first to write about homosexuality in a compassionate way
- also wrote about trangenderism, which he called sexo-aesthetic inversion and later, eonism
- attributed it to over-identification with the admired object (i.e., women)
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902)
- German psychiatrist and sexologist
- pathlogical sexuality
- Psychopathia Sexualis (1886)
- non-procreative sex was a perversion
4 categories of “sexual perversions”:
paradoxia: sexual response at the wrong time in life
**anesthesia: **insufficient sexual desire
**hyperesthesia: **excessive sexual desire
**paraesthesia: **sexual desire for the wrong goal or object
Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935)
- ** Founder of the first sex research institute**
- Administered the first large-scale sex survey
- Established the first journal devoted to the scientific study of sexuality
Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)
- first major published large sex survey
the survey had within them :
-prevalence of homosexuality
-extramarital sex
-multiple orgasm
William Masters (1915-2001)
and Virginia Johnson (1925-2013)
- first to look at physiological sexual response in men and
women - study :intercourse, masturbation in the lab
- by hooking people in machines and observing them having sexs
- 4-phase model of sexual response
4-phase model of sexual response
4-phase model of sexual response
* Excitement phase
* Plateau phase
* Orgasm
* Resolution phase
some contraversis
Cross-Cultural
Perspectives
Anthropological/Cross Cultural
Perspective
Culture: the traditional ideas and values passed down from
generation to generation within a group and transmitted to
members of the group by symbols
Method: participant observation
Biases in method:
-Hawthorne effect (observer effect): individuals modify their behaviour when aware of being observed
-Ethnocentrism
Variations Across Cultures
- Sexual frequency
- Sexual techniques(ex:kissing involved)
- Masturbation
- Premarital sex
- Extramarital sex
- Sex with same-sex partners
- Standards of attractiveness
Conclusions from Cross-Cultural
Studies
- Enormous variation in sexual attitudes and behaviour
across cultures - Helps put our own standards and behaviour inperspective
- Importance of culture and learning - influences over sexuality
Canada vs. USA
simmilarities: thresomes, nightstands, womens sexual partners
diferences : canadians have more sex outdors, teen americans more likely to get pregnant,women are allowed to walk around topless in canada
Variations Within a Culture
Different norms for different subgroups
-e.g. norms affected by age, SES, ethnicity, gender
Within subcultures (e.g., immigrant communities) attitudes & behaviour affected by
-Culture of origin
-Acculturation to Canadian culture
Variations Within a Culture
-
Largest and fastest growing immigrant groups in Canada:
-South Asian
-East Asian - In general, these cultures tend to uphold more traditional values surrounding:
- Gender roles
- Sexual orientation
canadians statistics
Within Canada
* frequency of sex
average number of
lifetime partners: 12
> 20: 23% of men;
13% of women
17%lifetime sexual
monogamy
Within Canada Difference across pronvinces*
- Quebec is the most sexually liberal
- more likely to have sexual intercourse at a younger age, to
live as common-laws, and have extramarital sex
Variations Within a Culture
Biological Perspective/Cross Species
Behaviour
No behaviour unique to humans
e.g. masturbation(monkeys,porkpaine), oral sex(monkeys), same-sex sexual behaviour, female orgasm(monkeys)
Less hormonal and biological control as go up evolutionary scale
