Psychology of Sexuality

Since the dawn of universekind, grammatical sexual practice has played an enormous spend of goods and services in the complex neighborly behaviors exhibited by our incredibly unique species. perk up contri hardlyes not sole(prenominal) to reproduction, but also to relationships surrounded by mass, cultural norms, and handstal health. There ar many all-important(prenominal) work outs that contribute to sexuality angiotensin-converting enzyme of the most important factors is sex differentiation.We asshole take this even further and encounter at reproductive anatomy and the engagework forcet of opinions between the male and effeminate reproductive frames. Thus, this paper discusses the memoir of sex, male and distaff reproductive anatomy and physiology, and finally charitable sex differentiation. The history of sex is interesting especially because of the affray over the length of the time span from whence it was recorded. John Gagnon argues that it was in truth the turn of the 19th snow when sex research emerged. musical composition many (if not all) of Sigmund Freuds theories fuck off been disproved by this point in time, he did hit on many major ideas just about sexuality and was one of the first people to actually mobilize and talk publicly about it, as well as prolonglock Ellis. Freudian theories were extremely authoritative in shaping future theories and research, even throughout the late 20th speed of light. Another important actor was Alfred Kinsey, who built upon previous researchers and made note of the social changes aroundwhat the 1950s, in turn affecting policy, habitual attitudes towards sex, and future research.Winston Ehrmann agreed that the history of sexuality is quite a short field in his twist Some Knowns and Unknowns in Research into Human Sex Behavior, arguing that and while in that respect has been documentation about sexual behavior throughout history, a much scientific approach to sex only really beg un since the late 19th Century. However, I would contest that its a distinction based more on a social construct of what constitutes a scientific flying field in Western society.For example, ancient Indian literature of the Kama Sutra potty be said to have treated sex as a science, with child(p) practical advice about sex as well as showing the various positions in little paintings. There is also detailed historical evidence of homosexual behavior among men in old-fashioned Greece. While Ehrmann may not have considered these sources scientific, I would argue that for their respective time periods, they were as scientific as could be expected. In fact, we cant really judge whether something was scientific since what we consider scientific in a modern Western sense may be completely different from their nderstanding of scientific back in the days of Ancient India or Greece. For a perspective of the history of sexuality from around the globe, we go back further in time and look at eighteenth century England, as well as ancient African Bushmen. Hera Cook writes an article gender and Contraception in forward-looking England Doing the report of Reproductive sexuality in which she argues that historians have ignored reproduction as a factor relevant to and influencing sexual mores and change. Pregnancy, and the resulting child, is not only a physical demand and economic cost, but a health risk.Effective contraception was not available and alternative sexual practices were not acceptable substitutes for vaginal intercourse. While I agree with most of her arguments, I would contest her deed that many historians dismiss reproduction as a factor of changes in sexuality. In fact, the next article The Century of Sex gender, Bodies, and Sexuality in the Long eighteenth Century by K aren Harvey discusses sexuality in England during the 1700s and does consider the effects of reproduction.Harvey argues that prior to the Eighteenth century, men and women were placed on a vertical, hierarchical bloc, in which their bodies were seen as two comparable variants of one kind in a sort of one-sex model based on the four humors of different qualities glacial and moist, which dominated women, and hot and dry, which dominated men (Harvey, 2002, p. 901). Furthermore, they thought of sex organs as simply the throwback of one another a vagina was like an inside-out penis, the labia corresponded to the foreskin, etc.However, towards the eighteenth century, there was a shift in the understanding of bodies towards a two-sex model. Anatomical struggles were stressed and their bodies were regarded as qualitatively distinct. While previously the female culmination was previously thought to have importance for conception, it was ultimately deemed unnecessary. Women were reimagined from lascivious and lustful creatures to having no sexual needfully whatsoever (Harvey, 2002, p. 903). Homosexuality was lastly frowned upon and considered perverse and sodomy.O n the other hand, a certain ancient African Bushmen common people had a much more egalitarian view on sexual behavior and gender differences. Marc Epprecht discusses the history of the zvidoma, the orginal inhabitants of Zimbabwe in his book Hungochani The History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa. Epprecht notes that these ancient Bushmen were hunters and gatherers utilise Stone Age weapons and tools comprising a classless communitarian society with no concept of individual ownership or property. Decisions were made by group consensus, and this included females uncommon for that time.While there was a clear gender segment of labour, the zvidoma were closer to egalitarian than any other culture in ancient African history. Not only did they traditionally marry monogamously, but women could divorce congenericly easily and retain rights to sexual autonomy. Depictions of womens private parts in cave paintings suggest a source of vital, mystical energy at least on par with mens (Epprecht, 2004, p. 25). Because of their limited geographical area as well as their regularity of hunting and gathering, they had to be careful to avoid overpopulation.During times of hunger, they practiced sexual restraint and possibly infanticide. Furthermore, there is a rock painting at least 2000 years old depicting trinity males act in anal intercourse as well as two male couples, one bosom face to face and the other also engaging in anal sex with an overly fully grown emphasized erect penis. There are not many paintings depicting sexual practice, but the relative scarcity of ones depicting homosexual practices as well as paintings with heterosexual sex suggest they were equally commonplace.While the history of sexuality gives us a good basis on which to study the psychology of sexuality, some would argue this basis is biased toward differentiation. Merry Wiesner-Hanks argues that womens and gender history over the last some decades has spent too much time on diver gence, making more and more complex categories of difference over sexual orientation, marital status, able-bodiedness, gender relations, etc. However, I argue that it is necessary to study these differences in rig to properly ascertain similarities and relations between the sexes.First and foremost we will discuss the biologic and anatomic differences between the genders, then later human sex differentiation in a broader, more psychological and social construct. Historically, fixing sexual types became popular in the eighteenth century, according to Londa Schiebinger in The anatomy of difference race and sex in eighteenth-century science. It was a great age of classification. Just as natural historians flood Europe with new strange flora and fauna from the New World, new cultures were being discovered in America.Thus they sought new and simple principles that would hold universally, and tried to define the genders. This set the stage for genders to be divided in an evolutionar y context. Judith Lipton and David Barash posit in sexual urge Gap The Biology of Male-Female Differences, that biological differences between men and women have a strong and direct correlation with evolution. They argue that we can look to other species to give away more about ourselves. Just as scientists look at E. Coli to study the replication of DNA, we can look at other living creatures and see our sex differences mirrored there within.However, Katarina Hamberg challenges that argument. She forecasts that using sex differences seen in biological experiments on animals to explain gender differences in humans is ridiculous. I agree with her that this is completely unscientific. Gender differences as well as gender itself varies greatly between species. In fact, in many species the female is bigger than the male. Furthermore, she is often stronger and will sometimes consume the male after sex in coordinate to give strength to her developing babies, as with many arachnids and some insects.Therefore we can hardly compare studies on animals to human sex differences, though we can sure look at the differences and ponder the implications. Hamberg also argues that throughout history, biological arguments have been used in order to legitimize a social gender order characterized by male supremacy. This is more problematic, for while men are physically stronger and bigger than women, they are certainly not more intelligent nor are they naturally more disposed to leaders. In fact, some studies have shown that women possess more of the skills necessary to lead well and do better academically.The male and female orgasms are an important biological distinction in a reproductive, evolutionary, and social context. In Why Women Have Orgasms An evolutionary Analysis by David Puts, Khytam Dawood and Lisa Welling, the evolutionary adaptation of the female orgasm and its solve is discussed. There are two possible likely hypotheses firstly the mate-choice hypothesis which holds that female orgasm has evolved to function in mate infusion and secondly the byproduct hypothesis which asserts that the female orgasm in fact has no evolutionary purpose and rather exists because women and men share early ontogeny with men.They found the first hypothesis to be more likely, which seems the case to me as well. Another article Women Who Prefer Longer Penises Are More Likely to Have Vaginal Orgasms (but Not Clitoral Orgasms) discussed vaginal versus clitoral orgasms and the evolutionary implications. Their method was to have over three hundred women report in an online survey however, people may not always be ingenuous in surveys, especially those discussing sensitive matters like sex, therein lies a possible problem with their study.They were able to befall a positive association between likelihood of orgasm with a longer penis and vaginal orgasm frequency. Finally Human Sperm Competition discussed the concept of sperm competition, the competitive process be tween spermatozoa of two or more different males to fertilize an egg of a lone female. They were looking into the claim that sperm competition has an effect on mate selection in humans. This study also have-to doe with the use of a survey with approximately 400 men and women. The results of the survey showed that sperm competition was most likely not a huge factor in mate selection.On the other hand, perhaps this is something that evolved latterly since nowadays there are many options for couples who have trouble conceiving such as adoption, artificial insemination, use of surrogates, etc. thus the ability to conceive a child naturally is not as important in mate selection now as it may have been earlier in human evolution. Contributing to sex differences such as these is different concentrations of steroids and hormones delivered to the fetus, which can have lasting effects throughout a persons life.After looking at sex differentiation in a biological context, we must consider ho w and why females and males differ in behavior, psychology, genetics, and pathology? Certainly, it has long been posited that there is a divide in spatial abilities. Patricia Gilmartin and Jeffrey Patton assess this in Comparing the Sexes on Spatial Abilities Map-Use Skills. They suggest that males are more clever than females in many types of spatial tasks. Furthermore, they found these differences were greater in childhood, especially in relation to maps, geography, and sailing based tasks.Among college students, these differences in map-use and navigation were negligible. I would have liked to see them look into the concept of men preferring not to ask for directions or use a GPS to navigate a long standing gender joke, but possibly true. Certainly this has proved true in my begin driving with my male family members and friends. However, I would posit that it varies culturally, for example in respect to Japanese people who dont have this social construct of men not asking fo r directions. Another dimension on which genders diversify is leadership.Cheryl de la Rey argues in Gender, Women and Leadership that the question is not only whether genders vary in leadership ability and skills, but whether they vary in leadership styles as well. These differences in leadership style, she posits, are not reducible to biological differences, nor can they be adequately explained by socialization and sex roles. Rather, its about how gendered behaviors become more rife within organizational contexts that are masculinized. This leads to the hindrance of womens access to leadership positions via discrimination and stereotyping.Part of the problem is that people need mentors to move up in the business world, but since most of the people in high ranking positions are men, and close relationships between men and women in the workplace may be frowned up, it can be hard for a woman to find a mentor. Sebastian Schuh notes that women are still underrepresented in leadership roles, but he has different ideas about why. He thinks its because women consistently report lower author motivation than men. While this may be a piece of the puzzle, I dont think he addresses the full picture very well.In addition to differences in leadership, men and women vary on the axis of sexuality and attitudes towards sex. Jennifer Petersen and Janet Hydes meta-analysis on research of gender differences revealed that although men indicated somewhat more sexual experience and permissive attitudes, there were exceedingly minimal gender differences in sexual attitudes and behaviors. Furthermore, these differences decreased with age. However, I think he glosses over many of differences. There are subtleties to it that must be considered.In The Orthodox View of instinct Sexual Differentiation Marc Breedlove, Bradley Cooke, and Cynthia Jordan discuss how the standard view of sexual differentiation of the brain, which is chiefly resulting from work with mammals, oversimplifies a vastly complex process of mechanisms derived through natural selection. The spinal nucleus of the bulbocavernosus (SNB) plays an important role in all this with a complex system. It was interesting to see how social factors could take an effect and how plastic and ever-evolving this system could be.One thing is clear from this reading this SNB system is more multifaceted than previously thought and may be changing well into adulthood. As far as gender differences in assault, I was not strike to learn that men are more likely to be engaged in violence than women. both(prenominal) from personal experience and cultural norms, that seems to fit the model. However, it was interesting to learn that the primary reason for male aggression is mate competition. From a personal standpoint, I dont find a violent man liable to get into fights more attractive.Ive certainly seen the type more than once at a bar, or on the streets, and my first instinct is to remove myself from his company and immediate area. On the contrary, that would be a shortcoming. However, from an evolutionary perspective it makes more sense as to protection and fighting for territory. Though there has been much study on the history of sex, biological and anatomical sex differences and social, sexual, and psychological implications of gender differences, psychology of sexuality is a field that is ever-growing and expanding as studies become more daring and social constructs allow for more experimentation and study.Hopefully in the next century, we will see new research leading to greater understanding of gender and sex. References Ainsworth, S. E. , & Maner, J. K. (2012). Sex begets violence Mating motives, social dominance, and physical aggression in men. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 819-829. Barash, D. P. , & Lipton, J. E. (2002). Gender gap the biology of male-female differences. New Brunswick, NJ Transaction Publishers. Breedlove, M. , Cooke, B. M. , & Jordan, C. L. (19 99). The orthodox view of brain sexual differentiation. 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