Sexuality in Perspective - samenvatting

I. SIP

- Sexuality = relevant theme in society & personal experience
- Premise = the (behavioral) expression and experience of our sexuality are influenced and
regulated by biological factors as well as psychological, cultural and social processes, including
inter- and intra-personal norms and values

What is sexuality?

PSYCHOLOGY BEHAVIOR
- Relationship - Making love
- Intimacy - Sexual intercourse
- Love - Masturbation
- Trust - Experimentation
- Bonding - Sex toys
- Power
- Shame
BIOLOGY SOCIO-CULTURAL
- Physical body - Religion
- Sex - Education
- Reproduction - Law
- Birth control - Media
- Genitals - Norms and values


Bij ons is een liefdesrelatie belangrijk (partner 1e plaats), vb japan: op de 1e plaats werk, dan ouders,
dan kinderen en pas op de 4e plaats komt de partner

Etymology: Sex

 Latin
o Sexus – group, part, sort, kind, form
o Secare – to cut, to divide
 English – sex
o 1382: person with a certain sex
o 1526: characteristic of being women or men
o 1929: sexual intercourse (dirty word)
o 1950: gender – men and woman (gender role – gender identity)
Sex – sexual behavior and attraction to others
 French – sexualité
o What is related to a certain sex
 Sexuality = broader meaning (all that is related to sexual life)
o Refers to emotions and behavior(s)
o Ideas and desires
o Sexuality = an euphemism for sex (rougher)
 // ‘elderly’ and ‘old people’

Definition: Sex =

1. [noun] (chiefly with reference to people) sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse

1. euphemistic [in singular] A person’s genitals

2. Either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things
are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions:

1. [noun] The fact of belonging to either the male or female sex:

2. The group of all members of either the male or female sex:

Alles wat seksueel is, biologische verschillen, seksueel leven, gedragingen en gevoelens gerelateerd
aan arousal en het hebben van seks, gedragingen waar genitaliën een rol spelen

Definition: Sexuality =

,1. [noun] Capacity for sexual feelings:

1. [noun] A person’s sexual orientation or preference:

2. Sexual activity

Hoe je iets ervaart en uit, emoties, ideeën, verlangens en gedragingen, alles wat gerelateerd is aan
iemands seks leven

 All aspects of feeling and being sexual:
o Narrow definition = sexual acts (kissing, masturbation, intercourse)
o Broad definition = being flirtatious, seductive dressing, playboy reading, …

Behaviors that are defined as ‘sexual’ vary:

 Over time
 Between different groups
 Between different cultures

‘sexual’ is dependent of:

 Ideas of ‘normality’ about sex
 Male and female role patterns
 Social context
 Culture

Vb Victorian tijdperk: hoge klasse = prostituees heel normaal ; werkvolk = zwijgen over seks

Sanders SA, Reinisch JM (1999) : ‘Would you say you had sex if …?’

 Touching genitals : 15% says yes
 Oral contact with genitals: 40% says yes
 Penil-vaginal intercourse: 99,5% says yes

Good sex presuppose a balance between:

 Lust, pleasure (recreation)
 Relation
 Reproduction (procreation)
 Institutionalization

Dimensions of sexuality:

 Biological dimension
o Controls sexual development
o Affects sexual desire, sexual functioning and sexual satisfaction
o Influence sex differences

Sexual turn-ons influence biological events (erection, lubrication, …)

 Psychosocial dimension
o Psychological
 Emotions, thoughts and personality
 Interaction between people
o Social
 Regulated by society through law, taboo, family and peer group pressures to
follow certain paths of sexual behavior

 Behavioral dimension
o What people do
o Tendency to think in terms of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ based on our own experiences
 Cultural dimension
o Cultural attitudes towards sexuality are not universal

, o “There is no comprehensive sexual value system that is right for everyone and no single
moral code that is indisputably correct and universally applicable”
 Clinical dimension
o Sexual problems (epidemiology, causes, treatments)

Sex as a ‘human’ and ‘natural’ behavior

 Kinsey et al (1948, 1953)
o A legitimate study object
o Detailed description of human sexual behavior
o ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’
 Masters & Johnson (1966, 1970)
o Studied the biological/ physiological basis of sexuality

Sex defined by the ‘media’

 Sex is everywhere and all over the place in our society
o Information, ideas, images, websites, movies, TV, glossies, newspapers, books, …
o A way to sell things (“sex sells”)
o Narrow picture of / message about sex(uality)
o Sex = sex between two young, heterosexual people with a good looking (muscles for
men; thin for women) body that always ends in a simultaneous, best-ever orgasm for
both partners based on penetration
 Old  ‘out’
 Ill or disabled  ‘asexual’

Sex defined by ‘psychiatrists’

 ‘healthy’ vs ‘unhealthy’ – ‘normal’ vs ‘abnormal’
 Most means that are used for sexual gratification between consenting adult, independent of the
partners’ sex
o Homosexuality was a mental disorder
o Masturbation and oral sex are fixations: non-adult, immature expressions of sex (Freud)
o Paraphilias are still ‘mental disorders’
 > 6 month, distress, limitations in social or professional life
 But in SM-sex  rule = ‘safe’ and ‘consensual’
o Transsexuals still have a ‘mental disorder’ = gender dysphoria

Sex defined by ‘laws’

 Legal framework that defines what is normal (legal) in terms of sexuality
 Specific types of sexual behavior are ‘illegal’ and ‘prosecutable’ in court
o Illegal = non-consensual
 Paraphilia’s = voyeurism, exhibitionism
 Sex with youngsters <14 years old (even with consenting) = prosecutable
 Rape

Sex defined by the ‘public health’ debate

 Sex education  sex is supposed to be ‘safe’ to prevent sexual transmitted diseases/ infections
and unplanned pregnancy
 Good sex = sex with a condom
o Paradox:
 The one who has an STD is responsible to protect the other one
 Women have to protect themselves against rape by ‘wearing descent clothes’
 The ‘weak’ party is responsible for its own safety

Sex defined by ‘moral standards’

 Religious meaning
o Sex is given by god and thus good

, o Sex is only acceptable within a marriage
o Sex is only acceptable when it holds in it the possibility of procreation – sex is not for
pleasure
o Contraception is not acceptable
o Masturbation, oral and anal sex, sex during menstruation is not acceptable
o Celibacy is commended

Sexuality is relational

 Sexual behavior  a relational context
o Exception: masturbation (~ imagination)
 Relations organize our life, but are quite diverse:
o Can last for some minutes until several decades
o Can be based on physical attraction, emotional bonding, obligation, the wish to become
father or mother, to comply of fight to cultural standards, economical reasons, …
o Can bring happiness for one or both partners; but also unhappiness to one or both
partners and even be abandoning or abusive
o Two or more people
o Can be centered around sex or be asexual
o Can be confirmed, disapproved, hidden or illegal in the cultural context

Sexuality is related to identity:

 Sexual identity
o Feeling of who, what, how you are
o Feeling to belong to a certain group
 Gender identity
o Feeling to be a ‘man’ or ‘woman’
o For most people this is in line with their anatomical, biological sex
o [gender dysphoria – gender incongruence (transgenders, transsexuals, trans*)]
 Sexual identity – sexual orientation




 Sexual feelings, behaviors and experiences also determine our place in society  sympathy for
the group we belong to and less sympathy for others

Sexuality = a complex phenomenon of which we always have to make a kind of construction to be able
to better understand it … a construction of reality, rather than true reality ~ Bancroft

Unbridgeable difference in perspectives:

 Inner-perspective : experience and meaning given those involved
o Think, feel, do
 Outer-perspective: meaning that others/ outsiders give to it

II. Anatomy and physiology

Our relationship with our genitals:

 We cover our genitals
 We punish children when they touch and play with their genitals
 We don’t know the (right) words for our sexual anatomy
 We are discouraged to speak and ask questions about sex