This summary includes all course material, including lectures, mini-lectures, previous-years presentations, quiz solutions, and the entire book of the course - Understanding Human Sexuality (15th edition).
There could be some minor mistakes such as typos, I apologize for those.
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Chapter 1 – Sexuality in Perspective
Sex – sexual anatomy and sexual behavior
Gender – being male, female, or something else
Gender binary – gender as having two categories – male and female
Sexual behavior – behavior that produces arousal and increases the chance of
orgasm
Religion and sexuality
Greek myth about original humans being double creatures split in half – that is
how they explained sexuality
Fifteenth-century Christians – ‘wet dreams ‘ resulted from intercourse with tiny
spiritual creatures – sodomy
Muslim – sexual intercourse as the finest pleasure of life
Science and sexuality
Anton van Leeuwenhoek – sperm swimming in semen
Oskar Hertwig – fertilization of egg
Freud – sexuality as primary force in motivation of all human behavior and the
principal cause of all forms of neurosis
Peter Gay
Henry Havelock Ellis – women are also sexual creatures, sexual deviations
are often harmless, masturbation is common, physical and psychological
factors play role in problems – Studies in the Psychology of Sex
Richard von Krafft-Ebing – pathological sexuality, terms sadism, masochism,
pedophilia, homo/heterosexuality, sexual disorders based on patients’
experiences
, Magnus Hirschfeld – first sex research institute, term transvestite,
administered the first large-scale sex survey obtaining data from 10 000
people on a 130-item questionnaire – destroyed by Nazis
Alfred Kinsey – sexual orientation on a 7-point scale, Kinsey Reports
Masters and Johnson – observational sex research, physiology of sexual
response and sexual disorders
The media
- Cultivation theory – what is seen in the media represents real life
- Framing theory (agenda setting) – media draws attention to certain topics
and not to others
- Social cognitive theory – the idea that the media provide role models whom
we imitate
- Selectivity – people pay attention only to certain media and their messages,
and not to others
- Reinforcing spiral theory – social identities and ideologies predict media
use, which in turn affects our identities
- Different susceptibility model – not everyone reacts the same to the same
media exposure
Cross-cultural perspectives on sexuality
- Ethnocentrism – the tendency to regard one’s own culture as superior, its
own customs are the standard by which other cultures should be judged
- all societies regulate sexual behavior in some way
- incest taboo - regulations prohibiting sexual interaction between blood
relatives are nearly universal
- condemnation of forced sexual relations
- societies respond differently to
o kissing – 54% of cultures do not do it sexually
o cunnilingus
o inflicting pain
o frequency of intercourse
o masturbation – sometimes accepted, sometimes not
o premarital and extramarital sex
o sex with same-gender partners
- variation in human sexual behavior
- places personal standards and behavior in perspective
- provides evidence concerning the importance of culture and learning in the
shaping of sexual behavior
In the US
, - differences in pill usage, cohabitation unions, premarital cohabitation that
transitions to marriage, first marriages for men that are intact at 20
- ethnic group variations
o differences in African American and White people in the US (marriage
difference, difference in oral sex, etc.)
o Latinx – machismo, marianismo, familismo – cultural valuing of family
o Asians – collectivism, conformity to norms, emotional control, yin and
yang to describe sexuality in China
o American Indians – historical trauma (Cumulative psychological
wounding passed down across generations as a result of massive
group trauma.)
Cross-species perspectives on sexuality
- Other mammals also – masturbate, show same-sex behavior, sexual signaling
- Sexual behavior – in lower species controlled hormonally, in higher species by
the brain
- Sexual behavior can also be used non-sexually
Sexual health: A state of physical, emotional, mental, and social well- being in
relation to sexuality.
Sexual rights: Basic, inalienable rights regarding sexuality, both positive and
negative, such as rights to reproductive self-determination and sexual self-
expression and freedom from sexual abuse and violence.
Chapter 2 – Theoretical Perspectives on Sexuality
Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are evolutionary theories.
Sociobiology – application of evolutionary biology to understanding the social
behavior of animals
Evolution – all living things have acquired their present forms through
gradual changes in their genetic endowment over successive generations –
what counts is producing a lot of healthy, viable offspring who will carry on
one’s genes – identifying healthy mates, courtship patterns, family structure
and infant vulnerability
Natural selection – a process in nature resulting in greater survival of those
best adapted to environment
Infants are more likely to survive if the parents love each other (pair-bond)
and if the child can be attached to parents
, Parental investment – behaviors invested in the offspring by the parent that
increase the offspring’s chance of survival
Sexual selection – creates differences between males and females
- Consists of – competition amongst members of one gender,
preferential choice by members of the other gender
Criticism – biological determinism, outmoded version of evolutionary
theory (not focused on group survival), central function of sex is believed
to be reproduction
Evolutionary psychology – focuses on psychological mechanisms that have been
shaped by evolution – every characteristic we observe must have some adaptive
significance
- Sexual strategies – short-term vs long-term mating – intrasexual competition
for access to mates
- Criticism – men and women similar in their preferences, not everything has
adaptive significance
Gender neutral evolutionary theory
- Patricia Gowaty
- given varied environments, it is not adaptive for humans to display fixed
behaviors—or fixed gender differences in behavior—determined by
evolution
- evolution has selected for flexibility and adaptability
Psychoanalytic theory, learning theory, social exchange theory and cognitive theory
are psychological theories.
Psychoanalytic theory – basic assumption that part of human personality is
unconscious, Freud
- saw sex as one of the key forces in human life
- libido – sex drive, one of two major motivating forces for human behavior
(and Thanatos – death instinct)
- id – pleasure principle, basic part, present at birth, has libido
- ego – reality principle, keeps id in line, realistic, rational
- superego – conscience, values and ideals of society that we learn, operates
on idealism, striving for moral goals
- erogenous zones – areas of the body particularly sensitive to sexual
stimulation
- Oedipus
complex –
sexual attraction
of a little boy for
his mother
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