Chapter 8

1. Chapter 8 Understanding Sexuality

2. Chapter Outline • Psychosexual Development in Young Adulthood • Psychosexual Development in Middle Adulthood • Psychosexual Development in Later Adulthood • Sexual Behavior • Sexual Enhancement

3. Chapter Outline • Sexual Relationships • Nonconsensual Sexual Behavior • Sexual Problems and Dysfunctions • Birth Control • Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV /Aids • Sexual Responsibility

4. Developmental Tasks In Young Adulthood • Integrating love and sex. • Forging intimacy and commitment. • Making fertility/childbearing decisions. • Establishing a sexual orientation. • Developing a sexual philosophy.

5. Traditional Female Sexual Scripts • Sex is both good and bad. • Girls don’t want to know about their bodies “down there.” • Sex is for men. • Men should know what women want. • Women shouldn’t talk about sex. • Women should look like models. • There is only one right way to experience orgasm.

6. Traditional Male Sexual Scripts • Men should not have (or not express) certain feelings. • Performance is the thing that counts. • The man is in charge. • A man always wants sex and is ready for it. • All physical contact leads to sex. • Sex equals intercourse. • Sexual intercourse always leads to orgasm.

7. Traits Associated with the Traditional Male Role • Sexual competence. • Ability to give partners orgasms. • Sexual desire. • Prolonged erection. • Being a good lover. • Fertility. • Reliable erection. • Heterosexuality.

8. Contemporary Sexual Scripts • Sexual expression is positive. • Sexual activities are a mutual exchange of erotic pleasure. • Sexuality is equally involving of both partners, and the partners are equally responsible.

9. Contemporary Sexual Scripts • Legitimate sexual activities are not limited to sexual intercourse but also include masturbation and oral-genital sex. • Sexual activities may be initiated by either partner. • Both partners have a right to experience orgasm, through intercourse, oral genital sex, or manual stimulation.

10. Contemporary Sexual Scripts • Nonmarital sex is acceptable within a relationship context. • Gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships are increasingly accepted, especially on college campuses and in large cities.

11. Stages in Acquiring a Lesbian or Gay Identity • Fear and suspicion that one’s desires are different from those of others. • Labeling feelings of attraction, love, and desire as homoerotic if they recur often enough. • The person’s self-definition as lesbian or gay. • Entering the gay subculture. • First lesbian or gay love affair.

12. Hate/Bias Crimes Against Gays According to one study of anti-gay hate crimes in eight U.S. cities: • 19% of gay men and lesbians reported being punched, kicked, beaten, or hit because of sexual orientation. • 44% faced threats of such violence. • 94% suffered anti-gay victimization, including being verbally abused, chased or pelted with objects, spat upon, or assaulted.

13. Factors in Anti-Gay Prejudice • Deeply rooted insecurity concerning the person’s own sexuality and gender identity. • Strong fundamentalist religious orientation. • Simple ignorance concerning homosexuality.

14. Bisexual Identity Formation • Initial confusion. • Finding and applying the bisexual label. • Settling into the identity and feeling at home with the bisexual label. • Continued uncertainty.

15. Psychosexual Development In Middle Adulthood • Redefining sex in marital or other long-term relationships. • Reevaluating one’s sexuality. • Accepting the biological aging process.

16. Psychosexual Development in Later Adulthood • Changing sexuality. • Loss of partner.

17. Conditions For Good Sex • Accurate information about sexuality, especially your own and your partner’s. • Orientation toward sex based on pleasure rather than performance and orgasm. • Being involved in a relationship that allows each person’s sexuality to flourish.

18. Conditions For Good Sex • Ability to communicate about sex, feelings, and relationships. • Being equally assertive and sensitive about your own sexual needs and those of your partner. • Accepting, understanding, and appreciating differences between partners.

19. Common Conditions for Good Sex • Feeling intimate with your partner. • Feeling sexually capable. • Feeling trust. • Feeling aroused. • Feeling physically and mentally alert. • Feeling positive about the environment and situation.

20. Premarital Intercourse: Individual factors • Previous sexual experience • Once the psychological barrier against premarital sex is broken, sex becomes less taboo. • Sexual attitudes • Those with liberal sexual attitudes are more likely to engage in sexual activity.

21. Premarital Intercourse: Individual factors • Personality characteristics • Men and women who do not feel high levels of guilt about sexuality are more likely to engage in sex. • Gender: • Women are more likely to comply with partner-initiated sex to maintain their relationships.

22. Premarital Intercourse: Relationship factors • Level of intimacy. • Length of time the couple has been together. • Persons in relationships in which power is shared equally are more likely to be sexually involved than those in inequitable relationships.

23. Lifetime Incidence of Infidelity

24. Sexual Problems Among Traditional Marriages • Failure of timing: • If men more often initiate sex, couples may suffer from a lack of synchronicity. • Failure of intimacy. • Failure of sexual empathy: • Some couples fail to realize that what one finds pleasing the other may not.

25. Sexual Problems Among Traditional Marriages • Failure of reciprocity: • One partner, more often the woman, feels as if she gives more than she receives. • Failure of overromanticization: • Women may have romanticized expectations of sex.

26. Extramarital sex • Three basic forms: • Sexual but not emotional • Sexual and emotional • Emotional but not sexual

27. Heterosexual Sexual Dysfunctions

28. Sexual Dysfunctions • Recurring persistent problems in giving and receiving erotic satisfaction. • Most common female problems: • orgasmic dysfunction, arousal difficulties, and dyspareunia (painful intercourse). • Most common male problems: • erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and delayed orgasm.

29. Causes of Sexual Dysfunction • Performance anxiety. • Conflicts within the self. • Relationship discord.

30. Characteristics of HIV/AIDS • HIV is the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). • Acquired - people are not born with it. • Immunodeficiency - relates to the body’s immune system, which is lacking in immunity. • Syndrome- symptoms occur together.

31. AIDS and Ethnicity, 1996

32. Sexual Responsibility Includes: • Disclosing intentions: • Reveal whether sex indicates love, commitment, recreation, and so on. • Freely and mutually agreed-upon sexual activities: • No physical or emotional coercion. • Mutually agreed-upon contraception: • There is equal responsibility for preventing unintended pregnancy.

33. Sexual Responsibility Includes: • Use of “safer sex” practices. • Disclosure of infection from or exposure to STDs. • Acceptance of the consequences of sexual behavior: • These can include emotional changes, pregnancy, abortion,and sexually transmitted diseases.