Sexuality in Perspective
How do we perceive and understand sexuality and sexual behavior?
Defining our Vocabulary
• Gender
– being male or female
• Sexual behavior
– produces arousal & increases chance of orgasm
Sources of Information about Sexuality
• Religion
– Main source of sexual information for most of human history
• provide norms & values which influence individual attitudes & behaviors
– Correlation between religiosity& sexual variance, permissiveness
• Science
– Emerged from rigid & oppressive Victorian era
• Sigmund Freud - recognized psychological and social dimensions of sexuality
• Henry Havelock Ellis - objective, tolerant
– Alfred Kinsey - surveys of sexual behavior
– Contemporary study of sexuality is interdisciplinary
• Media
– Most influential source of sexual information for contemporary Americans
• most frequent portrayal is heterosexual intercourse between unmarried partners - safe sex is
rare
– 3 types of influence: cultivation or mainstreaming, agenda-setting, social learning
– Internet is newest and most powerful mass media influence
Cross-cultural Perspectives
• Ethnocentrism
• All societies regulate sexual behavior in some way (example - incest taboo)
• Great variation in behavior and attitudes between cultures
– masturbation, premarital & extramarital sex, same gender sex, sexual attractiveness
Variation within Our Culture
• Social class, educational, & ethnic group variations within our culture
– masturbation, oral sex, multiple partners, gender roles, conceptions terminated by abortion
• differences based on education
• differences based on ethnicity (see table 1.2 in text book)
• Correlation between social class & sexual variance, permissiveness
• Correlation between educational level and sexual variance, permissiveness
Importance of Cross-cultural Studies
• Variation in sexual behavior puts our values, norms, & behavior in perspective
• Culture & learning have profound impact on sexual behavior
– not just the result of biological drives or instincts
Sexual Health Perspective
• Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to human sexuality as well as the
possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences free of coercion, discrimination, and
violence.
•
Sexual physical health
•
Sexual mental health
•
Positive sexual relationships
• Sexual rights
•
Right to reproductive self-determination
•
Freedom from sexual abuse and sexual violence
•
Right to sexual self-expression (as long as it doesn’t interfere with someone else’s sexual
rights)