Sexual Ethics Research Paper
Contemporary Sexual Ethics
Contemporary sexual ethics drastically oppose norms that have been established since the foundation of our country. If a scientist studying animal forms and behavior is asked what sex is for in the life of animals he will answer that it clearly exists for the purposes of reproduction. The built-in focus of sex as a natural activity is outside the individuals who do it. That is why sex is the most important thing in social life of animals. Human beings are definitely animals, but we are more complicated than other animals. Humans understand the meanings of their actions and give them meaning of depth; other animals are incapable of realizing that. The central significance of sex in human life is similar …show more content…
to its significance in the life of other animals. The facts about sexual differentiation show that it exists for reproduction only. Such differentiation is required for neither sexual pleasure nor for sex understood purely as a means of expressing affection. Luke Gormally says, “The connection between human sexual activity and having children is not one we invent; fertilization is a natural step of normal intercourse. Unless we deliberately make our sexual activity non-generative, either by doing something beforehand, or by doing something afterwards” (Gormally, “Contraception and Catholic Ethics“). In the late 1940s and early 1950s when researcher Alfred Kinsey published his research on American’s sex lives, he was bitterly attacked from all sides. Now 58 years later, American attitudes have softened and research on sexual habits has continued. For the first time in history, a scientific nationwide
survey reveals what really happens in America’s bedrooms. The survey, Sex in America, designed by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, asked 3,432 questions about the romance that exists in stable relationships, the sex lives of singles, the amount of sex that is forced on women, and the likely size of the gay population. Most American’s have sexual intercourse six or seven times a month versus 50 years ago when people had sexual intercourse twice a month, if at all. Being a homosexual is slowly becoming more socially accepting. The survey found that just 2.8 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women say they are gay. When the question is broader, 10.1 percent of men And 8.6 percent of women either identify themselves as gay, say they have had a sexual experience with someone of the same gender or claim to be physically attracted to the same sex. Based on what was learned in the survey, there will not be a widespread breakout of AIDS in the heterosexual population. The survey also shows just how strongly societies “bedroom rules” affect bedroom behavior. Not only does society constrain what we do and with whom we do it, but social dictates affect what we think about and find arousing. The survey authors say, “American’s sex lives, in large part, follow social scripts that influence everything from, what is happening when potential sex partners encounter each other casually, to what they find alluring in each other, and to their reactions to the impulses those encounter stir. For example, when males listen to the story of a woman entering a room, removing her clothes, a man entering the room and various activities occurring, they will often
be sexually aroused if the man is her boyfriend. But the same script will not arouse them if the man is her doctor” (Schrof 2) When instances of rape are not included, research in the survey suggests that men actually engage in unwanted sex more than women. Clinicians say that men complain about their inability to control the timing of ejaculation, and both sexes report problems with desire. Twenty years ago, people with those kinds of problems were automatically assumed to have mental problems. “Today the pendulum has shifted to the other extreme, where everything from timing of ejaculation to problems with desire is medicalized”, says Raul Schiavi Director of Human Sexuality Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York (Schrof 3). In reality, true sexual dysfunction often stems from mix of mental and physical problems. An even greater reality is that many of the “problems” that therapists are asked to cure are actually quite normal sexual behaviors, people just do not realize it. During the late 1700s and early 1800s, sex roles and sex-role stereotyping were not major topics of interest in the United States. At that time the U.S. was mainly agricultural although the industrial stage was beginning. The adult male role included: earning an income, supporting and defending a family, being strong, independent, self-reliant, working in fields, and marketing farm produce. While the adult female role included: Responsibility to have and care for children , running a household under the supervision of a husband, and assisting the husband in the garden labor or farming. Children were taught their
roles when they were very young. Children went to school and learned their developing sex roles and what was expected of them. “Sex roles had not changed drastically in the early 1900s. Men were still the primary breadwinners and women whether working outside of the home or not, still had most of the passive responsibilities of homemaking and child care” (Dunleavy, “How changing sex roles have affected the family unit in the United States). During the 20th century, the women’s movement had its ups and downs. Sex roles still had not changed drastically. Women were slowly moving into the male-dominated work force, and the home became mainly just a meeting place at the end of the day. When the Equal Rights Amendment was supposed to be passed, but failed; the movement did not represent the views of all women. In fact, many women said that they believed in their traditional gender roles. “Feminists falsely reconstruct gender realities to deny that biological differences contribute significantly to gender inequalities” (Sheaffer and Charfe 97) With almost 70 percent of women in the work force now, the idea for women to return home full-time seems ludicrous. The numbers of men now wanting to down-shift from full-time work in order to spend more time at home are increasing. America cannot return to the old heroic model of masculinity and domestic ideal of feminity. We need to revaluate our old sexual stereotypes and realize times are changing. Men and women have different social, psychological, and biological realities. Boys and girls receive very different behavioral training, from infancy through adulthood. We, through genetics, have
several million years of uncommon evolution as male hunters and female gatherers. The number of adolescent females in our society who have out-of-wedlock children continues to rise. Most people understand that teenage pregnancy is a serious and epidemic problem. Unwed teen mothers lack good skills and education to support themselves and their children. In most cases, they are unlikely to receive any financial or emotional support from the child’s father, reason being that the father himself is probably a teenager and not ready to take on responsibility as a father. The teen mother’s needs are often met by her parents, or more often, through publicly supported programs. Teen mothers and their children are at a disadvantage in their ability to function successfully in society. They often have to turn to welfare programs, and other social programs for help. The obvious solution is to lessen the number of out-of-wedlock births occurring. Sexuality Education is the current method that the U.S. society has chosen to confront the problem. What really constitutes effective sexuality education? This issue is continually being debated. The programs seen as effective by some teachers and researchers is said to contribute to the problem by others. These arguments can be split into two different extremes: People have been much too liberal in their approach to teaching children about sexuality or comprehensive sexuality education in schools, which begins in kindergarten and continues through the 12th grade. “Virtually no school district has integrated
teaching about the social and psychological aspects of human sexuality along with its physical dimensions, into their curricula from the beginning of a child’s school years until they end. If this were to occur, we could make significant progress in solving the problem of adolescent pregnancy” (Lickona and Gress-Wright 341) Most people are familiar with the alarming statistics about teen sexual activity in the United States. Among high school students, 54 percent say they have had sexual intercourse, according to a 1992 Center for Disease Control study. In the past two decades, sexually transmitted diseases have come to an unbelievable high. Around twelve million people are infected each year. Each year, one of every ten teenage girls becomes pregnant, and more than 400,000 teenagers have abortions. One in four children is born out-of-wedlock, compared to one in twenty in 1960. The history of modern sex education offers three models.
The first two are variations of the nondirective approach: the third, by contrast, is a directive approach. Comprehensive sex education, which quickly became the prototype for the Western world, was based on four premises: Teenagers sexual activity is inevitable, educators should be value-neutral regarding sex, schools should openly discuss sexual matters, and sex education should teach students about contraception. The impact of nondirective, value-neutral, and comprehensive sex education on teenage sexual behavior ranged from three different things. From 1971 to 1981, government funding at all levels for contraceptive …show more content…
education
increased by 4,000 percent. During that time teen pregnancies increased by 20 percent and teen abortions nearly doubled. A 1986 Johns Hopkins University study concluded that comprehensive sex education did not reduce teen pregnancies, those results replicated by other studies. A 1986 Lou Harris Poll, commissioned by Planned Parenthood, found that teens who took a comprehensive sex education course were significantly more likely to initiate sexual intercourse than teens whose sex education courses did not discuss contraceptives. The “abstinence, but” model was created after AIDS research was conducted and found to be spreading. AIDS led to two modifications: teaching students to practice safe or safer sex by the use of contraceptives; the second, grafting an abstinence message onto the old comprehensive model. These changes said two things, abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to avoid pregnancy, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases; but if you are sexually active, you can reduce these risks through the consistent, correct use of condoms. This model, still found in many public and private schools, seems to many like a realistic compromise. Researchers found many problems with this particular model, it sends a mixed message, an abstinence message is further weakened when schools provide how-to condom instructions or distribute condoms, condoms do not make sex physically or emotionally safe, and nondirective sex education undermines character. Many schools are increasingly turning to directive sex education because
it has been shown in research that nondirective sex education has been a complete failure. A directive approach means helping young persons to see the logic of an “Abstinence, No Buts” standard. This standard says three things: sexual abstinence is the only medically safe and morally responsible choice for unmarried teenagers, condoms do not make premarital sex responsible because they do not make it physically or emotionally safe, and the only true safe sex is having sex only with a marriage partner who is doing the same. On the complete other side of the spectrum, there is the safe sex model, as births to unwed teens rose throughout the 1970s, conservatives increasingly resented the thought that they were paying taxes to support programs that encouraged the sexual misbehavior of their own children.
Such support is not cheap. Since 1970, the federal Office for Family Planning has spent more than $4 billion to provide women with physical exams, counseling, and contraceptives. Federally funded programs serve 4.5 million women today, of whom a million and a half are teens. Sex education programs seeks to delay reproduction by preventing pregnancy rather than preventing sex. Advocates of programs assume that sex among teenagers is commonplace and neither can nor should be stopped. In this view, the better the sex education and the easier the access to contraceptives, the lower the rate of teenage pregnancy. Contraceptives, particularly among the religious right, seek to delay reproduction by controlling sex. They argue that the federal policy of making counseling, and contraceptives easily available has done nothing to
stabilize,
much less reduce, teenage pregnancy. Teens all over America know about condoms, how to use them, and that they do not always work. There is no excuse for teenage pregnancy to be as high as it is. Surveys have found Swedish teens to be quite sexually active. The sharp difference in U.S. and Swedish teen pregnancy rates must have something other than the level of sexual activity and the explanation is contraceptives. Sex education has been compulsory in Sweden since 1956, and today Sweden has the most comprehensive sex education program in the world. Lack of sex education cannot explain everything. Even very young, very poor American teens know the basics of how babies are made, and that it is possible to prevent pregnancy. Sex education is available, moreover, in 80 percent of urban school districts and to an estimated 70 percent of girls aged fifteen to nineteen. Yet teenage pregnancy rates are highest in those areas where sex education is most available and most sophisticated. Americans are purely lazy, and think it could not happen to them. The reality is, it can happen to anyone, and teens need to realize that. Clearly, sexual ethics are not very well established in our current time. Great controversy surrounds almost every issue of sexual ethics, even in a society that dictates sexuality to its people. Research is just beginning to comprehend and understand human sexuality. In order for sexual ethics to be more clearly defined, humans must learn to more clearly understand their own human sexuality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dunleavy, Mara. “How Changing Sex Roles Have Affected the Family Unit in the United States.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Website
Gormally, Luke. “Contraception and Catholic Ethics” The Linacre Centre 1997.
Herron, Elizabeth, and Aaron Kipnis. “Ending the Battle Between the Sexes” Mensight Magazine
Lickona, Thomas, and Jessica Gress-Wright. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues on Childhood and Society Guildford: Dushkin, 1995.
Schrof, Joannie M., and Betsy Wagner. “Sex in America” U.S. News and World Report 9 Oct. 1994
Sheaffer, Robert, and William H. Chafe. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Moral Issues Guildford: Dushkin, 1994
Contemporary sexual ethics drastically oppose norms that have been established since the foundation of our country. If a scientist studying animal forms and behavior is asked what sex is for in the life of animals he will answer that it clearly exists for the purposes of reproduction. The built-in focus of sex as a natural activity is outside the individuals who do it. That is why sex is the most important thing in social life of animals. Human beings are definitely animals, but we are more complicated than other animals. Humans understand the meanings of their actions and give them meaning of depth; other animals are incapable of realizing that. The central significance of sex in human life is similar …show more content…
to its significance in the life of other animals. The facts about sexual differentiation show that it exists for reproduction only. Such differentiation is required for neither sexual pleasure nor for sex understood purely as a means of expressing affection. Luke Gormally says, “The connection between human sexual activity and having children is not one we invent; fertilization is a natural step of normal intercourse. Unless we deliberately make our sexual activity non-generative, either by doing something beforehand, or by doing something afterwards” (Gormally, “Contraception and Catholic Ethics“). In the late 1940s and early 1950s when researcher Alfred Kinsey published his research on American’s sex lives, he was bitterly attacked from all sides. Now 58 years later, American attitudes have softened and research on sexual habits has continued. For the first time in history, a scientific nationwide
survey reveals what really happens in America’s bedrooms. The survey, Sex in America, designed by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, asked 3,432 questions about the romance that exists in stable relationships, the sex lives of singles, the amount of sex that is forced on women, and the likely size of the gay population. Most American’s have sexual intercourse six or seven times a month versus 50 years ago when people had sexual intercourse twice a month, if at all. Being a homosexual is slowly becoming more socially accepting. The survey found that just 2.8 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women say they are gay. When the question is broader, 10.1 percent of men And 8.6 percent of women either identify themselves as gay, say they have had a sexual experience with someone of the same gender or claim to be physically attracted to the same sex. Based on what was learned in the survey, there will not be a widespread breakout of AIDS in the heterosexual population. The survey also shows just how strongly societies “bedroom rules” affect bedroom behavior. Not only does society constrain what we do and with whom we do it, but social dictates affect what we think about and find arousing. The survey authors say, “American’s sex lives, in large part, follow social scripts that influence everything from, what is happening when potential sex partners encounter each other casually, to what they find alluring in each other, and to their reactions to the impulses those encounter stir. For example, when males listen to the story of a woman entering a room, removing her clothes, a man entering the room and various activities occurring, they will often
be sexually aroused if the man is her boyfriend. But the same script will not arouse them if the man is her doctor” (Schrof 2) When instances of rape are not included, research in the survey suggests that men actually engage in unwanted sex more than women. Clinicians say that men complain about their inability to control the timing of ejaculation, and both sexes report problems with desire. Twenty years ago, people with those kinds of problems were automatically assumed to have mental problems. “Today the pendulum has shifted to the other extreme, where everything from timing of ejaculation to problems with desire is medicalized”, says Raul Schiavi Director of Human Sexuality Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York (Schrof 3). In reality, true sexual dysfunction often stems from mix of mental and physical problems. An even greater reality is that many of the “problems” that therapists are asked to cure are actually quite normal sexual behaviors, people just do not realize it. During the late 1700s and early 1800s, sex roles and sex-role stereotyping were not major topics of interest in the United States. At that time the U.S. was mainly agricultural although the industrial stage was beginning. The adult male role included: earning an income, supporting and defending a family, being strong, independent, self-reliant, working in fields, and marketing farm produce. While the adult female role included: Responsibility to have and care for children , running a household under the supervision of a husband, and assisting the husband in the garden labor or farming. Children were taught their
roles when they were very young. Children went to school and learned their developing sex roles and what was expected of them. “Sex roles had not changed drastically in the early 1900s. Men were still the primary breadwinners and women whether working outside of the home or not, still had most of the passive responsibilities of homemaking and child care” (Dunleavy, “How changing sex roles have affected the family unit in the United States). During the 20th century, the women’s movement had its ups and downs. Sex roles still had not changed drastically. Women were slowly moving into the male-dominated work force, and the home became mainly just a meeting place at the end of the day. When the Equal Rights Amendment was supposed to be passed, but failed; the movement did not represent the views of all women. In fact, many women said that they believed in their traditional gender roles. “Feminists falsely reconstruct gender realities to deny that biological differences contribute significantly to gender inequalities” (Sheaffer and Charfe 97) With almost 70 percent of women in the work force now, the idea for women to return home full-time seems ludicrous. The numbers of men now wanting to down-shift from full-time work in order to spend more time at home are increasing. America cannot return to the old heroic model of masculinity and domestic ideal of feminity. We need to revaluate our old sexual stereotypes and realize times are changing. Men and women have different social, psychological, and biological realities. Boys and girls receive very different behavioral training, from infancy through adulthood. We, through genetics, have
several million years of uncommon evolution as male hunters and female gatherers. The number of adolescent females in our society who have out-of-wedlock children continues to rise. Most people understand that teenage pregnancy is a serious and epidemic problem. Unwed teen mothers lack good skills and education to support themselves and their children. In most cases, they are unlikely to receive any financial or emotional support from the child’s father, reason being that the father himself is probably a teenager and not ready to take on responsibility as a father. The teen mother’s needs are often met by her parents, or more often, through publicly supported programs. Teen mothers and their children are at a disadvantage in their ability to function successfully in society. They often have to turn to welfare programs, and other social programs for help. The obvious solution is to lessen the number of out-of-wedlock births occurring. Sexuality Education is the current method that the U.S. society has chosen to confront the problem. What really constitutes effective sexuality education? This issue is continually being debated. The programs seen as effective by some teachers and researchers is said to contribute to the problem by others. These arguments can be split into two different extremes: People have been much too liberal in their approach to teaching children about sexuality or comprehensive sexuality education in schools, which begins in kindergarten and continues through the 12th grade. “Virtually no school district has integrated
teaching about the social and psychological aspects of human sexuality along with its physical dimensions, into their curricula from the beginning of a child’s school years until they end. If this were to occur, we could make significant progress in solving the problem of adolescent pregnancy” (Lickona and Gress-Wright 341) Most people are familiar with the alarming statistics about teen sexual activity in the United States. Among high school students, 54 percent say they have had sexual intercourse, according to a 1992 Center for Disease Control study. In the past two decades, sexually transmitted diseases have come to an unbelievable high. Around twelve million people are infected each year. Each year, one of every ten teenage girls becomes pregnant, and more than 400,000 teenagers have abortions. One in four children is born out-of-wedlock, compared to one in twenty in 1960. The history of modern sex education offers three models.
The first two are variations of the nondirective approach: the third, by contrast, is a directive approach. Comprehensive sex education, which quickly became the prototype for the Western world, was based on four premises: Teenagers sexual activity is inevitable, educators should be value-neutral regarding sex, schools should openly discuss sexual matters, and sex education should teach students about contraception. The impact of nondirective, value-neutral, and comprehensive sex education on teenage sexual behavior ranged from three different things. From 1971 to 1981, government funding at all levels for contraceptive …show more content…
education
increased by 4,000 percent. During that time teen pregnancies increased by 20 percent and teen abortions nearly doubled. A 1986 Johns Hopkins University study concluded that comprehensive sex education did not reduce teen pregnancies, those results replicated by other studies. A 1986 Lou Harris Poll, commissioned by Planned Parenthood, found that teens who took a comprehensive sex education course were significantly more likely to initiate sexual intercourse than teens whose sex education courses did not discuss contraceptives. The “abstinence, but” model was created after AIDS research was conducted and found to be spreading. AIDS led to two modifications: teaching students to practice safe or safer sex by the use of contraceptives; the second, grafting an abstinence message onto the old comprehensive model. These changes said two things, abstinence is the only 100 percent effective way to avoid pregnancy, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases; but if you are sexually active, you can reduce these risks through the consistent, correct use of condoms. This model, still found in many public and private schools, seems to many like a realistic compromise. Researchers found many problems with this particular model, it sends a mixed message, an abstinence message is further weakened when schools provide how-to condom instructions or distribute condoms, condoms do not make sex physically or emotionally safe, and nondirective sex education undermines character. Many schools are increasingly turning to directive sex education because
it has been shown in research that nondirective sex education has been a complete failure. A directive approach means helping young persons to see the logic of an “Abstinence, No Buts” standard. This standard says three things: sexual abstinence is the only medically safe and morally responsible choice for unmarried teenagers, condoms do not make premarital sex responsible because they do not make it physically or emotionally safe, and the only true safe sex is having sex only with a marriage partner who is doing the same. On the complete other side of the spectrum, there is the safe sex model, as births to unwed teens rose throughout the 1970s, conservatives increasingly resented the thought that they were paying taxes to support programs that encouraged the sexual misbehavior of their own children.
Such support is not cheap. Since 1970, the federal Office for Family Planning has spent more than $4 billion to provide women with physical exams, counseling, and contraceptives. Federally funded programs serve 4.5 million women today, of whom a million and a half are teens. Sex education programs seeks to delay reproduction by preventing pregnancy rather than preventing sex. Advocates of programs assume that sex among teenagers is commonplace and neither can nor should be stopped. In this view, the better the sex education and the easier the access to contraceptives, the lower the rate of teenage pregnancy. Contraceptives, particularly among the religious right, seek to delay reproduction by controlling sex. They argue that the federal policy of making counseling, and contraceptives easily available has done nothing to
stabilize,
much less reduce, teenage pregnancy. Teens all over America know about condoms, how to use them, and that they do not always work. There is no excuse for teenage pregnancy to be as high as it is. Surveys have found Swedish teens to be quite sexually active. The sharp difference in U.S. and Swedish teen pregnancy rates must have something other than the level of sexual activity and the explanation is contraceptives. Sex education has been compulsory in Sweden since 1956, and today Sweden has the most comprehensive sex education program in the world. Lack of sex education cannot explain everything. Even very young, very poor American teens know the basics of how babies are made, and that it is possible to prevent pregnancy. Sex education is available, moreover, in 80 percent of urban school districts and to an estimated 70 percent of girls aged fifteen to nineteen. Yet teenage pregnancy rates are highest in those areas where sex education is most available and most sophisticated. Americans are purely lazy, and think it could not happen to them. The reality is, it can happen to anyone, and teens need to realize that. Clearly, sexual ethics are not very well established in our current time. Great controversy surrounds almost every issue of sexual ethics, even in a society that dictates sexuality to its people. Research is just beginning to comprehend and understand human sexuality. In order for sexual ethics to be more clearly defined, humans must learn to more clearly understand their own human sexuality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dunleavy, Mara. “How Changing Sex Roles Have Affected the Family Unit in the United States.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute Website
Gormally, Luke. “Contraception and Catholic Ethics” The Linacre Centre 1997.
Herron, Elizabeth, and Aaron Kipnis. “Ending the Battle Between the Sexes” Mensight Magazine
Lickona, Thomas, and Jessica Gress-Wright. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues on Childhood and Society Guildford: Dushkin, 1995.
Schrof, Joannie M., and Betsy Wagner. “Sex in America” U.S. News and World Report 9 Oct. 1994
Sheaffer, Robert, and William H. Chafe. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Moral Issues Guildford: Dushkin, 1994