STUDYING SEXUALITY

• Surveys
• Pre-Kinsey

• Henry Havelock Ellis
• Clelia Duel Mosher
• Kinsey, 1953
• Hunt (Playboy Foundation, 1974)
• National Opinion Research Council, 1994
• Direct Observation

• Animal Studies
• Human Studies

• Strong Evidence For Gender Differences
• Orgasm Consistency

• Females are less consistent than males in having orgasms, at least during coitus
• Early research (Kinsey, 1953)
• More recent surveys
• Masturbation
• Early Research
• Later Research (Hunt, 1974)
• NORC (1994)
• Mixed Evidence For Gender Differences
• Desire for Sex
• Results are mixed
• 1920 survey
• BUT Hunt, 1974
• Redbook survey
• Motives for Having Sex
• Stereotype

• Male
• interested in physical aspects and a "love 'em and leave 'em" philosophy
• Female
• interested in love and romance and concerned with the interpersonal aspects of a relationship
• Research
• Hyde and her colleagues (1984) asked college students "What would be your motives for having sexual intercourse?"
• Typical female answers
• emotional feelings that we shared
• wonderful way to express love
• wanting to share myself with someone I love
• needing to be needed
• Typical male answers:
• need it
• to gratify myself
• for the pleasure or the love
• to satisfy my needs
• when I'm tired of masturbation
• Some more research
• Hyde et al (1984) also looked at feelings toward "one-night" stands
• Arousal to Erotic Stories
• Kinsey report that 14% of women reported arousal by erotic stories
• 50% of men
• More recent evidence has shown little gender differences
• Example
• Schmidt & Sigush (1970) showed erotic (petting & coitus) slides and movies to 128 male and 128 female university students.
• They found small or no difference in arousal between men and women.

• HOWEVER, women, but not men showed an increase in petting and coitus in the 24 hours after seeing the erotic stimuli.

• Participants were sexually experienced men and women undergraduates who listened to tape recording of erotic stories.

• Obtained both self-report and physiological measures of arousal.
• Males
• penile strain gauge
• a flexible loop that fits around the base of the penis.
• Females
• photoplethysmograph
• an acrylic cylinder placed just inside the entrance to the vagina.
• Participants saw 1 of 4 kinds of tapes
• erotic
• male stereotypic for arousal
• romantic
• female stereotypic
• erotic-romantic
• control
• Also varied the plots of the tapes
• Whether female or the male initiated sexual activity
• Whether the plot centered on the female's or the male's physical and psychological response.
• Three Important Results
• Explicit sex (erotic and erotic-romantic) was the most arousing for both females and males in both self-reports and physiological data.

• Both women and men found female-initiated, female-centered tapes as the most arousing

• Women were sometimes NOT AWARE of their own physiological arousal.
• Some Information from the NORC
• Premarital Intercourse
• 93% of men
• 79% of women
• Extramarital sex
• <25% of men
• <10% of women
• Sexual abuse during childhood
• 12% of men
• 17% of women
• IN CONCLUSION

SEXUALITIES

• Heterosexuality

Definition

Exhibiting sexual desire to a person of the opposite sex

During Adolescence

Double Standard

Sex Education

Boys

Girls

Dating

Premarital Intercourse

Men Women

• Kinsey 71% 33%
• Hunt 97% 67%
• NORC 93% 79%

• Intimacy
• During Adulthood
• Styles
• Celibacy
• Monogamy
• Free Experimentation
• Homosexuality
• Definition
• Exhibiting sexual desire to a person of one's own sex
• Biological Viewpoint
• "sexual behavior in the human is more dependent upon pre- and postnatal genetic-endocrine influences than upon the postnatal environment."
• BUT his argument is based primarily on animal research and on an uncontrolled study of 9 daughters of mothers given androgenic progestin during pregnancy (Money & Erhardt)
• Other Evidence He Cited
• Kallman article that speculates that homosexuality is inherited
• Studies of children in the Dominican Republic
• Work done with males with either psychosexual disorders or venereal disease
• Some Other "Evidence" That Is Often Cited
• Hormonal disorders prenatally caused homosexuality
• Lower testosterone levels in male homosexuals with "feminine dispositions" than in males with a normal somatosexual appearance

• Self-reports of playing with dolls and other feminine pursuits before socialization could have occurred
• Predominantly female-differentiated brain
• Experimental Studies
• Boys exposed prenatally to female hormones
• Good, scientific research
• Two comparisons
• Results
• Animal Studies
• These have attempted to prevent or eliminate homosexuality by manipulating hormones or by psychosurgery.
• Other Work

• Review of all studies prior to 1979 that examined hormones and female homosexuality
• Only 13 studies involved humans
• 1/3 of lesbians have elevated androgen levels
• 2/3s do not

• 1981 Kinsey Institute of 979 homosexuals and 477 heterosexuals, both male and female, in the San Francisco area
• WHAT DOES CAUSE HOMOSEXUALITY?
• We do not know the cause
• BUT
• It probably has multiple causes

• For some it may be caused by biological factors
• For others, it may be family factors
• And for others, it may be unpleasant heterosexual experience and/or pleasant homosexual experiences
• Or it may be any combination of these three explanations.
• Differences between Lesbians and Gay Men
• Statistics
• 13% of females and 37% of males have had at least 1 homosexual experience to orgasm
• 1 to 3% of all females are exclusively lesbian
• 3 to 16% of all males are exclusively gay
• Some Differences
• Gay men tend to have many different sexual partners
• Lesbians tend to form long-term relationships
• Women are more likely to be bisexual than are men
• Why Aren't Male And Female Homosexuals The Same?
• Storms suggests that most people develop their sex drive in early adolescence (12-15)
• Supporting Evidence
• Good Theory
• BUT
• Bisexuality
• Definition:

  Attraction to individuals of both genders

• Types identified by Little

  n      Alternating bisexuals

  n      Circumstantial bisexuals

  n      Concurrent relationship bisexuals

  n      Conditional bisexuals

  n      Emotional bisexuals

  n      Integrated bisexuals

  n      Exploratory bisexuals

  n      Hedonistic bisexuals

  n      Recreational bisexuals

  n      Isolated bisexuals

  n      Latent bisexuals

  n      Motivational bisexuals

  n      Transitional bisexuals

  STAGES OF BISEXUAL IDENTITY

  n      Confusion over sexual orientation.

  n      Discovery of the bisexual label and choosing to identify as bisexual.

  n      Settling into and maintaining a bisexual identity.

  n      Transforming adversity.

• Bem, D. (1996). Exotic becomes erotic: A developmental theory of sexual orientation. Psychological Review, 103, 320-335.
• How does the exotic become the erotic?
• Extrinsic Arousal Effect
• Imprinting
• Opponent Process
• Physiological phenomenon
• Homeostatic arousal
• a process
• b process