FORUMS FOR HUMAN SEXUALITY HEALTH

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This is literally just a discussion. It has no word limit and is based off of opinion.  Answers will vary between 50 words or more but it doesn’t have to be a lot just get the point across. Each powerpoint is to help answer or you can google. 

Week 1 Forum

Discussion Question 1.1
Gender/Sexual Orientation/Biological Sex.
Discuss the differences among gender, sexual orientation, and biological sex. This is important because some people mistakenly believe that homosexuality is a form of gender confusion or that gay men or lesbians want to be the other sex. Some believe that gay men are “feminine” and lesbians “masculine,” mistakenly confusing gender and orientation issues.Provide evidence or reasoning to support your particular perspective.

Week 2 Forum

Discussion Question 2.1.

Theory : Havelock Ellis argued against nineteenth-century beliefs that masturbation had no ill health effects. Why has morally proscribed behavior—such as masturbation—often been seen to have dangerous health consequences? Today some continue to link morally proscribed behavior to negative health consequences, such as homosexuality and AIDS. From a public health point of view, what are the consequences of viewing health problems as moral problems? Provide evidence or reasoning to support your particular perspective. Which theoretical perspective, as described in Chapter 2, closely represents your view?

Discussion Question 2.2.

Gay/Lesbian Research. Discuss why current gay/lesbian research has moved away from the “origins” of homosexuality. What are the methodological and political limits on conducting research on homosexuality?

Week 3 Forum

Discussion 3.1

Uncovering the Breasts in Public.

Periodically women complain about laws requiring them to cover their breasts in public, whereas men are not so required. Occasionally women protest such laws, go in public with their breasts uncovered, and are arrested. What is the justification for such laws? Are they discriminatory against women? Explain.

Week 4 Forum

Discussion 4.1

Penis Size.
Discuss cross-cultural concern about or interest in penis size. What different meanings may large or gigantic penises signify? Slides of art from ancient Rome, Japan, and Mesoamerica, as well as contemporary erotic art (as illustrated in Chapter 4), may be used to illustrate the point. What are some myths about penis size? How does the stereotype of black and Latino men having large penises reinforce ethnic stereotypes?

Week 5 Forum

What have you learned about development of gender stereotypes and about sex differences in self-esteem that helps explain why women’s progress in entering male-dominated professions has been slow? (Use examples in Ch 5 to help answer question).

Chapter Two

Studying Human Sexuality

Sex, Advice Columnists,
and Pop Psychology

  • The sex information/advice genre seeks to:
  • Inform—transmit information that is factual and accurate
  • Entertain—attract audiences through hosts’ personalities as well as high-interest or bizarre material
  • Often includes moral judgments
  • Use social science and psychiatry to give authority

Use and Abuse of Statistics

  • Popular media may summarize social science research in an oversimplified or distorted manner
  • Sensationalize findings
  • Over generalize results of research
  • Report statistics that agree with widely-held preconceptions
  • Popular media may not emphasize the importance of replication

Thinking Critically about Sex

    • Basic scientific principles require a commitment to objectivity
    • observation of reality while excluding researchers’ feelings or beliefs

 

    • Subjectivity is to be avoided
    • Difficult to achieve especially in the area of sexuality
    • Sexuality can bring out powerful emotions and moral ambivalence

 

Value Judgments: Limitations

  • Do not tell us what motivates people
  • Do not tell us how frequently people behave in a given way
  • Do not tell us how people feel
  • Only tell us how we ourselves feel

Value Judgments vs. Objectivity

  • Value judgments only reveal the thoughts or feelings of one person
  • Objectivity describes reality
  • Objective positions can be tested
  • Cultural relativity requires that we examine appropriateness within the cultural norms where it exists

Value Judgments vs. Objectivity

  • Value judgments imply how a person ought to behave
  • Objective statements describe how people actually behave
  • Value judgments cannot be empirically evaluated
  • Objective statements can be empirically evaluated

Opinions, Biases, and Stereotypes Interfere with the Pursuit of Knowledge

 

  • Opinions are unsubstantiated beliefs or conclusions according to an individual’s personal thoughts
  • Biases are personal leanings or inclinations
  • Stereotypes are sets of overgeneralized beliefs about an individual, a group, or an idea, etc.

Stereotypes

  • A schema is a way of organizing information which often underlies stereotypes
  • Sexual stereotyping is often used to justify discrimination or social groups
  • Women
  • Poor people
  • African Americans, Latino/as, Asian Americans
  • Gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people

Stereotypes

  • Stereotypes structure our knowledge by shaping:
  • What we see
  • What we notice
  • What we remember
  • How we explain things

Attitudes and Behavior

  • Attitude: a predisposition a person has to act, think, or feel in certain ways
  • Behavior: the way a person acts

 

  • Behavior does not predict attitude and vice versa
  • Frequent discrepancies exist between the two on individual and cultural levels which can result in confusion

Common Fallacies: Egocentrism and Ethnocentrism

  • Fallacy: an error in reasoning that affects our understanding of a subject
  • Egocentric fallacy: the belief that our own personal experience and values are generally held by others
  • Ethnocentric fallacy: the belief that one’s own ethnic group, nation, or culture’s values and customs are innately superior to others’

Egocentrism and Ethnocentrism

  • Often occur in our consideration of different ethnic groups
  • Transmitted from one generation to another
  • Prevent understanding from a culturally relative position

Sex Research Methods

  • Scientific Method: the method by which a hypothesis is formed from impartially gathered data and tested empirically.
  • Induction: drawing a general conclusion from specific facts
  • Seeks to describe the world rather than to evaluate or judge it

Research Concerns

  • Ethical
  • Concerns use of human beings as subjects of research
  • Methodological
  • Concerns center on information-gathering techniques and accuracy
  • A representative sample of people is necessary to draw accurate conclusions

Ethical Issues

  • Informed consent
  • Full disclosure of purpose, risk, benefits
  • Agreement to participate may be withdrawn
  • Protection from harm
  • Emotional distress must be avoided
  • Identity of subjects must be confidential

Sampling

  • Sample: a portion of a larger group of people are observed or studied
  • Inferences are made to the larger group
  • Good samples are:
  • Random
  • Representative
  • Unbiased

Limitations of Samples Restrict Generalizations

  • Depend on volunteers or clients
  • Takes place at universities or colleges with student volunteers
  • Some ethnic groups are underrepresented
  • Gay men, lesbian women, bisexual and transgendered people may not be publicly identified

Clinical Research

  • An in-depth examination of an individual or group that comes to a specialist for assistance with disorders and problems
  • Limited by an emphasis on pathological behavior
  • Shaped by cultural definitions of what is pathological

Survey Research

  • Questionnaires
  • Administered quickly
  • Forced choice allows many formats
  • Interviews
  • Allow more information to be gathered
  • Allow subjects to guide topics
  • Sexual diaries
  • Collect richer information
  • May work well with some subjects but not all

Survey Research Limitations

    • Subjects may report self behavior with bias
    • Interviewers may collect information with a bias
    • Subjects may be embarrassed in an interview
    • Accuracy of subjects’ memory fades as time passes
    • Difficult for subjects to accurately estimate factors such as how long sexual encounters last

 

Observational Research

  • The researcher unobtrusively observes and makes notes about people’s behavior
  • Serious ethical issues in observing sexual behavior without subjects’ knowledge or consent
  • Known observation generally affects behavior

Participant Observation

  • The researcher participates in the behaviors which she or he is studying
  • Used frequently by anthropologists
  • Is sex research controversial because it compromises objectivity?

Experimental Research

    • The systematic manipulation variables to examine the effect on behavior

 

  • Independent variables: factors that can be manipulated and changed by the experimenter
  • Dependent variables: factors that are likely to be affected by changes in the independent variable

An Example of Experimental Research

    • Examine effect of various amounts of alcohol on sexual arousal
    • Alcohol—independent variable
    • Plethysmograph measurement of arousal—dependent variable
    • Causal effect demonstrated

 

 

The Sex Researchers

  • In 19th century, Western sexuality began to be studied from a scientific framework
  • Fascinated with “pathologies” of sex: fetishism, sadism, masturbation, homosexuality
  • Since that time, a liberalizing trend in our thinking about sexuality
  • 20th century researchers viewed sexuality more positively

The Sex Researchers

  • Three themes evident in later 20th century sex researchers’ work:
  • Belief that sexual expression is essential to an individual’s well being
  • Desire to broaden the range of legitimate sexual activity, including homosexuality
  • Belief that female sexuality is equal to male sexuality

Richard von Krafft-Ebing
(1840-1902)

  • Psychopathia Sexualis (1886):
  • A collection of the case histories of fetishists, sadists, masochists, and homosexuals
  • Attributed variations in Victorian sexuality to “hereditary taint,” “moral degeneracy,” and masturbation
  • Brought public attention to sexual behaviors that had never been documented

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

  • Dramatically impacted Western ideas
  • Sexuality begins at birth with five-stage development:
  • Oral stage (birth to 1 year)
  • Anal stage (age 1-3)
  • Phallic stage (age 3-5)
  • Latency stage (age 6-puberty)
  • Genital stage (puberty onward)

Sigmund Freud: Phallic stage

    • Oedipal Complex: Boy develops sexual desires for mother and fears father
    • Castration anxiety: Fears his father will cut off his penis: castration anxiety
    • Electra complex: Girl develops sexual desire for father and fears mother
    • Penis envy: Girls never acquire the “lost penis” and therefore fail to develop an independent character like that of boys
    • By age 6, boys and girls resolve their complexes by relinquishing their desires for their parents and identifying with their same-sex parent

 

Sigmund Freud: Impact

  • Freud was pioneering in commitment to science and explorations of the unconscious
  • Over the past generation, his influence among American sex researchers has dwindled
  • Lack of empiricism
  • Inadequate description of female development
  • Questions of relevance to contemporary society
  • In the field of sex research, his work is now primarily of historical interest

Havelock Ellis (1859-1939)

  • One of the first modern affirmers of sexuality
  • Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897-1910)
  • Pointed out the relativity of sexual values
  • Appealed to case studies as well as studies in animal behavior, anthropology, and history
  • Challenged view that masturbation was abnormal
  • Documented existence of women’s sexual desires
  • Reevaluated homosexuality as a congenital condition

Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956)

  • The Kinsey Reports
  • Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948)
  • Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953)
  • Statistical documentation of American sexual behavior
  • Showed a significant discrepancy between public standards and actual standards of sexual behavior

Alfred Kinsey: Impact

    • Sexual Diversity and Variation
    • Extraordinary diversity in behaviors of subjects
    • Many subjects (e.g. 50% of men) had sexual experiences with members of the same-sex

 

  • Reevaluation of Masturbation
  • Important for women
  • Harmless
  • Pleasurable

Alfred Kinsey: Controversy

  • Same sex behavior
  • Labels of “heterosexual” and “homosexual” were inadequate ways of understanding sexual behavior
  • Devised the “Kinsey Scale”
  • Rejection of normal/abnormal dichotomy
  • Sexual differences are a matter of degree, not kind
  • Became an advocate of the tolerance
  • Decline of society

Kinsey’s Scale from 0 to 6

Alfred Kinsey: Criticisms

    • Statistical methodology: unrepresentative sampling
    • Emphasis on quantification of sexual behavior
    • Rejection of the psychological dimension (reducing behavior to genital activity)

 

William Masters (1915-2001) and Virginia Johnson (1925-)

    • Human Sexual Response (1966)
    • Detailed the sexual response cycles of hundreds of male and female research subjects
    • Combined clinical observation with direct measurement of genital arousal using electronic devices

 

Masters and Johnson: Outcomes

  • Similarity of male and female sexual responses
  • Women achieve orgasms via clitoral stimulation
  • Legitimized female masturbation

Masters and Johnson: Outcomes

  • Human Sexual Inadequacy (1970)
  • Argued that sexual problems were not the result of neuroses or personality disorders
  • Rather, lack of information, poor communication, or relationship conflict contributed
  • Used behavioral therapy to treat sexual problems with great success

Contemporary Research Studies

  • Several large, national, or multi-site sexuality related studies have recently been conducted
  • The National Health and Social Life Survey (1994)
  • The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (biannual)
  • The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (annual)
  • The National Survey of Family Growth (periodic)
  • College Alcohol Study (every few years)
  • Community Intervention Trial for Youth Project

Contemporary Research Studies

  • Large scale national sexuality related studies
  • Smaller scale studies
  • Difficulties due to political and social climate
  • Restricted funding

The National Health and Social Life Survey 1994

  • Americans are largely monogamous
  • On average, Americans have sex about once a week
  • Adultery is the exception, not the rule
  • Most Americans rank vaginal intercourse as most preferred activity

The National Health and Social Life Survey (cont.)

    • Homosexuality less prevalent than originally believed
    • Orgasms appear to be the rule for men and the exception for women
    • Forced sex and the misperception of it remain critical problems
    • 3% of Americans claim never to have had sex

 

The National Survey of Family Growth 2002

  • A majority of Americans report experiencing a great deal of diverse sexual activity
  • A small percentage of Americans report experiencing homosexual activity
  • American men report more partners then women
  • A large group of Americans do not report using condoms in the last year

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey 2003

  • Almost half report having had sexual intercourse
  • Few report having had sexual intercourse with four or more partners
  • Over half report using a condom during their last sexual intercourse
  • One fourth report of sexually active students report using alcohol or drugs during most recent sexual experience

National College Health Assessment 2005

  • Majority report a new sex partner in the last year
  • Half report experiencing oral sex within the last month
  • Half report experiencing vaginal sex within the last month
  • Students do not routinely use condoms
  • Birth control pills and condoms are the most commonly used contraceptive

Emerging Research Perspectives

  • Feminist scholarship
  • Focus on gender issues
  • Examines distribution of power in sexual relationships
  • Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
  • Focus on personal experience
  • Examines social and psychological components

Feminist Scholarship Principles

  • Gender is significant
  • Female experience devalued
  • Power is critical in relationships
  • Different methodologies must be incorporated
  • Ethnic diversity must be addressed

Important GLBT researchers across time

 

  • Ulriches
  • Kertbeny
  • Hirschfeld
  • Hooker
  • Foucault

Critical Inclusions for Future Research

 

  • Expanded definitions of sexuality
  • Intervention based research
  • Accepting and positive representation of sexuality

Directions for Future Research

  • Global perspective
  • Inclusion of other fields of scientific study

Ethnicity and Sexuality

  • Researchers have begun to recognize differences among ethnic groups
  • Related factors: socioeconomic status, environment, methodology, researcher’s stereotypes

African Americans and Research

  • Sexual stereotypes
  • Socioeconomic status
  • Racism
  • Black subcultures

Latinos and Research

  • Sexual stereotypes
  • Traditional cultures
  • Catholicism
  • Acculturation

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

  • Increase in population
  • Collectivist culture
  • Immigration
  • Sexual stereotypes

Summary

  • Sex, advice columnists, and pop psychology
  • Methods of sex research
  • History of sex research
  • Challenges for the future
 
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