1. Perspectives on Human Sexuality
Chapter One
Perspectives on Human Sexuality

2. Group Activity
“Discussing Sex”

3. Using the Textbook Real-time
Identify current media stories (newspapers, magazines, or TV), talk shows, or specials relating to human sexuality. Relate this to the appropriate chapter in the textbook or lecture. How accurate is the material?

4. Sexuality in Popular Culture Is Shaped by the Mass Media, So We Should Ask:
What kinds of sexuality are portrayed by the media?
What messages about sexuality are sent?
Who are the messages intended for?
What messages are ignored or avoided?
What shapes the selection by the media?

5. Youth, Ages 8-18. Media Use/Day

6. Media Time

7. Mass Media Portrayals of Sexuality Occur in Multiple Forms
Television
Movies
Music
Magazines, tabloids, books
Hand held technology
World Wide Web
Advertising

8. Media Portrayals of Sexuality:
Sell products
Produce sexual arousal
Increase sexual behavior
Provide sexual information
Correct or incorrect ?

9. The Media : Keep Sexual Behavior Visible

10. Media: Exploit Sexuality

11. Media Effects Live by: Keeping sexual behavior visible
Reinforcing sexual and relationship norms
Including irresponsible models

12. Mass-media Depictions Are Meant to Entertain, Not Inform
Rarely present reality scenarios
Perpetuate the status quo

13. Mass-media Depictions Are Meant to Entertain, Not Inform
“The various media present the social context of sexuality…” these messages “tell us what behaviors are appropriate, with whom they are appropriate, and why they are appropriate”.

14. How do you feel about this norm?

15. Television Increasing exposure Increasing sexual content
Rare presentation of risk
Rare presentation of responsible action
Unrealistic presentation of sexuality
Media reflect and reproduce stereotypical and unequal but changing gender roles
Influences the way men and women view themselves

16. Television TV is a major source of sex information for teens
Influences the way men and women view themselves
Objectification of women in skimpy clothing – negative impact on the development of adolescent girls in self-esteem and self image?

17. Television FCC regulation of public airwaves
Enforces regulations via fines
Responds to public grievances
Does not regulate cable
Possibility of parental control with V-chip technology
Educate parents
Allow blocking of programs based on ratings

18. Television Genres Reality Shows Comedy series Soap Operas
Crime/action-adventure programs
Drama series
Commercials
Music videos
Games
Other

19. Television Genres Emphasize Different Types of Content
Reality Shows – Foster unrealistic expectations, behaviors with no consequences. (clip courtesy of “Flavor of Love”)
Comedy series – Taboos
Soap Operas – Sexual transgressions
Crime/action – Sexual variation
Drama series – Situations

20. Television Genres Emphasize Different Types of Content (cont.)
Commercials – Attitudes (video on Sex in Advertising Mind Control)
Music Videos – Individual expression
Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex & Power in Music Video (Exploitation and Aggression?)
Games – Exploitation & aggression
Video games promote sexist and violent attitudes toward women
Other – Variations
Note absence of risk or responsibility

21. Feature Length Films Sexy content Nudity Sexual double standard ?
Vulnerability
Rare presentations of risk or responsibility

22. GLBT People in the media
Historically absent from mainstream films
Historically presented stereotypically
Gay man stereotype
Lesbian woman stereotype
New trend to present GLBT in positive ways
New cable network LOGO
Media should present healthy sexual relationships

23. Phone Sex : Dial-a-Porn
Commercial telephone sex lines that enable the caller to anonymously “talk dirty” with someone
Phone worker is paid to respond to the caller’s fantasies
Creates a sense of “pseudo-intimacy” with the voice

24. Online Sexual Activities
Global (adult web pages online)
Cybersex – real-time sexual activities
Popularity due to 3A’s
Access
Affordability
Anonymity
Online sex Web sites/chat rooms (ex. Babblesex)
Meet new partners (ex. Adult Friend Finder)

25. Online Sexual Activities Effect on Culture
Crosses distance
Promotes intimacy without physical contact
Creates a new level of plasticity and expression
Positive for expression of under represented groups
Negative if it becomes compulsive or addictive

26. Online Sexual Activities Effect on Culture
Online social networks
Surfing the web—major recreational activity
Easy to obtain and distribute sexual information
Expanded ways for people to meet and interact
Well integrated into the daily lives of young adults
Means for displaying identity

27. Sexuality Across Cultures and Times
What is considered “natural” varies between cultures
In America, kissing is considered erotic
The Mehinaku of the Amazonian rain forest consider kissing to be a disgusting sexual abnormality
Culture molds and shapes our sexual interests.
Culture defines how and to what degree we should express our sexual interest.

28. Cultural Differences: Mangaia of Polynesia
Adolescents ( yrs) are encouraged by adults to experience a high level of sexual desire:
Adolescents are instructed on how to please their partner
Adolescent boys and girls are instructed by older women via sexual intercourse.
A woman may leave a man who does not satisfy her
Adolescents are expected to have many sexual experiences prior to marriage
Adulthood is marked by a decrease in sexual desire

29. Cultural Differences: The Dani of New Guinea
Little interest in sexuality
Sex is used only for reproduction
Extra relational sex and jealousy is rare
Female orgasm is unknown
5 year sexual abstinence between pregnancies

30. Cultural Differences: Victorian Americans
Women had reproductive desire rather than sexual desire
Women with sexual desire classified as suffering from “nymphomania, or furor uterinus”
Men were viewed as animal like
Men had raging, uncontrollable sexual appetites and their sexual indiscretions were expected.

31. Victorian Americans: Long Lasting Effects
The polar beliefs about women and men and sexual desire lead to the separation of “love” and “sex”.
Women’s responsibility to tame men’s impulses, men could not control their sexual desires.
This belief and system of practice began the sexual double standard for men and women where men are sexually aggressive and women are sexually passive.

32. Sexual Orientation: The Pattern of Sexual and Emotional Attraction Based on the Gender of One’s Preferred Partners
Heterosexuality: sexual and emotional attraction between men and women
Homosexuality: sexual and emotional attraction between persons of the same sex
Bisexuality: sexual and emotional attraction between both males and females

33. Contemporary American Culture
Heterosexuality is the only sexual orientation receiving full social and legal legitimacy
State by state recognition of civil unions
Same-sex marriages do not generally receive social accepatance.

34. Homosexuality, Bisexuality, and Culture: Ancient Greece
In ancient Greece, homosexuality was as naturally accepted as heterosexuality is in the US culture today
Roles for men in Ancient Greece
Highest form of love: Same-sex relationships between men (older mentor and young apprentice)
Young men were then socialized into the professional society of other men
Men were also expected to be married but were expected to have courtesans
Roles of women
Child bearing was associated with marriage to continue the family and society.

35. Homosexuality, Bisexuality, and Culture: Sambians of New Guinea
Sexual orientation is malleable across lifespan, beginning with sexual activity between boys (beginning at age 7-8), betrothal and sexual activity with pre-adolescent girls, then fully involved with adult women in adulthood
Semen ingestion is required for a boy to grow into a man
Adulthood marks the end of sexual activities between males

36. Gender and Culture Gender:
What makes a person a man or woman goes beyond simple anatomy.
Having male and female genitals is anatomical, but does not necessarily make a person a “man” or “woman”. Culture and other factors help to shape masculinity and femininity.
Gender is the set of culturally-influenced characteristics associated with being male or female

37. Transsexual and Transgender Persons
Transsexual - Genitals and gender identities are discordant
A person born with a penis self-identifies as a woman
A person born with a vulva and vagina self- identifies as a man
Transgendered – Have an appearance and behaviors that do not conform with the gender roles ascribed to a particular sex

38. Transsexual and Transgender Persons
Transgendered
These differences may involve cross-dressing only to obtain psychosocial gratification, not sexual gratification as seen in transvestites.
Transsexuals may have genitals altered for gender congruency.

39. Transsexual / gender and culture: Two spirits
Biological males who assume female dress, gender role, and status
Accepted as a “man-woman” and given spiritual status in several cultures worldwide
Includes some Native American, Filipino, Lapp, and Indian cultures
In South Asia the third gender is known as the hijra, and are regarded as sacred.
Some females considered “two-spirit,” but more rare than with males

40. Societal Norms and Sexuality
Diversity across cultures and times
Calls into question what is inherently natural or normal
Words like “natural,” “unnatural,” “normal,” and “abnormal” are value judgments
They often state how we feel about behaviors, rather than objectively describing those behaviors

41. Natural Sexual Behavior
How do we decide if a sexual behavior is natural or unnatural?
What is natural?
What is unnatural?
“When we label sexual behavior as “natural” or “unnatural” we are typically indicating whether the behavior conforms to our culture’s sexual norms. Our norms appear natural because we have internalized them since infancy”.

42. Normal Sexual Behavior
Behavior that conforms to a group’s average or median patterns of behavior. “Although “normal” has been described to imply “healthy” or “moral” behavior, social scientists use the word strictly as a statistical term.
Thus, “NORMAL sexual behavior is a behavior that conforms to a group’s average or median patterns of behavior.”

43. Normal Sexual Behavior
Many people feel pressure to behave like the statistical norm
Ironically, most of us actually don’t know how others behave sexually
Most people do not talk about their sexual activities, especially those that they perceive as being outside the norm.
If people do talk, they talk about behaviors that comply to the “norm”.
Thus, the “conventional” self masks actual feelings, attitudes, and sexual behaviors.

44. Normal Sexual Behavior
A comparison of “normal” sexual behavior in one culture would be considered “abnormal” by another.
There is one concordant belief across most cultures that reproduction between men and women is essential.

45. Sexual Behaviors and Variations
Researchers view human sexuality as characterized by sexual variation, i.e. sexual variety and diversity
Understand sexual activities as existing on a continuum of frequency and behavior
People’s activities can be typical or atypical of the group average—does not necessarily indicate deviance

46. Sexual Behaviors and Variations
Many activities thought of as “deviant” are engaged in by most of us to some degree:
Exhibitionism
Voyeurism
Fetishism

47. Sexual Behaviors and Variations
Standards for evaluating sexual behavior do exist
Many sexual behaviors are harmful to oneself
Masturbatory asphyxia
Rape
Child molestation
Obscene phone calls
Psychological standards for determining the harmfulness of sexual behaviors
Issues of coercion
Potential harm to oneself or others
Personal distress

48. Authors’ Standard
The authors of the text believe that the basic standard for judging various sexual activities is:
Whether they are between consenting adults
Whether they cause harm
It is up to the individual to evaluate the ethical or moral aspect of behavior in accordance with his or her values.
“Because everyone’s sexuality does not completely overlap with the norm, the only liberating approach is to envision it with some perspective of variation”

49. End of Chapter 01