Understanding Sexuality
Sexuality and Society
I. Understanding Sexuality.
A. Sex refers to the biological distinction between females and males.
B. Sex and the body.
1. Primary sex characteristics refer to the organs used for reproduction, namely, the genitals. Secondary sex characteristics are bodily differences, apart from the genitals, that distinguish biologically mature females and males.
2. Sex is not the same thing as gender.
3. In rare cares, a hormone imbalance before birth produces intersexual people, human beings with some combination of female and male characteristics.
4. Transsexuals are people who feel they are one sex even though biologically they are the other.
C. Like all dimensions of human behavior, sexuality is also very much a …show more content…
cultural issue.
1. Almost any sexual practice shows considerable variation from one society to another.
2. SEEING OURSELVES-National Map 8-1: First-Cousin Marriage Laws across the United States. There is no single view on first-cousin marriage in the United States.
3. One cultural universal is the incest taboo, a norm forbidding sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives.
II. Sexual Attitudes in the United States.
A. Alfred Kinsey set the stage for the sexual revolution by publishing a study of sexuality in the United States in 1948.
1. The sexual revolution came of age in the late 1960s when youth culture dominated public life and a new freedom about sexuality prevailed.
2. The introduction of "the pill" in 1960 both prevented pregnancy and made sex more convenient.
B. The sexual counterrevolution began in 1980 as a conservative call for a return to "family values" by which sexual freedom was to be replaced by sexual responsibility.
C. Although general public attitudes remain divided on premarital sex, this behavior is broadly accepted among young people.
D. WINDOW ON THE WORLD-Global Map 8-1: Contraceptive Use in Global Perspective.
E. The frequency of sexual activity varies widely in the U.S. population. It is married people who have sex with partners the most and report the highest level of satisfaction.
F. Extramarital sex is widely condemned. But extramarital sexual activity is more common than people say it should be. III. Sexual Orientation.
A. Sexual orientation refers to a person's preference in terms of sexual partners.
1. The norm in all societies is heterosexuality, meaning sexual attraction to someone of the other sex.
2. Homosexuality is sexual attraction to someone of the same sex.
3. Bisexuality refers to sexual attraction to people of both sexes.
4. Asexuality means no sexual attraction to people of either sex.
B. What gives us a sexual orientation?
1. Sexual orientation: a product of society.
2. Sexual orientation: a product of biology.
3. Critical review. Sexual orientation is most likely derived from both society and biology.
C. How many gay people? In light of the Kinsey studies, many social scientists estimate that 10 percent of the population are gay, but how one operationalizes "homosexuality" makes a difference in the results.
D. The gay rights movement.
1. In recent decades, the public attitude toward homosexuality has been moving toward greater acceptance due to the gay rights movement that arose in the middle of the twentieth century.
2. The gay rights movement also began using the term homophobia to describe the dread of close personal interaction with people thought to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
IV. Sexual Issues and Controversies.
A. Teen pregnancy.
1. Surveys indicate that while 1 million U.S. teens become pregnant each year, most did not intend to. Today, most teenagers who become pregnant are not married.
2. SEEING OURSELVES-National Map 8-2: Teenage Pregnancy Rates across the United States.
B. Pornography.
1. Pornography refers to sexually explicit material that causes sexual arousal.
2. Pornography is popular in the United States.
3. Traditionally, people have criticized pornography on moral grounds.
4. Other critics see pornography as a cause of violence against women.
5. Pressure to restrict pornography is building from a coalition of conservatives (who oppose it on moral grounds) and progressives (who condemn it for political reasons).
C. Prostitution.
1. Prostitution is the selling of sexual services.
2. WINDOW ON THE WORLD-Global Map 8-2: Prostitution in Global Perspective. In general, prostitution is widespread in societies of the world where women have low standing in relation to men.
3. Prostitutes fall into different categories, from call girls to street walkers.
D. Prostitution is against the law almost everywhere in the United States, but many people consider it a victimless crime.
E. Sexual violence: rape and date rape.
1. Rape is actually an expression of power.
2. Date rape refers to forcible sexual violence against women by men they know.
a. APPLYING SOCIOLOGY BOX-When Sex is Only Sex: The Campus Culture of "Hooking Up": About three-fourths of women in a recent national survey point to a new campus pattern-the culture of "hooking up," referring to when a man and a woman get together for a physical encounter and expect nothing further.
V. Theoretical Analysis of Sexuality.
A. Structural-functional analysis.
1. The need to regulate sexuality. From a biological perspective, sex allows our species to reproduce. But culture and social institutions regulate with whom and when people reproduce.
2. Latent functions: the case of prostitution. According to Kingsley Davis, prostitution is widespread because of its latent functions.
3. Critical review. This approach ignores the great diversity of sexual ideas and practices found within every society. Moreover, sexual patterns change over time, just as they differ around the world.
B. Symbolic-interaction analysis.
1. The social construction of sexuality. Almost all social patterns involving sexuality have seen considerable change over the course of the twentieth century.
2. Global comparisons. The broader our view, the more variation we see in the meanings people attach to sexuality.
3. Critical review. The strength of the symbolic-interaction paradigm lies in revealing the constructed character of familiar social patterns. One limitation to this approach is that not everything is so variable.
C. Social-conflict analysis.
1. Sexuality: reflecting social inequality. We might wonder if so many women would be involved in prostitution at all if they had economic opportunities equal to those of men.
2. Sexuality: creating sexual inequality. Defining women in sexual terms amounts to devaluing them from full human beings into objects of men's interest and attention.
3. Queer theory refers to a growing body of knowledge that challenges an allegedly heterosexual bias in sociology. Heterosexism is the view stigmatizing anyone who is not heterosexual as "queer." 4. Critical review. Applying the social-conflict paradigm shows how sexuality is both a cause and effect of inequality. But this approach overlooks the fact that sexuality is not a power issue for everyone. And this paradigm ignores the progress our society has made toward eliminating injustice. Abortion, the deliberate termination of a pregnancy, is perhaps the most divisive sexuality issue of all.
D. THINKING IT THROUGH BOX-The Abortion Controversy: Particular circumstances make a big difference in how people see the abortion issue.
Chapter Objectives
1) Define sex.
2) Define sex from a biological perspective.
3) Define sex from a cultural perspective.
4) Summarize the profound changes in sexual attitudes and practices during the last century, noting in particular the sexual revolution and the sexual counter-revolution.
5) Summarize research findings on sexual behavior in the United States with regard to premarital sex, sex among adults, and extramarital sex.
6) Identify and define four sexual orientations along the sexual orientation continuum.
7) Present the two arguments on how people come to have a sexual orientation.
8) Discuss the role of the gay rights movement in moving the public attitude toward homosexuality toward greater acceptance.
9) Discuss the issues surrounding the high rate of teenage pregnancy.
10) Identify the objections to pornography.
11) Examine types of prostitution and the extent of prostitution around the world.
12) Discuss the range of sexual violence and abuse in the United States.
13) Examine human sexuality by applying sociology's three major theoretical approaches.
Essay Topics
1) Explain how sexuality is a cultural issue.
2) Do you think that the United States is a restrictive or permissive society when it comes to sexuality?
3) Debate one side of the argument on how people come to have a sexual orientation. Defend your position.
4) Can you think of any other movements that have used terminology to change public opinion?
5) What type of sex education programming do you think would be effective in reducing the high rate of teenage pregnancy?
6) Where do you stand on this issue?
7) Do you think prostitution is a "victimless crime"? Why or why not? 8) Compare and contrast sociology's three major approaches in their application to the study of sexuality.
9) Identify "rape myths" from the text. Does this change your understanding of what rape is? If so, how?
10) The conservative pro-life people view abortion as a moral issue, while liberal pro-choice people view abortion as a power issue. How do you view abortion?
Using the ASA Journal Teaching Sociology in Your Classroom
John DeLamater, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Elizabeth Rice Allgeier believe that helping students to see the personal relevance of course material is a very important instructional goal, particularly when the subject matter is human sexuality ("Teaching Human Sexuality: Personalizing the Impersonal Lecture," Teaching Sociology, 22, October 1994: 309-318). In their article, the authors describe four strategies that can be used to personalize the discussion of human sexuality in large lecture settings: 1) self-report questionnaires; 2) journals and alternative writing assignments; 3) simulations and demonstrations; and 4) analysis of sexual themes in popular culture. In the process of discussing these strategies, the authors present a number of exercises specifically designed to "personalize" the presentation of issues surrounding human sexuality. As the authors point out: "No course topic is quite so personal as sex. It deserves teaching strategies and pedagogical techniques that recognize its personal nature."
Supplemental Lecture Material
Sex on the Net: Tracking Cyberporn
As the Internet has expanded beyond the Defense Department and industrial laboratories and into dormitories, children's bedrooms, and home offices, its content has evolved as well. Highly graphic sexual material such as hard-core commercial photos and video shorts, sex-themed live "chat" rooms, and explicit pay-per-view video teleconferencing have all become more common. Anecdotal reports and casual browsing can lead to the impression that there is a lot of pornographic material on the Internet. Some intriguing work has confirmed such suspicions.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University took advantage of the consumer-tracking potential of the Internet, and over an eighteen-month period studied what pornographic material was actually being consumed at a number of Usenet newsgroups. They reached a number of conclusions:
There is a great deal of online pornography. On the newsgroups with image files, some 83 percent of the images were pornographic in nature, and in total the researchers examined over 900,000 explicitly written video and photographic materials.
According to the researchers, pornography probably represents "one of the largest (if not the largest) recreational applications of computer networks."
Pornography is quite lucrative for its purveyors. The top five subscriptions-based adult bulletin-board services (BBS) of the many thousands in the market all make over one million dollars annually.
Pornographic consumers are widespread. In keeping with the Internet's decentralized nature, the researchers tracked clients from every state in America and over forty countries, some of which ban all forms of explicit …show more content…
material.
Most consumers are men. BBS operators estimate that some 98.9% of their clients are men; at least some of the women who can be found in chat rooms are paid to be there.
Online pornography is quite varied in its content. "Perhaps because hard-core sex pictures are so widely available elsewhere, the adult BBS market seems to be driven largely by a demand for images that can't be found in the average magazine rack: pedophilia (nude photos of children), hebephilia (youths), and what the researchers call paraphilia _ a grab bag of 'deviant' material that includes images of bondage, sadomasochism, urination, defecation, and sex acts with a barnyard full of animals." For perspective, the Usenet is probably only about 10 percent of the whole of the Internet, and while explicit files are obviously popular, they also represent no more than about 3 percent of the content of the Usenet. Still, pornography has long presented challenges to American culture. Defining what pornography is, regulating its consumption and distribution, and limiting its subject matter have all been the subjects of complex legal and moral arguments. And the Internet is proving to be a fruitful new ground for those arguments. Should the Internet be treated like a print medium, which would give it strong precedence for legal protections under the First Amendment? Or is the Internet like a broadcast medium, like television or radio, whose content can be regulated? Perhaps just as relevant is how the content on the Internet could be regulated, which presents difficult technical issues. One kind of solution is growing up from the base of Internet users. Several companies offer software that, once a parent or teacher has subscribed to the service, regularly updates a list of explicit sites on the subscriber's computer and prevents users from visiting those sites. But based on past legal cases alone, it seems likely that solutions from above _ from Congress, the Supreme Court, and perhaps even other countries _ will be attempted in order to regulate the flow of pornography.
Source
Elmer-Dewitt, Philip. "On a Screen Near You: Cyberporn." Time (July 3, 1995):38-45.
Discussion Questions
1) Do you feel that the Internet should be treated like a print media or a broadcast media? Why? How do you think it will be treated?
2) Do you think the content of the Internet should be regulated? Why? How should it be regulated?
3) What does pornography on the Internet tell us about American sexual behaviors and attitudes? Does the Internet seem likely to maintain pre-Internet attitudes about sex, or will it cause Americans to view sex in a fundamentally new way?
Supplemental Lecture Material
Teaching Schoolchildren about Homo-sexuality
As public awareness concerning nontraditional sexual orientations has escalated, an increasing number of proposals have been made to include information about gay and lesbian lifestyles in public school curricula. Such proposals have aroused substantial controversy. Some opposition comes from parents who feel that under no circumstances should schools mention what parents regard as morally unacceptable behavior.
They argue that teaching about homosexuality has the effect of condoning such behavior. Other parents are concerned because they believe that this topic is being introduced too early. When the New York city school district developed a program entitled "Children of the Rainbow," designed to promote acceptance of a wide variety of diverse lifestyles, many parents and local school boards objected because a unit in which teachers urged their students "to view lesbians/gays as real people to be respected and appreciated" was originally targeted for the first grade. Chancellor Joseph Fernandez eventually backed off, agreeing that consideration of sexual orientation could be delayed until the fifth or sixth grade. Opponents to inclusive curricula have also been concerned about the placement of books such as Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy's Roommate, and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride in school libraries, even if such books are not on required reading lists. Many school districts allow students to be excused from classes in which homosexuality is discussed, although few parents take advantage of this option _ only 1.5 percent in Fairfax County, Virginia, did
so. Advocates of such inclusive programs in the curriculum stress that accurate information about gay lifestyles is especially important in an era when misinformation concerning AIDS is widespread and gay-bashing incidents remain common. They also emphasize the importance of such instruction in helping gay students recognize and come to grips with their own sexual orientation.
Source
Lacayo, Richard. "Jack and Jack and Jill and Jill," Time Vol. 140 No. 24 (December 14, 1992):52-53.
Discussion Questions
1) Were you taught about gay and lesbian lifestyles in school? If so, how did you and other students react to this instruction?
2) Do you think that inclusion of a unit on homosexuality in the public school curriculum amounts to condoning this behavior? Why or why not?
Supplemental Lecture Material
Legal Rights for Same-Sex Couples
It may well be a decision by Canada's Supreme Court that breaks the ice in granting legal rights to same-sex couples. The ruling, which centered on the case of an Ontario woman seeking financial support from her former female partner, does not address the issue of homosexual marriages. The 8-1 ruling that the heterosexual definition of spouse is unconstitutional may, however, give same-sex partners all the legal benefits of a common-law marriage. The court gave Ontario six months to amend its laws, noting that dozens of its laws use the heterosexual definition. Because of the decision, the Canadian federal government and other provinces also were required to come into accordance with the ruling or face lawsuits, and several provincial premiers have already said their laws would change. The Supreme Court decision is the result of an appeal of a 1995 decision that upheld a Toronto lesbian woman's efforts to receive alimony from her ex-partner. Two lower courts agreed with her argument that a spouse is not necessarily someone of the opposite sex. The Supreme Court's ruling backed the lower courts, saying, "It is clear that the human dignity of individuals in same-sex relationships is violated by the definition of 'spouse.'" The court's ruling also said, "The exclusion of same-sex partners (from the benefits of spousal support) promotes the view that. individuals in same-sex relationships generally are less worthy of recognition and protection." (U.S. courts have and continue to consider similar cases.) Since the ruling does not recognize same-sex marriages, it does not mean same-sex couples in the U.S. could cross the border to get married. It does mean, however, that large parts of Canadian law, including tax code, health care, and insurance benefits, will need to be rewritten. (It should be noted that the two women involved in the case, who had lived together for more than five years, had settled the dispute out of court, but the high courts review of the law continued.)
Source
Associated Press Release. Newsday.com (May 24, 1999).
Discussion Questions
1) British Columbia's premier, Glen Clark, has stated that ".it's time that we treated people with equality and dignity regardless of their sexual orientation." Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
2) To date, the legitimacy of homosexual marriages has not been established in either the U.S. or Canada. Is this an example of culture lag? Explain your position on the subject.
Supplemental Lecture Material
"Facts & Stats on Teen Pregnancy"
Some questions we need to ponder on teen pregnancy in the U.S. today:
How bad is the problem?
The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. In 1997, teen pregnancy cost the U.S. at least $7 billion.
More than 4 out of 10 young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20 _ nearly one million a year. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended and 80 percent are to unmarried teens.
The teen birth rate has actually undergone a gradual decline from 1991 to 1996 with an overall decline of 12 percent for those aged 15 to 19. The largest decline since 1991 by race or ethnicity was for black women. (The birth rate for black teens aged 15 to 19 fell 21 percent between 1991 and 1996 [Hispanic teen birth rates declined 5 percent between 1995 and 1996.] Hispanic teens now have the highest birth rates.)
Who suffers the consequences?
Only one-third of teen mothers receives a high school diploma.
Nearly 80 percent of teen mothers end up on welfare.
The children of teenage mothers have lower birth weights, are more likely to perform poorly in school, and are at greater risk of abuse or neglect.
The sons of teen mothers are 13 percent more likely to end up in prison while teen daughters are 22 percent more likely to become teen mothers themselves.
What helps prevent teen pregnancy?
Religious or moral values.
Fear of contracting a sexually transmitted disease.
Not having met the appropriate partner.
Strong emotional attachments to parents.
Being raised by both parents (biological or adoptive) from birth. (At age 16, 22 percent of girls from intact families and 44 percent of other girls have had sex at least once.)
Source
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "Whatever Happened to Childhood? The Problem of Teen Pregnancy in the U.S." Washington, D.C. (1997).
Discussion Questions
1) Seven in ten teens interviewed said they were ready to listen to things parents thought they weren't ready to hear. In addition, asked about the reasons why teenage girls have babies, 78 percent white and 70 percent of African-American teenagers reported the lack of communication between a girl and her parents to be a major factor. What can be done to improve adolescent-parent lines of communication?
2) A majority of sexually active teenage boys and girls said that they wish they had waited. Discuss the factors that encourage sexual activity among teens.
I. Understanding Sexuality.
A. Sex refers to the biological distinction between females and males.
B. Sex and the body.
1. Primary sex characteristics refer to the organs used for reproduction, namely, the genitals. Secondary sex characteristics are bodily differences, apart from the genitals, that distinguish biologically mature females and males.
2. Sex is not the same thing as gender.
3. In rare cares, a hormone imbalance before birth produces intersexual people, human beings with some combination of female and male characteristics.
4. Transsexuals are people who feel they are one sex even though biologically they are the other.
C. Like all dimensions of human behavior, sexuality is also very much a …show more content…
cultural issue.
1. Almost any sexual practice shows considerable variation from one society to another.
2. SEEING OURSELVES-National Map 8-1: First-Cousin Marriage Laws across the United States. There is no single view on first-cousin marriage in the United States.
3. One cultural universal is the incest taboo, a norm forbidding sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives.
II. Sexual Attitudes in the United States.
A. Alfred Kinsey set the stage for the sexual revolution by publishing a study of sexuality in the United States in 1948.
1. The sexual revolution came of age in the late 1960s when youth culture dominated public life and a new freedom about sexuality prevailed.
2. The introduction of "the pill" in 1960 both prevented pregnancy and made sex more convenient.
B. The sexual counterrevolution began in 1980 as a conservative call for a return to "family values" by which sexual freedom was to be replaced by sexual responsibility.
C. Although general public attitudes remain divided on premarital sex, this behavior is broadly accepted among young people.
D. WINDOW ON THE WORLD-Global Map 8-1: Contraceptive Use in Global Perspective.
E. The frequency of sexual activity varies widely in the U.S. population. It is married people who have sex with partners the most and report the highest level of satisfaction.
F. Extramarital sex is widely condemned. But extramarital sexual activity is more common than people say it should be. III. Sexual Orientation.
A. Sexual orientation refers to a person's preference in terms of sexual partners.
1. The norm in all societies is heterosexuality, meaning sexual attraction to someone of the other sex.
2. Homosexuality is sexual attraction to someone of the same sex.
3. Bisexuality refers to sexual attraction to people of both sexes.
4. Asexuality means no sexual attraction to people of either sex.
B. What gives us a sexual orientation?
1. Sexual orientation: a product of society.
2. Sexual orientation: a product of biology.
3. Critical review. Sexual orientation is most likely derived from both society and biology.
C. How many gay people? In light of the Kinsey studies, many social scientists estimate that 10 percent of the population are gay, but how one operationalizes "homosexuality" makes a difference in the results.
D. The gay rights movement.
1. In recent decades, the public attitude toward homosexuality has been moving toward greater acceptance due to the gay rights movement that arose in the middle of the twentieth century.
2. The gay rights movement also began using the term homophobia to describe the dread of close personal interaction with people thought to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
IV. Sexual Issues and Controversies.
A. Teen pregnancy.
1. Surveys indicate that while 1 million U.S. teens become pregnant each year, most did not intend to. Today, most teenagers who become pregnant are not married.
2. SEEING OURSELVES-National Map 8-2: Teenage Pregnancy Rates across the United States.
B. Pornography.
1. Pornography refers to sexually explicit material that causes sexual arousal.
2. Pornography is popular in the United States.
3. Traditionally, people have criticized pornography on moral grounds.
4. Other critics see pornography as a cause of violence against women.
5. Pressure to restrict pornography is building from a coalition of conservatives (who oppose it on moral grounds) and progressives (who condemn it for political reasons).
C. Prostitution.
1. Prostitution is the selling of sexual services.
2. WINDOW ON THE WORLD-Global Map 8-2: Prostitution in Global Perspective. In general, prostitution is widespread in societies of the world where women have low standing in relation to men.
3. Prostitutes fall into different categories, from call girls to street walkers.
D. Prostitution is against the law almost everywhere in the United States, but many people consider it a victimless crime.
E. Sexual violence: rape and date rape.
1. Rape is actually an expression of power.
2. Date rape refers to forcible sexual violence against women by men they know.
a. APPLYING SOCIOLOGY BOX-When Sex is Only Sex: The Campus Culture of "Hooking Up": About three-fourths of women in a recent national survey point to a new campus pattern-the culture of "hooking up," referring to when a man and a woman get together for a physical encounter and expect nothing further.
V. Theoretical Analysis of Sexuality.
A. Structural-functional analysis.
1. The need to regulate sexuality. From a biological perspective, sex allows our species to reproduce. But culture and social institutions regulate with whom and when people reproduce.
2. Latent functions: the case of prostitution. According to Kingsley Davis, prostitution is widespread because of its latent functions.
3. Critical review. This approach ignores the great diversity of sexual ideas and practices found within every society. Moreover, sexual patterns change over time, just as they differ around the world.
B. Symbolic-interaction analysis.
1. The social construction of sexuality. Almost all social patterns involving sexuality have seen considerable change over the course of the twentieth century.
2. Global comparisons. The broader our view, the more variation we see in the meanings people attach to sexuality.
3. Critical review. The strength of the symbolic-interaction paradigm lies in revealing the constructed character of familiar social patterns. One limitation to this approach is that not everything is so variable.
C. Social-conflict analysis.
1. Sexuality: reflecting social inequality. We might wonder if so many women would be involved in prostitution at all if they had economic opportunities equal to those of men.
2. Sexuality: creating sexual inequality. Defining women in sexual terms amounts to devaluing them from full human beings into objects of men's interest and attention.
3. Queer theory refers to a growing body of knowledge that challenges an allegedly heterosexual bias in sociology. Heterosexism is the view stigmatizing anyone who is not heterosexual as "queer." 4. Critical review. Applying the social-conflict paradigm shows how sexuality is both a cause and effect of inequality. But this approach overlooks the fact that sexuality is not a power issue for everyone. And this paradigm ignores the progress our society has made toward eliminating injustice. Abortion, the deliberate termination of a pregnancy, is perhaps the most divisive sexuality issue of all.
D. THINKING IT THROUGH BOX-The Abortion Controversy: Particular circumstances make a big difference in how people see the abortion issue.
Chapter Objectives
1) Define sex.
2) Define sex from a biological perspective.
3) Define sex from a cultural perspective.
4) Summarize the profound changes in sexual attitudes and practices during the last century, noting in particular the sexual revolution and the sexual counter-revolution.
5) Summarize research findings on sexual behavior in the United States with regard to premarital sex, sex among adults, and extramarital sex.
6) Identify and define four sexual orientations along the sexual orientation continuum.
7) Present the two arguments on how people come to have a sexual orientation.
8) Discuss the role of the gay rights movement in moving the public attitude toward homosexuality toward greater acceptance.
9) Discuss the issues surrounding the high rate of teenage pregnancy.
10) Identify the objections to pornography.
11) Examine types of prostitution and the extent of prostitution around the world.
12) Discuss the range of sexual violence and abuse in the United States.
13) Examine human sexuality by applying sociology's three major theoretical approaches.
Essay Topics
1) Explain how sexuality is a cultural issue.
2) Do you think that the United States is a restrictive or permissive society when it comes to sexuality?
3) Debate one side of the argument on how people come to have a sexual orientation. Defend your position.
4) Can you think of any other movements that have used terminology to change public opinion?
5) What type of sex education programming do you think would be effective in reducing the high rate of teenage pregnancy?
6) Where do you stand on this issue?
7) Do you think prostitution is a "victimless crime"? Why or why not? 8) Compare and contrast sociology's three major approaches in their application to the study of sexuality.
9) Identify "rape myths" from the text. Does this change your understanding of what rape is? If so, how?
10) The conservative pro-life people view abortion as a moral issue, while liberal pro-choice people view abortion as a power issue. How do you view abortion?
Using the ASA Journal Teaching Sociology in Your Classroom
John DeLamater, Janet Shibley Hyde, and Elizabeth Rice Allgeier believe that helping students to see the personal relevance of course material is a very important instructional goal, particularly when the subject matter is human sexuality ("Teaching Human Sexuality: Personalizing the Impersonal Lecture," Teaching Sociology, 22, October 1994: 309-318). In their article, the authors describe four strategies that can be used to personalize the discussion of human sexuality in large lecture settings: 1) self-report questionnaires; 2) journals and alternative writing assignments; 3) simulations and demonstrations; and 4) analysis of sexual themes in popular culture. In the process of discussing these strategies, the authors present a number of exercises specifically designed to "personalize" the presentation of issues surrounding human sexuality. As the authors point out: "No course topic is quite so personal as sex. It deserves teaching strategies and pedagogical techniques that recognize its personal nature."
Supplemental Lecture Material
Sex on the Net: Tracking Cyberporn
As the Internet has expanded beyond the Defense Department and industrial laboratories and into dormitories, children's bedrooms, and home offices, its content has evolved as well. Highly graphic sexual material such as hard-core commercial photos and video shorts, sex-themed live "chat" rooms, and explicit pay-per-view video teleconferencing have all become more common. Anecdotal reports and casual browsing can lead to the impression that there is a lot of pornographic material on the Internet. Some intriguing work has confirmed such suspicions.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University took advantage of the consumer-tracking potential of the Internet, and over an eighteen-month period studied what pornographic material was actually being consumed at a number of Usenet newsgroups. They reached a number of conclusions:
There is a great deal of online pornography. On the newsgroups with image files, some 83 percent of the images were pornographic in nature, and in total the researchers examined over 900,000 explicitly written video and photographic materials.
According to the researchers, pornography probably represents "one of the largest (if not the largest) recreational applications of computer networks."
Pornography is quite lucrative for its purveyors. The top five subscriptions-based adult bulletin-board services (BBS) of the many thousands in the market all make over one million dollars annually.
Pornographic consumers are widespread. In keeping with the Internet's decentralized nature, the researchers tracked clients from every state in America and over forty countries, some of which ban all forms of explicit …show more content…
material.
Most consumers are men. BBS operators estimate that some 98.9% of their clients are men; at least some of the women who can be found in chat rooms are paid to be there.
Online pornography is quite varied in its content. "Perhaps because hard-core sex pictures are so widely available elsewhere, the adult BBS market seems to be driven largely by a demand for images that can't be found in the average magazine rack: pedophilia (nude photos of children), hebephilia (youths), and what the researchers call paraphilia _ a grab bag of 'deviant' material that includes images of bondage, sadomasochism, urination, defecation, and sex acts with a barnyard full of animals." For perspective, the Usenet is probably only about 10 percent of the whole of the Internet, and while explicit files are obviously popular, they also represent no more than about 3 percent of the content of the Usenet. Still, pornography has long presented challenges to American culture. Defining what pornography is, regulating its consumption and distribution, and limiting its subject matter have all been the subjects of complex legal and moral arguments. And the Internet is proving to be a fruitful new ground for those arguments. Should the Internet be treated like a print medium, which would give it strong precedence for legal protections under the First Amendment? Or is the Internet like a broadcast medium, like television or radio, whose content can be regulated? Perhaps just as relevant is how the content on the Internet could be regulated, which presents difficult technical issues. One kind of solution is growing up from the base of Internet users. Several companies offer software that, once a parent or teacher has subscribed to the service, regularly updates a list of explicit sites on the subscriber's computer and prevents users from visiting those sites. But based on past legal cases alone, it seems likely that solutions from above _ from Congress, the Supreme Court, and perhaps even other countries _ will be attempted in order to regulate the flow of pornography.
Source
Elmer-Dewitt, Philip. "On a Screen Near You: Cyberporn." Time (July 3, 1995):38-45.
Discussion Questions
1) Do you feel that the Internet should be treated like a print media or a broadcast media? Why? How do you think it will be treated?
2) Do you think the content of the Internet should be regulated? Why? How should it be regulated?
3) What does pornography on the Internet tell us about American sexual behaviors and attitudes? Does the Internet seem likely to maintain pre-Internet attitudes about sex, or will it cause Americans to view sex in a fundamentally new way?
Supplemental Lecture Material
Teaching Schoolchildren about Homo-sexuality
As public awareness concerning nontraditional sexual orientations has escalated, an increasing number of proposals have been made to include information about gay and lesbian lifestyles in public school curricula. Such proposals have aroused substantial controversy. Some opposition comes from parents who feel that under no circumstances should schools mention what parents regard as morally unacceptable behavior.
They argue that teaching about homosexuality has the effect of condoning such behavior. Other parents are concerned because they believe that this topic is being introduced too early. When the New York city school district developed a program entitled "Children of the Rainbow," designed to promote acceptance of a wide variety of diverse lifestyles, many parents and local school boards objected because a unit in which teachers urged their students "to view lesbians/gays as real people to be respected and appreciated" was originally targeted for the first grade. Chancellor Joseph Fernandez eventually backed off, agreeing that consideration of sexual orientation could be delayed until the fifth or sixth grade. Opponents to inclusive curricula have also been concerned about the placement of books such as Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy's Roommate, and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride in school libraries, even if such books are not on required reading lists. Many school districts allow students to be excused from classes in which homosexuality is discussed, although few parents take advantage of this option _ only 1.5 percent in Fairfax County, Virginia, did
so. Advocates of such inclusive programs in the curriculum stress that accurate information about gay lifestyles is especially important in an era when misinformation concerning AIDS is widespread and gay-bashing incidents remain common. They also emphasize the importance of such instruction in helping gay students recognize and come to grips with their own sexual orientation.
Source
Lacayo, Richard. "Jack and Jack and Jill and Jill," Time Vol. 140 No. 24 (December 14, 1992):52-53.
Discussion Questions
1) Were you taught about gay and lesbian lifestyles in school? If so, how did you and other students react to this instruction?
2) Do you think that inclusion of a unit on homosexuality in the public school curriculum amounts to condoning this behavior? Why or why not?
Supplemental Lecture Material
Legal Rights for Same-Sex Couples
It may well be a decision by Canada's Supreme Court that breaks the ice in granting legal rights to same-sex couples. The ruling, which centered on the case of an Ontario woman seeking financial support from her former female partner, does not address the issue of homosexual marriages. The 8-1 ruling that the heterosexual definition of spouse is unconstitutional may, however, give same-sex partners all the legal benefits of a common-law marriage. The court gave Ontario six months to amend its laws, noting that dozens of its laws use the heterosexual definition. Because of the decision, the Canadian federal government and other provinces also were required to come into accordance with the ruling or face lawsuits, and several provincial premiers have already said their laws would change. The Supreme Court decision is the result of an appeal of a 1995 decision that upheld a Toronto lesbian woman's efforts to receive alimony from her ex-partner. Two lower courts agreed with her argument that a spouse is not necessarily someone of the opposite sex. The Supreme Court's ruling backed the lower courts, saying, "It is clear that the human dignity of individuals in same-sex relationships is violated by the definition of 'spouse.'" The court's ruling also said, "The exclusion of same-sex partners (from the benefits of spousal support) promotes the view that. individuals in same-sex relationships generally are less worthy of recognition and protection." (U.S. courts have and continue to consider similar cases.) Since the ruling does not recognize same-sex marriages, it does not mean same-sex couples in the U.S. could cross the border to get married. It does mean, however, that large parts of Canadian law, including tax code, health care, and insurance benefits, will need to be rewritten. (It should be noted that the two women involved in the case, who had lived together for more than five years, had settled the dispute out of court, but the high courts review of the law continued.)
Source
Associated Press Release. Newsday.com (May 24, 1999).
Discussion Questions
1) British Columbia's premier, Glen Clark, has stated that ".it's time that we treated people with equality and dignity regardless of their sexual orientation." Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
2) To date, the legitimacy of homosexual marriages has not been established in either the U.S. or Canada. Is this an example of culture lag? Explain your position on the subject.
Supplemental Lecture Material
"Facts & Stats on Teen Pregnancy"
Some questions we need to ponder on teen pregnancy in the U.S. today:
How bad is the problem?
The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. In 1997, teen pregnancy cost the U.S. at least $7 billion.
More than 4 out of 10 young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20 _ nearly one million a year. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended and 80 percent are to unmarried teens.
The teen birth rate has actually undergone a gradual decline from 1991 to 1996 with an overall decline of 12 percent for those aged 15 to 19. The largest decline since 1991 by race or ethnicity was for black women. (The birth rate for black teens aged 15 to 19 fell 21 percent between 1991 and 1996 [Hispanic teen birth rates declined 5 percent between 1995 and 1996.] Hispanic teens now have the highest birth rates.)
Who suffers the consequences?
Only one-third of teen mothers receives a high school diploma.
Nearly 80 percent of teen mothers end up on welfare.
The children of teenage mothers have lower birth weights, are more likely to perform poorly in school, and are at greater risk of abuse or neglect.
The sons of teen mothers are 13 percent more likely to end up in prison while teen daughters are 22 percent more likely to become teen mothers themselves.
What helps prevent teen pregnancy?
Religious or moral values.
Fear of contracting a sexually transmitted disease.
Not having met the appropriate partner.
Strong emotional attachments to parents.
Being raised by both parents (biological or adoptive) from birth. (At age 16, 22 percent of girls from intact families and 44 percent of other girls have had sex at least once.)
Source
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "Whatever Happened to Childhood? The Problem of Teen Pregnancy in the U.S." Washington, D.C. (1997).
Discussion Questions
1) Seven in ten teens interviewed said they were ready to listen to things parents thought they weren't ready to hear. In addition, asked about the reasons why teenage girls have babies, 78 percent white and 70 percent of African-American teenagers reported the lack of communication between a girl and her parents to be a major factor. What can be done to improve adolescent-parent lines of communication?
2) A majority of sexually active teenage boys and girls said that they wish they had waited. Discuss the factors that encourage sexual activity among teens.