Sexuality

1. Sexuality Ch. 4

2. Sexual Development and Orientation • Children’s Sexual Development • We are sexual beings throughout our life. • As early as 24 hours after birth, male newborns get erections, and infants may touch their genitals. • Young children often exhibit overtly sexual behaviors. • Children are also interested in seeing nudity, touch their own sex organs, and “play doctor “ (examining another’s genitals). • Attachment to parents in infancy and childhood provides the emotional security essential to later sexual relationships.

3. Sexual Development and Orientation • As we develop into sexually expressive individuals, we manifest a sexual orientation. • Sexual orientation refers to whether an individual is drawn to a partner of the same sex or opposite sex. • Heterosexuals: Attracted to opposite-sex partners • Homosexuals: Attracted to same-sex partners • Bisexuals: Attracted to people of both sexes • Asexual: Have emotional feelings and may desire intimate relationships with others, just not sexual ones • Sexual orientation does not predict sexual behavior, nor aspects of personality such as masculinity or femininity.

4. Sexual Development and Orientation • A Closer Look At Diversity: Is it Okay to Be Asexual? • A newly identified sexual orientation is asexuality • Critical Thinking • Have you been aware of this concept before reading about it in the text? • Does society define it as dysfunctional?

5. Sexual Development and Orientation • Sexual orientation is generally perceived as dichotomous, however it may be a continuum • Freud, Kinsey, and many present-day psychologists and biologists maintain that humans are inherently bisexual • From the interactionist framework, the categories of sexual orientation are social inventions, with individuals sorting themselves into available categories and behaving accordingly • In time, social pressures to view oneself as either straight or gay may inhibit latent bisexuality or inconsistencies • Reasons for the development of a gay sexual orientation has not been definitively established, nor do we understand the development of heterosexuality • The APA argues that sexual orientation involves environment, cognitive and biological factors, is shaped at an early age, is not a choice, and cannot be changed at will.

6. The Interactionist Perspective: Negotiating Cultural Messages • Emphasizes the interpersonal negotiation of relationships in the context of sexual scripts • Cultural messages provide reasons for having sex, who should take the initiative, how long it should last, how important experiencing orgasm is, what positions are acceptable, and whether masturbating is appropriate. • More recent cultural messages are concerned with technology, for example, “sexting.” • Sexual scripts influence women and men, and are learned from their culture. • Sex partners assign meaning to their sexual activity. • Sex is symbolic of something, i.e., affection, communication, recreation or play. • Sex has different cultural meanings in different social settings.

7. Changing Cultural Scripts • From Colonial times until the 19th century, purpose of sex in America was defined as reproductive. • Sex became significant to many as a means of communication and intimacy beginning in the 19th century and flourishing in the 20th century. • Early America: Patriarchal Sex • Patriarchal sexuality is characterized by beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors developed to protect the male line of descent. • Men are to control women’s sexuality. • Has been challenged, but it persist to some extent

8. Changing Cultural Scripts • The Twentieth Century: The Emergence of Expressive Sexuality • Sexuality is seen as basic to the humanness of both women and one; there is no one-sided sense of ownership. • Sex is an important means of enhancing human intimacy. • The 1960s Sexual Revolution: Sex for Pleasure • The availability of birth control and changes in laws allowed intercourse to become separate from pregnancy, and helped reverse the idea that the state held sway over sexual and reproductive decisions. • Attitudes and behavior regarding sex changed: • In 1959, 80% stated disapproval of sex outside marriage. • In 2006, 25% said it was “always wrong.” • The rate of nonmarital sex and the number of partners rose, while age at first intercourse dropped---7.6% of young people were having sexual intercourse before the age of 13

9. Sexual Experience of High School Students by Race/Ethnicity and Gender, 2005

10. The 1980s and 1990s: Challenges to Heterosexism • Heterosexism: taken-for-granted system of beliefs, values, and customs that places superior values on heterosexual behavior and that denies or stigmatizes nonheterosexual relations • Gays and lesbians have become increasingly visible and have also challenged the notion that heterosexuality is the one proper form of sexual expressions

11. Do you think gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?

12. Comparing Gay Male and Lesbian Sexual Behaviors • Lesbian relationships are the “least sexualized,” have sex less frequently than gay men, report greater sexual satisfaction than do heterosexual women. • Significant percentages of men in both homo- and heterosexual monogamous relationships had slept with someone other than their own partner. • Patterns of sexual frequency and satisfaction in gay and lesbian relationships resemble those of heterosexual marriage and cohabitation.

13. Changing Cultural Scripts • The Twenty-First Century: Risk, Caution—and Intimacy • HIV/AIDS • Sexting

14. Issues for Thought: “Hooking Up” and “Friends with Benefits” • What do you think about the advisability of hooking up or having friends with benefits? • How might a researcher from an interactionist perspective investigate the way that couples bridge the gap between “hooking up” and “married with children”?

15. Negotiating (Hetero)sexual Expression • Sexual Fidelity • The banning against extramarital sex is stronger in the U.S. than in other parts of the world. • 92% consider it “morally wrong.” • Over a lifetime, approximately 25-50% of married men and women are going to cheat on their partner. • Risk factors • Many individuals contemplate the decision to engage in an extramarital affair • Loneliness is an important factor • Cyberadultery: adultery on the net • Effects of Sexual Infidelity • Jealousy • Creates a crisis • Increased attention to couple communication • Placing a higher value on value • Mixed data on whether it “causes” divorce

16. Sexuality throughout Marriage and Committed Relationships • How Often? • Sexual activity is highest among young marrieds. • Proportion of sexually active spouses gradually diminishes until about age fifty, when sharp declines are evident. • Fewer Good Weeks • Married couples have sex more often than single individuals, although less often than cohabiting couple. • About 40% of married individuals said they had intercourse at least twice a week. • Young Spouses • Young spouses have sexual intercourse more frequently than do older mates. • After a few years, frequency declines: • Honeymoon period subsides • Children • Jobs • Housework • Financial worries

17. Spouses in Middle Age • On average, as people get older, they have sex less often. • Physical aging is most important explanation, but is not the only one. • Marital satisfaction is second largest predictor of sexual frequency. • Older Partners • 56% of individuals age 45 and older agreed that a satisfying sexual relationship is important to one’s quality of life. • 73% of people aged 57 to 64 and 53% of people aged 65 to 74 remain sexual active. • What about Boredom? • Habituation: the decreased interest in sex that results from the increased accessibility of a sexual partner and the predictability in sexual behavior over time • Emotion Labor: Women, through their gendered work at home, display certain emotions that they believe are expected of them.

18. Race/Ethnicity and Sexual Activity • Black (28%) and Hispanic men (18%) were more likely to have had multiple sexual partners than were White men (13%) and men from other racial/ethnic groups (9%) • Asians report fewer sexual experiences and later first sexual experiences than Whites or Hispanics • Research on married couples suggest that sexual frequency does not vary significant with race, social class or religion

19. HIV/AIDS • HIV: • Human Immunodeficiency Virus • AIDS: • Acquired Immunodeficiency Virus • Rates of new HIV diagnoses increased 15% between 2004 and 2007

20. Who Has HIV/AIDS? • Over one million people are living with HIV or full-blown AIDS • 40% Black • 38% White • 16% Hispanic • Less than 1% for other groups • Around 70% of AIDS cases were diagnosed in people aged 25 to 44 • 10% of cases found among those age 50+ • HIV/AIDS and Gay Men • May gay men modified their sexual behavior in the 1980s • A 25% decrease in new cases of male-to-male transmission of HIV/AIDS from 2004-2007 • Life expectancy is now between 30 and 40 years with antiretroviral therapy

21. HIV/AIDS and Children • Most children with AIDS contracted it from their mothers during pregnancy, at birth or through breast milk. • HIV transmission is reduced from 25% to less than 2% is mothers are diagnosed and take appropriate medicines. • Children with AIDS may be abandoned, or raised by grandparents or foster parents.

22. Who Has HIV/AIDS? • Estimated rate of AIDS cases reported among adults and adolescents by race/ethnicity, 2005

23. Family Relations and HIV/AIDS • Telling one’s family that one has HIV/AIDS can create a crisis. • Shame and isolation • Emotional, financial and physical burdens • Caregiving • Loss of friends, lovers, or family members

24. The Politics of Sex • Sex Education • “Abstinence Only” programs focus on abstention from sexual relations unless in a monogamous marriage, and argues this is the only protection against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy • “Abstinence-Plus” programs include a discussion of contraception and AIDS prevention • Who should teach children about sex? • At what age?

25. Sexual Responsibility • Principles of sexual responsibility that may serve as guidelines for sexual decision-making: • Possibility of Pregnancy • Possibility of contracting STDs or transmitting them to someone else • Communicating with partners or potential sexual partners • Responsibility to self: decisions made according to own values

26. The Sexual Response Cycle Source: William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, Human Sexual Response (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), p.5. Reprinted by permission.

27. Reasons for Agreeing to Unwanted Sex Source: Adapted from Impett and Peplau 2002.

28. Methods of Birth Control

29. Methods of Birth Control (Cont’d)

30. Methods of Birth Control (Cont’d)

31. Methods of Birth Control (Cont’d)

32. Methods of Birth Control (Cont’d)

33. Methods of Birth Control (Cont’d)

34. Methods of Birth Control (Cont’d)

35. Percent Distribution of Women 15–44 Years of Age Using Contraceptive Methods Source: U.S. Census Bureau 2010b.

36. Legal Abortions, by Selected Characteristics Source:U.S. Census Bureau 2010b.

37. Proportion Having Premarital Sex Source: Adapted from Finer 2007.

38. Major Types of Sexually Transmitted Diseases AIDS ― Caused by a virus that attacks certain white blood cells, eventually causing the individual’s immune system to stop functioning Gonorrhea ― One of the oldest forms of sexual disease. It can be transmitted by any kind of sexual contact, including kissing. Syphilis ― Transmitted by sexual contact but can also be transmitted in a blood transfusion or, if a pregnant woman acquires it, to the fetus Genital Herpes ― Transmitted by sexual intercourse and shows up in the form of painful blisters on or in the area of the genitals. There is no cure for genital herpes. Chlamydial Infections ― Usually have no symptoms, and can cause infection of the urethra in males and infections in the reproductive system in females

39. Reported Cases of Sexually Transmitted Diseases: 1960–2007 Source: U.S. Census Bureau 1989:111 and 2010b.