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Youth and sexuality summaryLecture 1a. Sexuality research in the past century and now
What do we mean by Youth? What age group?
- Children/teens 0-18
- Adolescents 12-25
- Young (almost-) adults 16-30
Sexuality can be a lever (hefboom) in adolescent development
- Independence from parents
- Development of personal morality and identity
- Development of meaningful intimate relationships
- Crucial in finding balance between autonomy and connectedness
- Also, the first steps in terms of exploring desires and boundaries (consent)
Sex (‘sekse), sex (‘seks’) and gender
- Sex/seks: short for sexuality, often narrowly understood as activities towards sexual arousal.
- Sex/sekse: set of biological characteristics defining human beings as male or female
- Gender: the social-cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity, and connected processes and
effects
A lot of confusion about what people are talking about in gender or sex differences.
Sexuality
- Much more complex than what happens between the sheets.
- WHO, 2006: “... a central aspect of being human throughout life, that encompasses sex, gender
identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy and reproduction?”
- Sexuality is experienced and expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values,
behaviors, practices, roles, and relationships. It has many levels.
- While sexuality can include all these dimensions, not all of them are always experienced or
expressed.
- Sexuality is influenced by the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political,
cultural, legal, historical, religious, and spiritual factors.
Sexual health
- State of wellbeing; physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being in relation to sexuality
- It is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction, or infirmity.
- Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as
well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion,
discrimination, and violence.
- For sexual health to be attained and maintained, sexual rights of all persons must be respected,
protected, and fulfilled.
- Although this is a wide definition of sexual health, the outcome that is studied is narrow:
STI’s/HIV; unplanned pregnancies; sexual violence; sexual function, satisfaction (since recently)
Sexology is the scientific study of sexuality, ranging from evolutionary, cognitive, and social psychology to
male and female sexual problems, from history to anatomy and physiology, from transgender to love, and
from sexual orientation and paraphilia to sexual coercion and prostitution.
1
,Sexuality research in the past century
First scientific developments (1900-1940)
- From religious-moral to medical-psychiatric
- First steps of moving away from LGBT as disease, immoral or a crime
Alfred Kinsey (US, 1894-1956)
- Pioneer of sex research
- Biologist, zoologist, sexologist
- Revolutionary: he moved the field from medical to interdisciplinary
- Taxonomy of human sexual behaviors (including pedophilia)
Homosexuality as a scale
- Controversial in his time: revelations about masturbation, orgasm, premarital sex, homosexuality
(37% of all men have had homosexual orgasm), differences and similarities between men and
women, and more
John Money (New Zealand, 1921-2006)
- psychologist, sexologist
- Groundbreaking clinical empirical studies on gender identity development among intersex
children
- Introduced the term ‘gender’ (1955): all those things that a person says or does to disclose
himself or herself as having the status of man or woman. It includes, but is not restricted to,
sexuality in the sense of eroticism.
William Masters & Virginia Johnson
- 1966: ‘discovery’ of the human sexual response cycle
Stage 1: Excitement
Stage 2: Plateau
Stage 3: Orgasm
Stage 4: Resolution
- A natural physiological process, can be blocked by psychological inhibitions
- Controversial methods: observing people having sex
- Layed foundations for behavioral therapy of sexual dysfunctions
2
,The 70’s
Michel Foucault, Jonh Gagnon, William Simon Shere Hite, Susan Brownmiller
- Emergence of social-constructivist perspectives
Dismissal of the Freudian idea of ‘sexual instinct’
Growing attention for sexual violence, sexual equality (m/f)
- Sexuality = product of societal regulation, norms, meaning, and the freedom/ right to express
themselves
- Sexual behavior = social behavior
Sensitive for interpersonal and intra-psychological cultural scripts
1974: removal of homosexuality from the DSM
- After heated debate, 58% of 10.000 APA psychiatrists voted that homosexuality is no longer a ‘
mental disorder’
- Increased awareness:
What is normal and abnormal?
What is sexual ‘deviance’ or ‘variation’?
1998/2005: ‘discovery’ of the full anatomy of the clitoris - Helen O’Connell, US urologist
Ellen Laan (1962-2021)
Groundbreaking research into female sexual arousal Psychologist/ sexologist/ professor / founder of
Sexual Wellbeing Nederland
Some myths maintaining sexual inequalities*:
1. Men are from Mars, women from Venus
• Of 30 sexual behaviors, only 4 moderate differences, and 80,26% overlap (Petersen & Hyde, 2010)
2. Penis and vagina are important for reproduction and therefore for sexual pleasure
• Penis-in-vagina sex does not facilitate women’s orgasms
* Between heterosexual cisgender men/ women
Sexual inequality observation #1: Orgasm gap
In heterosexual relationships, women have fewer orgasms then the men with whom they have sex (65% vs
95%)
(Women in lesbian relationships have more orgasms)
Sexual inequality observation #2: Sexual pain
- About 10% of women always have pain during intercourse, in men this is rare
- Pain during intercourse is prevalent in young women (>50% in NL)
- The expectation of pain impairs arousal -- > more pain
Sexual SIMILARITY observations
3
, Men and women are similar in the capacity to experience sexual pleasure
- Responsivity to sexual stimuli
- Sexual desire
- Sex drive/ hormones (no, men aren’t always in the mood...)
But:
men and women have different opportunities for sexual pleasure (in heterosexual relationships)
- Gendered scripts, coital imperative (penis-in-vagina sex does not facilitate women’s orgasms)
Toward sexual equality
- A prioritization of pleasure for all→health benefits
- Diversity/ inclusion→ reduce impact of coital imperative/ gendered scripts
- Discourse of similarities instead of differences (promoting equality is not a women’s issue)
Ellen Laan: “Sex should not refer to a particular act, but to an experience: a sexually pleasurable
experience that is [can be] affectionately shared by equal individuals”.
Bullough, V. L. (1998). Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Report: Historical overview and lasting
contributions. The Journal of Sex Research, 35(2), 127- 131.
Kinsey, a biologist, brought to the study of sexual expression a taxonomic approach that is, an
interest in classification and description. Kinsey’s results challenged many widely held beliefs
about sexuality, including the belief that women were not sexual. His work contributed to
both the feminist and the gay/lesbian liberation movements. He was determined to make the
study of sex a science, and in large part he succeeded.
Kinsey strongly believed that people would not always tell the truth when questioned about their sexual
activities and that the only way to deal with this was through personal interviews in which the
contradictions could be explored. He did not believe that self-administered questionnaires produced
accurate responses: He regarded them as encouraging dishonest answers. He also recognized that
respondents might lie even in a personal interview, but he provided a variety of checks to detect this and
believed his checks were successful.
Although his data demonstrated that far more people were identified as exclusively heterosexual than as
any other category, his scale also implied that homosexuality was just another form of sexual activity,
something that I think Kinsey believed was true. For his time and place this was revolutionary. His
discussion of homosexuality and its prevalence resulted in the most serious attacks upon him and his data.
Another assumption of American society that Kinsey also challenged was the asexuality of women. This
proved the issue of greatest controversy in his book on females. In spite of the controversies over his data
on orgasms, it helped move the issue of female sexuality on to the agenda of the growing women's
movement of the late 1960s and the 1970s, and to encourage further studies of female sexuality.
Laan, E., Klein, V., Werner, M., Van Lunsen, R. H. W., & Janssen, E. (2021). In pursuit of pleasure: A
biopsychosocial perspective on sexual pleasure and gender. International Journal of Sexual Health,
33(4), 516–536.
ABSTRACT
Objective
Various sources of evidence suggest that men and women differ in their experience of sexual pleasure.
Such gender differences have been attributed to men’s higher innate sex drive, supported by evolutionary
psychology perspectives and gender differences in reproductive strategies.
Introduction
4
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