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Lecture Notes Sexology
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Lecture notes Sexology Elective
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SexologyLecture 1 Introduction and History of Sexology
The Gender Person
Sexual health
A state of physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being in relation to sexuality
The ability to sexually adapt and self-manage in the face of life’s physical, psychological, and
social challenges
Sexual rights
Basic inalienable rights regarding sexuality both positive and negative so as right to
reproductive self-determination and sexual self-expression and freedom from sexual abuse
and violence
Sexology
- Scientific interdisciplinary study of sexuality
- Looks at all the bio-psycho-social aspects of sexuality
- If one area changes, other areas also change
Social: norms & values, religion, culture,
relationships, communication, etc.
Psyche: body image, anxiety, depression, self-image,
personality, etc.
Biological: medical treatments, illnesses,
menopause, medication, nerves, hormones, etc.
Theories on sexology
1. Evolutionary theories: evolution, natural selection (attractiveness), parental
investment
- Patterns of behavior and physical characteristics have evolved through natural
selection
- Short- and long-term strategies
- Differences between men and women
, 2. Psychological theories: psycho-analytic (Freud), learning theories (conditioning),
social exchange theory and cognitive theories
3. Critical theories: feminist theory, gender as status and inequality, queer theory
4. Sociological theories: sexual script theory (religion, economy, law)
History of sexology
Tissot (1766): Onanism, the disorders produced by masturbation
Heiman & LoPiccolo (1988): directed masturbation, an effective treatment for lifelong female
orgasmic disorder
Sigmund Freud: the first to make the transition to a more scientific study of sexuality
Human behavior is motivated by
- Libido: “the existence of sexual needs in human beings and animals is expressed in
biology by the assumption of a ‘sexual instinct’, on the analogy of the instinct of
nutrition, that is of hunger. Everyday language possesses no counterpart to the word
‘hunger’, but science makes use of the word ‘libido’ for that purpose”
- Thanatos
Drive: according to Freud, the libido is ‘fuelled’ by the sexual instincts. An instinct arises from
a source within the body:
“Its source is a state of excitation in the body, its aim is the removal of that excitation…”
“We picture it as a certain quota of energy which presses in a particular direction. It is from
this pressing that is derives its name of ‘Trieb’ (drive, instinct)”
Drive model: You have sex because your instinct drives you, pushes you
Freud’s stages of psycho-sexual development
1. Pre-genital stages: oral, anal, phallic/oedipal stages (1-6 years)
2. Latency stage (6-12 years)
- Libido relatively low
3. Genital stage (12 years onwards)
Mature female sexuality
- Sexual pleasure is transferred from the clitoris to the vagina
- A healthy woman experiences a vaginal orgasm
- If a woman only has a clitoral orgasm, this is a sign of fixation and intrapsychic
problems
Marie Bonaparte, a patient of Freud
- Was unable to achieve a vaginal orgasm, despite many years of analysis with Freud
- Research on the distance between clitoris and urethra (N=200)
Early 1900s
- Havelock Ellis: medical and anthropological findings – Liberal view on female
sexuality and deviations
- Krafft-Ebing: classification of perversions/deviations (‘psychopathia Sexualis’)
- Bloch: methods and insights of ‘Sexualwissenschaft’ (Sexology) must correspond with
insights of natural and cultural sciences
, - Magnus Hirschfeld: first treatmentcentre for sexual problems, fought for the rights of
the LGBTQ+ community
Themes in the first 30 years of the 20th century
- Clinical methodology based on case studies
- Need for scientific research
- Belief in a universal sexual instinct
- Divergences are the result of a disease, and should be treated by a physician
After WWII: leading role for the US
Alfred Kinsey: Institute for Sex Research (194&), biologist
- ‘Course’ on marriage (for students who were married or expecting marriage)
- Interviews about sexual behavior (11.000)
- Tried to approach sexuality in a scientific way
John Money (1921-2006)
- Psychologist, study of the development of gender identity in children
- ‘Man and Woman, Boy and Girl’ (1972) – key theme: sex, gender, gender differences
Nature-nurture controversy
- Twins (boys) were ‘circumcised’: for one of them, the operation went wrong
- This boy was then ‘reconstructed’ as a girl and for several years was raised as a girl
- Was intended to provide ultimate proof that nurture is the essential factor in your
gender identity
Masters and Johnson (1960s and 70s)
- The first to conduct psychophysiological laboratory research
- ‘Human sexual response cycle’
- Basis for the new behavioral therapy approach to sexual problems: ‘sensate focus’
and with partner
Sexual response cycle
Sex therapy based on behavioral therapy (sensate focus)
- Using behavioral exercises to restore the ‘natural sexual response’ in 3 steps
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