Exam Summary Notes
Subject: Sexology
Week 1
Chapter 1: Sexuality in Perspective
Sexology = the scientific interdisciplinary study of sexuality (looks at all bio-psycho-social aspects)
Sex = (biologist) “any behaviour that increases the likelihood of gametic union (sperm and egg)”
= (sex researcher, Kinsey) “behaviour that leads to orgasm” → has some merits
Sexual Behaviour = behaviour that produces arousal and increases the chance of orgasm
The ancient Greeks openly acknowledged both heterosexuality and homosexuality in their society
and explained the existence of the two in a myth in which the original humans were double
creatures: double males, double female, half male and half female
● Heterosexuals → from the splitting of the half male, half female
● Male Homosexuals → from the splitting of the double male
● Female Homosexuals → from the splitting of the double female
15th century Christians believed that “wet dreams” (nocturnal emissions) resulted from intercourse
with tiny spiritual creatures called incubi (sex with females) and succubi (sex with men)
Onanism = (Tissot, 1766) the disorders produced by masturbation
Heiman & LoPiccolo → directed masturbation, a treatment for lifelong female orgasmic disorder
Malleus Maleficarum = (“witch’s hammer”) a book which stated that the person who had wet
dreams was considered guilty of sodomy as well as witchcraft
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) → major advance in the scientific understanding of the psychological
aspects of human sexuality, founder of psychiatry and psychoanalysis
Henry Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) → early contributor to the scientific study of sex, believed that
women, like men, are sexual creatures
Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) → special interest was “pathological” sexuality, coined the
concepts of sadism, masochism, and pedophilia, and the terms heterosexuality and homosexuality
,Communications theorists believe that the media can have three types of influence:
1. Cultivation = the view that exposure to the mass media makes people think that what they
see there represents the mainstream of what really occurs
2. Agenda Setting = the idea that the media defines what is important and what is not
important by which stories they cover
3. Social Learning = the idea that the media provide role models whom we imitate
Culture = traditional ideas and values passed down from generation to generation within a group
and transmitted to members of the group by symbols (such as language)
Ethnocentrism = the tendency to regard own ethnic group and culture as superior to others and
to believe that its customs/way of life are the standards by which other cultures should be judged
Incest Taboo = a societal regulation, which is universal, prohibiting sexual interaction between
blood relatives, such as brother and sister or father and daughter
Cunnilingus (= mouth stimulation of the female genitals) is fairly common in our society, and it
occurs in a few other societies as well, especially in the South Pacific
Masturbation = self-stimulation of the genitals to produce sexual arousal. Some societies tolerate
or encourage masturbation during adolescence, whereas others condemn the practice at any age
Ethnicity:
African-Americans less likely to engage in oral sex before they firstly engage in intercourse
Latinos = people of Latin American heritage
● Machismo = the man must be responsible for the well-being and honour of his family
● Marianimo = motherhood is highly valued while virginity until marriage is closely guarded
● Familismo = a strong cultural valuing of one’s nuclear and extended family
Among the core values that are relevant to sexuality are the following:
1. Collectivism → others’ needs, especially those of the family, should be considered before own
2. Conformity to Norms → individual should conform to expectations of the family and society
3. Emotional Control → emotions should not be openly expressed, should be muted & controlled
Racial Microaggressions = subtle insults directed at people of colour, often done unconsciously
,The higher a species, the more sexual behaviour is dependent on environmental factors and steered
by the brain (making it susceptible to (lack of) learning), rather than hormones (making it robust to
(lack of) learning). Females don’t engage in sexual behaviour if they are in a hormonal state
Sexual Health = having physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality
Sexual Rights = basic, inalienable rights regarding sexuality, both positive and negative, such as
rights to reproductive self-determination, sexual-expression and freedom from sexual abuse
Chapter 2: Theoretical Perspectives on Sexuality
Evolution = all living things have acquired their present forms through gradual changes in their
genetic endowment over successive generations
Natural Selection = what evolution occurs through: process by which animals that are best
adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass their genes to the next generation
When a man and a woman mate and an offspring is produced, there are several obstacles, which
include infant vulnerability and maternal death. To solve this, there are ways to cope, such as:
● Pair-Bond between mother and father
● Attachment between infant and parent
Offspring’s chances for survival are increased if parents have an emotional bond and attachment
Human fathers have the highest investment into biological children and the least into stepchildren
Sexual Selection = a selection that creates differences between males and females → two processes:
1. Competition of members of one gender for mating access to members of the other gender
2. Preferential choice by members of one gender for certain members of the other gender
Criticism for sociobiology → only focused on the individual’s struggle for survival and reproduction
● Modern researchers reject the biological determinism of certain characteristics, such as the
0.7 waist-to-hip ratio
Sexual Strategies = females and males face different adaptive problem in short-term, or casual,
mating and in long-term mating and reproduction
● Short-Term Mating → female chooses partner that provides them with immediate resources
● Long-Term Mating → female chooses partner who is able and willing to provide resources for
the future → before ovulation (most fertile period), women choose more revealing clothing
, Evolutionary Theories = evolution, natural selection (attractiveness), parental investment
Psychological Theories = psycho-analytic, learning (conditioning), social exchange theory,
cognitive theories
Critical Theories = e.g. feminists theory, gender as status and inequality, queer theory
Sociological Theories = e.g. sexual script theory (religion, economy, law)
Gender-Neutral Evolutionary Theory = humans and animals vary both across geographical
spaces and across individual lifetime → not adaptive for humans to show fixed behaviours
● Evidence: people who can change their mating behavior in adaptive ways have the best
reproductive fitness. However, this is a very new theory, so not much is known about it yet
Psychoanalytic Theory = (Freud) sees sex as one of the key forced in human life
Libido = the term for sex energy or sex drive
Erogenous Zones = areas of the body (lips, mouth, genitals, anus) when touched feel good
The human personality is split into three sections within this theory:
1. Id = the basic part of personality and is present at birth: pleasure principle (irrational)
2. Ego = keeps the id in line, makes person realistic/have rational interactions: reality principle
3. SuperEgo = conscience: the values and ideals of society that we learn, inhibits the impulse
of the id and persuade the ego to strive for the moral goals, not realistic ones: idealism
Stages of Psychosexual Development:
1. Oral Stage = birth - 1 year: child’s pleasure is derived from sucking and stimulating the lips
2. Anal Stage = from second year: child’s interest is focused on elimination
3. Phallic Stage = ages 3 - 6: boy’s interest is his phallus and gets pleasure from masturbating
a. Oedipus Complex = the boy loves his mother and is jealous of his father because he
can have sex with his mother, sees his father as a rival and then starts to fear his
father because he may castrate him (= castration anxiety)
b. Electra Complex = the girl realises that she does not have a penis and is envious of
her father (= penis envy): this is why she desires her father, but she does not show
castration anxiety
4. Latency = (6 - 12 years) lasts until adolescence, sexual impulses are repressed
Subject: Sexology
Week 1
Chapter 1: Sexuality in Perspective
Sexology = the scientific interdisciplinary study of sexuality (looks at all bio-psycho-social aspects)
Sex = (biologist) “any behaviour that increases the likelihood of gametic union (sperm and egg)”
= (sex researcher, Kinsey) “behaviour that leads to orgasm” → has some merits
Sexual Behaviour = behaviour that produces arousal and increases the chance of orgasm
The ancient Greeks openly acknowledged both heterosexuality and homosexuality in their society
and explained the existence of the two in a myth in which the original humans were double
creatures: double males, double female, half male and half female
● Heterosexuals → from the splitting of the half male, half female
● Male Homosexuals → from the splitting of the double male
● Female Homosexuals → from the splitting of the double female
15th century Christians believed that “wet dreams” (nocturnal emissions) resulted from intercourse
with tiny spiritual creatures called incubi (sex with females) and succubi (sex with men)
Onanism = (Tissot, 1766) the disorders produced by masturbation
Heiman & LoPiccolo → directed masturbation, a treatment for lifelong female orgasmic disorder
Malleus Maleficarum = (“witch’s hammer”) a book which stated that the person who had wet
dreams was considered guilty of sodomy as well as witchcraft
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) → major advance in the scientific understanding of the psychological
aspects of human sexuality, founder of psychiatry and psychoanalysis
Henry Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) → early contributor to the scientific study of sex, believed that
women, like men, are sexual creatures
Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) → special interest was “pathological” sexuality, coined the
concepts of sadism, masochism, and pedophilia, and the terms heterosexuality and homosexuality
,Communications theorists believe that the media can have three types of influence:
1. Cultivation = the view that exposure to the mass media makes people think that what they
see there represents the mainstream of what really occurs
2. Agenda Setting = the idea that the media defines what is important and what is not
important by which stories they cover
3. Social Learning = the idea that the media provide role models whom we imitate
Culture = traditional ideas and values passed down from generation to generation within a group
and transmitted to members of the group by symbols (such as language)
Ethnocentrism = the tendency to regard own ethnic group and culture as superior to others and
to believe that its customs/way of life are the standards by which other cultures should be judged
Incest Taboo = a societal regulation, which is universal, prohibiting sexual interaction between
blood relatives, such as brother and sister or father and daughter
Cunnilingus (= mouth stimulation of the female genitals) is fairly common in our society, and it
occurs in a few other societies as well, especially in the South Pacific
Masturbation = self-stimulation of the genitals to produce sexual arousal. Some societies tolerate
or encourage masturbation during adolescence, whereas others condemn the practice at any age
Ethnicity:
African-Americans less likely to engage in oral sex before they firstly engage in intercourse
Latinos = people of Latin American heritage
● Machismo = the man must be responsible for the well-being and honour of his family
● Marianimo = motherhood is highly valued while virginity until marriage is closely guarded
● Familismo = a strong cultural valuing of one’s nuclear and extended family
Among the core values that are relevant to sexuality are the following:
1. Collectivism → others’ needs, especially those of the family, should be considered before own
2. Conformity to Norms → individual should conform to expectations of the family and society
3. Emotional Control → emotions should not be openly expressed, should be muted & controlled
Racial Microaggressions = subtle insults directed at people of colour, often done unconsciously
,The higher a species, the more sexual behaviour is dependent on environmental factors and steered
by the brain (making it susceptible to (lack of) learning), rather than hormones (making it robust to
(lack of) learning). Females don’t engage in sexual behaviour if they are in a hormonal state
Sexual Health = having physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality
Sexual Rights = basic, inalienable rights regarding sexuality, both positive and negative, such as
rights to reproductive self-determination, sexual-expression and freedom from sexual abuse
Chapter 2: Theoretical Perspectives on Sexuality
Evolution = all living things have acquired their present forms through gradual changes in their
genetic endowment over successive generations
Natural Selection = what evolution occurs through: process by which animals that are best
adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass their genes to the next generation
When a man and a woman mate and an offspring is produced, there are several obstacles, which
include infant vulnerability and maternal death. To solve this, there are ways to cope, such as:
● Pair-Bond between mother and father
● Attachment between infant and parent
Offspring’s chances for survival are increased if parents have an emotional bond and attachment
Human fathers have the highest investment into biological children and the least into stepchildren
Sexual Selection = a selection that creates differences between males and females → two processes:
1. Competition of members of one gender for mating access to members of the other gender
2. Preferential choice by members of one gender for certain members of the other gender
Criticism for sociobiology → only focused on the individual’s struggle for survival and reproduction
● Modern researchers reject the biological determinism of certain characteristics, such as the
0.7 waist-to-hip ratio
Sexual Strategies = females and males face different adaptive problem in short-term, or casual,
mating and in long-term mating and reproduction
● Short-Term Mating → female chooses partner that provides them with immediate resources
● Long-Term Mating → female chooses partner who is able and willing to provide resources for
the future → before ovulation (most fertile period), women choose more revealing clothing
, Evolutionary Theories = evolution, natural selection (attractiveness), parental investment
Psychological Theories = psycho-analytic, learning (conditioning), social exchange theory,
cognitive theories
Critical Theories = e.g. feminists theory, gender as status and inequality, queer theory
Sociological Theories = e.g. sexual script theory (religion, economy, law)
Gender-Neutral Evolutionary Theory = humans and animals vary both across geographical
spaces and across individual lifetime → not adaptive for humans to show fixed behaviours
● Evidence: people who can change their mating behavior in adaptive ways have the best
reproductive fitness. However, this is a very new theory, so not much is known about it yet
Psychoanalytic Theory = (Freud) sees sex as one of the key forced in human life
Libido = the term for sex energy or sex drive
Erogenous Zones = areas of the body (lips, mouth, genitals, anus) when touched feel good
The human personality is split into three sections within this theory:
1. Id = the basic part of personality and is present at birth: pleasure principle (irrational)
2. Ego = keeps the id in line, makes person realistic/have rational interactions: reality principle
3. SuperEgo = conscience: the values and ideals of society that we learn, inhibits the impulse
of the id and persuade the ego to strive for the moral goals, not realistic ones: idealism
Stages of Psychosexual Development:
1. Oral Stage = birth - 1 year: child’s pleasure is derived from sucking and stimulating the lips
2. Anal Stage = from second year: child’s interest is focused on elimination
3. Phallic Stage = ages 3 - 6: boy’s interest is his phallus and gets pleasure from masturbating
a. Oedipus Complex = the boy loves his mother and is jealous of his father because he
can have sex with his mother, sees his father as a rival and then starts to fear his
father because he may castrate him (= castration anxiety)
b. Electra Complex = the girl realises that she does not have a penis and is envious of
her father (= penis envy): this is why she desires her father, but she does not show
castration anxiety
4. Latency = (6 - 12 years) lasts until adolescence, sexual impulses are repressed
