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Summary Psychology of Sexuality
- Instelling
- Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
A summary of the lectures of the course 'psychology of sexuality'.
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1HC1: Introduction
Sex, a computer metaphor: people have a body; they have biology and that is comparable to the
hardware of the computer. All these things determine how we perform and experience sex. In
addition, there is an operating system: evolution. People have developed patterns of behavior over
time. A computer does not run until you install software on it: it’s the social environment and
culture. You learn how you think about sex, how you should behave sexually or how you shouldn’t
behave. And then there’s a helpdesk if it doesn’t work: the sexologist.
Computers always get old and then they’ll develop quirks and limitations. This will be discussed
during the course as well.
What is sex and why do we do it?
Most people have positive associations with sex: 90% of women under age 25 and 94% of men under
age 25 say they enjoy sex. But what is sex?
- Wikipedia: Human sexual activity, human sexual practice or human sexual behaviour is the
way humans experience and express their sexuality
- Oxford dictionary: Sex = sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse Sexuality =
sexual activity
- Yourdictionary: Sex = any function or behaviour involved with reproduction
- Go Ask Alice: sex = the birds and the bees. Getting it on
So, sex = sex. There are a lot of terms for sex.
World Health Organisation: “sexual health is a state of physical, mental and social well-being in
relation to sexuality.” So: body, mind, and social environment. They describe sexuality as following:
“sexuality is influenced by the interaction of the biological, psychological, social, economic, political,
cultural, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors.” So: body, mind, social environment, culture,
religion, etc. → sex is complex.
The book looks at sex using the biopsychosocial
model: sex is influenced by biology, psychological
factors and social factors.
How do people have sex?
- Not:
o Asexuality: a lack of desire for
sexual activity
o Voluntary celibacy (complete or
partial): they have sexual desire,
but will not act on it (often
religious/moral reasons)
▪ Complete: no
masturbation
▪ Partial: you can
masturbate
o Involuntary celibacy: people who
do want to have sex, but are separated from their partner, e.g.:
▪ People in the army
▪ Institutional restrictions (hospital, nursing home, etc.)
▪ When you’re chronically ill
▪ When your partner loses interest
▪ Incel: involuntary celibates: members of an online subculture who define
themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring
one (usually white, heterosexual men). On these forums you’ll find a lot of
resent, anger, racism, etc. These men often feel like they’re entitled to have
sex: they have the right to have sex. In some cases, they turn to violence.
, 2
- Solitary sexual behaviors:
o Sexual fantasy
▪ Men fantasize more than women and men also fantasize about having
multiple partners more regularly. Women tend to fantasize more about the
romantic side of sex, while men fantasize more about the explicit sex act.
o Masturbation: self-stimulation, focused on the genitals aiming at an orgasm,
sometimes with the use of sex toys
▪ Males masturbate more than women and it’s more common for young
people, white people, and people with a higher education. In more religious
cultures, masturbation is seen less often.
▪ Research shows that masturbation is not unhealthy, it might even be
healthy. For women, it’s good for your self-esteem, for men, it lowers the
risk of prostate cancer and for both it boosts your immune system.
▪ The risk with masturbation is that when you’re sexually aroused often, you’ll
get aroused even more. You can get turned on by the strangest things: your
perception of what is sexually attractive changes. So, you can get aroused by
weights and masturbate with them and get your dick stuck in them.
- Partnered sexual behaviors:
o Kissing
▪ Not universal, in half of the cultures kissing isn’t normal. Why do we kiss? It
might be a way of selecting a partner; there are good kissers and bad kissers
and unconsciously you might base your decision if this is a good partner on
the kissing. It might also be a way to swap bacteria, which can be beneficial
for your health → improving your immune system.
▪ Occurs, on average, on age 15 worldwide. In the Netherlands it’s age 16.
o Touching
▪ Every part of the body can be an erogenous zone, this can also take place by
learning.
▪ Tribadism: rubbing genitals together, e.g. scissoring.
o Oral sex
▪ Quite new. More frequent for youngsters, whites, and people with a higher
education. About 75% of the population performs oral sex. For about 10% of
men and 20% of women oral sex is the preferred way to reach an orgasm.
▪ In some cultures, oral sex is seen as unclean
▪ Cunnilingus: oral stimulation of the vulva
▪ Fellatio: oral stimulation of the penis
o Anal sex (intercourse or anilingus)
▪ Increasingly popular amongst young, white, high educated people.
Homosexuals don’t necessarily have more anal sex than heterosexual
couples.
▪ Dangerous technique, because the rectum is very delicate, and it doesn’t
lubricate itself.
▪ ATM: Ass To Mouth. First putting the penis in the ass and then performing
oral sex on the penis. This has a high risk of transmitting sexual infections.
o Vaginal intercourse (coitus)
▪ Most common form of partnered sexual behavior. In America, the average
for performing vaginal intercourse for the first time is 17 year, in the
Netherlands it’s 18.6 years.
▪ How do people have coitus? The four “basic” positions are: missionary,
cowgirl, doggystyle and spooning. A variation on the missionary position is
the CAT position, where you place a pillow under the women’s buttocks, so
the clitoris gets stimulated more.
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There is more than coitus, but is it sex?
In America, a popular way to look at
sex is by the baseball metaphor. You
can see only penetrative sex is seen as
sex. Americans have a narrow concept
of sex, whereas Dutch students have a
broader concept of sex. But the
conclusion is: there is no consensus
about what sex is.
When you define sex as only vaginal
penetration, do homosexuals and
lesbians have sex? When is a lesbian
not a virgin anymore?
A lot of homosexuals define anal
intercourse as having sex. For lesbians,
they think you’re having sex when
there’s oral stimulation, are using a
dildo (or double-ended dildo) or when there’s manual genital stimulation. You can see there’s a lot
more variation; a lot more techniques are considered as sex.
The concept of sex changes over time. Former beliefs about sex:
- Heterosexual penis-vagina coitus
- Where the man has an orgasm (women don’t)
- Within a monogamous relationship, preferably marriage
- With the aim of reproduction
Why do humans have sex?
Biologists will say: the goal of sex is mixing genes and survival of the species. But that is more the
result of sex. People have sex for:
- Procreation (reproduction): passing on genes
- Recreation (pleasure): focused on
satisfying sexual desires
- Relation: to strengthen the emotional
bond with your partner
But are these all the reasons? An investigation
showed there are 237 reasons, e.g.:
- I was attracted to the person
- I was horny
- I wanted to please my partner
- I was curious about my sexual abilities
- I was drunk
In clusters, you could say:
- Physical, e.g. attraction, relief
- Goal attainment, e.g. job promotion,
having a child, revenge
- Emotional, e.g. show affection, increase
emotional bond
- Insecurity, e.g. feel powerful, pressured into it
Historical changes in view on sex:
, 4
For centuries Nowadays
Activity Penis-in-vagina intercourse Wide range of behaviors:
mutual masturbation,
oral/vaginal/anal stimulation,
sexting, phone sex, etc.
Relationship Within the context of marriage Variety of relationships:
unmarried romantic partners,
FWB, same-sex relationships
Motivation For the purpose of procreation Wide range of reasons:
procreation, recreation,
attraction, fun, affection, etc.
Psychology of human sexuality: Sexuality is about all sensory perceptions, emotions and cognitions
that someone associates with physical sexual arousal, and that usually leads to sexual desire and / or
behavior.
HC2 & HC3: Views on sexuality
Sex is quite a complex matter: there are multiple techniques in diverse relationships with various
goals. Sex is only sex if there’s consent. It there’s no consent, we call it sexual assault or rape.
There’re a lot of situations in which rape occurs, especially in war zones. You can destroy a
community by performing public rape for instance. And then there’s corrective rape: (usually) a
woman/girl gets raped because she doesn’t conform to the gender stereotype within the
community, e.g. she is lesbian. By raping her they believe it will turn her into a heterosexual woman.
Sex can also be a weapon of power: Trump bragging about sexual assaulting women: “grab them by
the pussy”. As a result of this, the #metoo movement started.
If sex is this complex for humans, is it also this complex for
animals? → Is human sexuality different from animal
sexuality? And from the animals that are closest to us?
There is 98,4% genetic similarity between humans and
chimpanzees, and between humans and bonobos. The
bonobo is a monkey species that hasn’t been recognized as
its own species for a long time. There weren’t a lot of them,
so people just thought they were weird chimpanzees. But
nowadays they’re recognized as a separate species.
Chimpanzees look so much like humans, and they’re
aggressive. When there’s a conflict, they will fight to resolve
it, the alpha male will fight for its position in the group. We
always assumed this was very similar to humans, and
therefore we look a lot like chimpanzees → our behavior is
embedded in genes and it’s inherited so there’s nothing we can do about it. The study of the bonobo
shows things can be done different, even though the genetic similarity is just as big. The bonobo
solves conflicts with sex. And the women are the boss: there’s a matriarchal society instead of a
patriarchy (for humans). This is quite uncommon among animals. The bonobos thus solve social
conflict with sex; therefore, they’re also called the orgasmic monkeys: they orgasm approximately 10
times a day. Frans de Waal was the first to investigate bonobos. He also looked at the way bonobos
have sex: missionary style. Which is quite rare, since we thought humans were the only ones having
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