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Reflections on understanding gender identity
Reflections on understanding gender identity
Reflections on understanding gender identity
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In this paper I will be looking at Goldman’s definition of sexual desire and discussing why it may be too broad of a definition. I will also suggest ways in which Goldman’s definition could be improved with a little specificity. Goldman defines sexual desire as the want to be in contact with another person’s body and the pleasure that the contact produces. He defines sexual activity as the activity which fulfills these desires and achieves pleasure. According to Goldman, contact with another person’s body is the minimum requirement that is needed for sexual desire. However, he firmly denies that sex is just a means to an end. Therefore, sex is not just for the purpose of reproduction, an expression of emotions, or a way to communicate. If one were to be in accordance with sex being a means to an end, then anything that did not meet that criterion would automatically be deemed as perverse. Thus, if someone were to have sex for any other reason they would be seen as perverted, according to this claim. Goldman also believed that a person did not always have to be attracted just to someone’s body. In …show more content…
Sexual activity would be any activity that involves such contact and fulfills the desires of the agent. This genital contact could involve another person contacting them in different ways such as orally, manually, anally or vaginally. However, this contact does not require another person’s body in order to be deemed as a sexual act, which is why I chose to exclude that aspect from the definition. I have done so because this pleasure could be achieved with contact with one’s own genitals and with the help of specific tools, whether someone else is there or not. Someone could desire genital contact from another person, but engage in contact themselves and still fulfill the desire of the
He introduces basic conditions that an act must meet in order to be deemed a perversion. The sexual acts must be unnatural, a fetish or unnatural inclinations (Nagel, 1). Nagel goes further to discuss a basic definition of a normal sexual relationship and he claims that the general basis of that relationship is two people noticing each other. The relationship initiates through one person’s arousal and then the arousal of the other person. Mutual arousal must precede physical contact, these mutual perceptions establish a normal, natural sexual
In the book, “On the Meaning of Sex” J. Budziszewski talks about the meaning of sex. Budziszewski states that the issue of sex is one of the most important issues in our culture since the sexual revolution. Budziszewski opens the book by restating a conversation he once had with a student about the Book, “Brave New World.” The student states that the people are revolting and disgusting. Budziszewski is delighted by this statement. He believes that the student and himself are on the same page. Budziszewski responds to the student by agreeing and saying that there needs to be some meaning to sex. However; the student replies by saying, that the manner in which babies are “born” in the brave new world is disgusting and that sex doesn’t necessarily
Sexuality has often been confused with pornography. It has been trivialised as something that is a denigration and denial of true feeling by sensationalising genuine expressivism.
Francis Bennion has criticised the Act for this semantic ambiguity whilst acknowledging that too narrow a definition may tie the courts' hands in the application of the law. Sexual can be defined a simply 'of or pertaining to the sexual organs' which would render certain medical examinations sexual activities at the very least. Clearly the Act intended that in interpretation juries and judges would use the relevant cultural 'cache' in deciding the sexuality of an act. Intending to gratify oneself in a sexual manner seems to be closest thing to a criminal definition of 'sexual' yet neither gratification nor desire are mentioned anywhere in the relevant provisions.
The two books examined in this paper, Martin Daly and Margo Wilson's Homicide and David M. Buss's The Evolution of Desire, suggest that human mating strategies have an evolutionary basis. The book written by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson supplies the theoretical groundwork and the book written by David M. Buss gives validity and empirical support for the theory. The two books make a strong scientific argument for evolutionary adaptations as the most crucial element to understanding human sexuality and desire. According to this argument, the key to understanding human sexuality lies in the evolutionary origin of our species.
In conclusion, what I learned from this article is that sex is much more complicated then I could have believed it to be. This article made me aware of many conflicts, issues, and disagreements that go along with what is or isn’t sex, and how there is no clear way to say, it’s really just a matter of opinion. For lesbians the simple use of a finger is enough, for gay men its anal sex. For some sex is innate and instinctive, while others believe it is learned. For some it’s based on love and pleasure, while for others it’s about domination. I highly doubt that there is anyone in this world that could come up with a universal meaning to sex which would please all parties. It is my conclusion that there is no right or wrong definition of sex; it is whatever
According to Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams we all have wishes and desires. One of the most common of these repressed desires is the wish to sexually pos...
To support her first premise Anderson argues that the good which is sex in this case, is realized only when each partner mutually returns the other's gift in the spirit with which it was received by giving one’s own sexuality to the gift giver, so as to acknowledge that the good is serving a higher purpose than just sexual gratification. The commoditization of sex hence seems to address the lower value of sex and not the higher and more lasting value of sex. Anderson invokes the idea of the value of sex being personal and shared to those involved. The value of sex is at two levels and are both personal as is involves the fact that those entering the act of sex recognize that they are sexually attracted to each other and establishing an intimate relationship in their mutual offering of themselves to each other. This establishment of an intimate relationship implies a connection between the two as unique to them. The value is also shared as the same “good” is being realized for both involved in the act of sex, it is also in the virtue of the act being shared, that there is goodness of the value. Therefore the aspects of the higher value of sex can’t be realized in commercial terms as the norms that govern the goods as impersonal and individually enjoyable, but does indeed satisfy...
...hes to achieve. Confidence and desire are the two main feelings that initiate sexual desire and action, and can be applied to other areas in life.
Sexual deviancy is defined by Wikipedia as Paraphilia. This term is used to describe sexual objects or images that cause sexual arousal, Paraphilia “involves sexual arousal and gratification towards sexual behavior that is atypical or extreme” (Wikipedia) and viewed as abnormal to the standards that society has set at that time.
Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” focused on the history of sexuality and sexual persecution. Gayle Rubin recognizes the idea of sex as a natural force that exists prior to social life and which shapes institutions and society. First, Rubin, emphasizes the idea of negative sex, by showcasing views by other scholars. Rubin notes Foucault in his 1978 publication “The History of Sexuality”, as “sex as the natural libedo wearing to break free of social constraint” (Rubin, 149). This leads Rubin to her understanding of sex negativity. Sex, as Rubin depicts, is dangerous, destructive and a negative force and sex negativity is any negative sexual behaviour other than married or reproductive sex. Many Western religious believe that sex should only be for reproductive reasons and that pleasure and anything outside of martial sex should not be experienced. Third, Rubin goes on to construct the charmed circle, distinguishing good and bad sex. Resulting from sex negativity, Rubin develops an illustration of good and bas sex, better known as the charmed circle. Instances of bad sex include; casual,
In Sigmund Freud's observation, humans are mainly ambitious by sexual and aggressive instincts, and search for boundless enjoyment of all needs. However, the continuous pursuit of gratification driven by the identification, or unconscious, directly conflicts with our society as the uncontrolled happiness. Sigmund Freud believed that inherent sexual and aggressive power prevented from being expressed would cause our "society to be miserable and the forfeiture of contentment." Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic view of personality theory is based on the perception that greatly of human behavior is determi...
From a Freudian perspective, human development is based on psychosexual theory (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). Psychosexual theory indicates that maturation of the sex drives underlies stages of personality development (Shaffer et al., 2010). It was Freud’s perspective that there are three components of personality (the id, ego, and superego) that become integrated into his five stage theoretical model. The id was the biological or drive component that is innate from birth. The sole purpose of the Id is satiate an individual’s internal drives (Wedding & Corsini, 2014). The ego is the conscious portion of our personality that mediates between our id and superego. Throughout development the ego reflects the child’s emerging ability to...
The issues of sexual ethics in relation to morality and perversion have been addressed in depth by each of the gentleman at this table. Sexual activity as described by Solomon and Nagle is comprised of a moral standard and ‘naturalness’ aspect. So, in claiming an act is perverted we must first examine it through a moral framework and understand how this interacts with the ‘naturalness’ of a particular act. Solomon makes the distinction as follows “Perversion is an insidious concept…To describe an activity as perverse is not yet a full blown moral condemnation, for it need not entail that one ought not to indulge in such activities.” Along with the examination of the nature of an act, there must be clear justification as to why sexual acts deserve special separate ethical principles. The question arises: does an act simply due to its sexual nature deserve a separate form of moral inquisition than other acts that occur in nature? In this essay I shall argue that perversion and immorality are not mutually exclusive. By this I mean that a sexual act that is, by my definition, immoral must also be perverted. It is also my contention that if an act is perverted we must also define it as immoral. This second part of the argument is contrary to what many of you have claimed. At the outset of this paper I would also like to state my support of Thomas Nagel’s argument holding that the connection between sex and reproduction has no bearing on sexual perversion. (Nagel 105)
One of the earliest proposed definitions of asexuality came from the famed Alfred Kinsey in 1948, who called it “a lack of sexual behavior associated with a lack of sexual response to erotic stimuli” (Houdenhove, “Asexuality” 1). Later re-definitions include “a lack of sexual behavior associated with a lack of sexual desire” in 1977, “a lack of sexual orientation” in 1980, “a lack of sexual behavior” in 1993, and “a lack of sexual desire or excitement” in 2007 (Houdenhove, “Asexuality” 1; Yule 1). It was not until 2016 that researchers recommending using the definition that asexuals had been using to define themselves (which had also undergone some modifications), describing asexuality as “a lack of sexual attraction” (Houdenhove, “Asexuality” 1). It is interesting to note that all of these definitions define asexuality as “a lack of ______”, as it implies that there is something that asexuals are missing and that they are not complete, but the currently used definition at least describes the phenomenon in a way that is satisfactory to almost all who discuss asexuality.