Human Sexuality
Sexual Attraction
Vanessa M. Morrison
Columbia College
Human Sexuality
Sexual Attraction
Introduction
Sexual attraction is an everyday part of life that has different effects on each person. In the following paper I am going to discuss the different types of sexual attraction for adolescences ages 12-20, early adulthood ages 20-30, mature adulthood 30-65, and older adults age 65 and older. Sexual attraction: which sex are you attracted to, or are you attracted to both men and women? Then we have sexual behavior: what sex are your partners? And finally, we have sexual identity: how do you think of yourself are you gay, straight, or bisexual? Some of us develop feelings of attraction to a one type of sex before we self-label
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The American Psychiatric Association does not define atypical sexual interests as a disorder unless it causes personal distress, causes another person psychological or physical injury, or involves a person unwilling or unable to give legal consent. These distinctions were made to show that individuals who engage in atypical sexual behavior must not be inappropriately labeled as having a mental disorder. When we think of sexual orientation, we usually think of the continuum of gay, straight, and bisexual, but sexual orientation is a deep-seated attraction toward a certain kind of person. Erotic desire includes attention, attraction, fantasy, thoughts, urges, genital arousal, and behavior. It is further complicated by variations of dominance or submission, sadism and masochism, fetishes, and consent or no consent. These interests may be single or multiple, exclusive or nonexclusive, idiosyncratic or opportunistic, stable or fluid. Possible legal consequences, lack of opportunity, and unwillingness or inability to act all work to constrain our behavior. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex. The reasons for our sexual choices are analyzed obsessively, imposing an undue emphasis on categorization rather than accepting the great diversity of same-sex attractions. But the act of categorizing all of these atypical sexual attractions does not mean that acting on them is either legal or morally acceptable nor unacceptable. Explanations for all of the elements of our sexual attractions are complex and probably unknowable. All research runs the risk of reductionism, but when research on sexuality focuses exclusively on genital sexual activity --to the exclusion of considerations of attraction, affection and affiliation--it falls short in understanding our
Medicalization describes the shift in authority concerning abnormal human conditions. Quirks previously seen as by-products of maturation began to see heavy examination and were classified under medical terms. As a result, the past few decades have seen an obscene number of compulsions and disorders deemed medical conditions, further exacerbating the unnecessary institutionalization of many harmless irregularities. This string coincides with the growing popularity of sex addiction and the debate over its inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The mere thought of such a neurotic desire potentially joining the DSM alongside major mental and learning disorders epitomizes the depths to which society has sunk in recognition of truly straining abnormalities. The medicalization of sex addiction demonstrates the lengths at which medical authority will go to inject another fabricated disease into the blood of society.
There is no greater illusion of reality, to man, than the act of seduction because at its core, seduction optimizes illusion. There is a place in the brain of man that drives him to develop his own understanding of the world. He does not understand it so he seeks stability in himself through a series of manipulations that develop a sense of alpha superiority- creating a self-made god of his own universe. Seduction is the process that he uses to achieve this. It is primal, it is ritualistic and it is engaging enough that man buys in fully to the invitation to indulge his ego.
The reason I am writing this paper is to share the information I attained about human sexuality by learning about sexuality in a college setting and by exploring my sexuality through personal experiences. I do not consider myself to have experienced much exposure to sexual behavior but I do have a cultural bias to what I consider a heavy amount of exposure because the North American culture is considered more promiscuous and sexually active than other cultures.
Sexual orientation is a topic scientists spend a great deal of time researching, however it is unclear what factors really have an effect on one’s sexual orientation. The role of biology, culture, socialization, and age contribute to the influences of sexual orientation.
Despite the large collection of literature of sexuality that has been accumulating, human asexuality has been largely ignored. Asexuality is controversially considered to be a sexual orientation and people who identify as asexual are people who typically do not experience sexual attraction (Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, 2013). Though research on sex and sexual orientations has been done for centuries, the first real suggestion that there might be people who fall outside of the heterosexual – homosexual orientation spectrum came from Kinsey and colleagues in 1948. These individuals were put into a separate category and were identified as having no erotic response to hetero- or homosexual stimuli, but otherwise they were largely ignored by the researchers (Kinsey, 1953). Later, researchers linked asexuality with negative traits and pathologies, including depression and lower self-esteem (Masters, Johnson, & Kolodny, 1986; Nuius, 1983). An issue with these studies, however, is that the researchers defined asexuality in a way that most current asexuals do not agree with. For example, in a study done by Bell and Weinberg (1978), there were references made to asexual homosexuals who simply hid their homosexuality. Many asexuals, otherwise known as Aces, would struggle with this definition because homosexuality implies a type of sexual attraction: attraction to your same sex. Because Aces typically do not feel sexual attraction to anyone or anything, they should not be classified under the same label as a closeted homosexual. Another issue is that none of these studies actually focused on asexuality. Instead, they were added on the side and generally ignored.
The term “fetishism” first came to light in 1887. Psychologist Alfred Binet first presented the terminology to explain those that feel sexually attracted to inanimate objects. As the years passed, other psychologists such as Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Sigmund Freud made adjustments to the word until it encompassed all overwhelming urges to use an object or part of the body that is normally considered nonsexual to reach sexual fulfillment. (Sexual Fetishism, 2003, Metacalf, Luke, Nationmaster.com) Until the time of the sexual revolution, fetishes where thought of as abnormal or deviant behaviors and mental illnesses. However, in more recent years the more acceptable “paraphilia” has been used to label those who have peculiar sexual desires. (Crooks & Baur, (2013). Our Sexuality (12 Edition) Page 488)
Believe it or not, one in three women have experienced being raped at a party while being intoxicated or unconscious. Because of the recent events involving sexual assault all over the world, many conversations and controversies have come to light, showing a disturbing lack of clarity about the topic of consent. Sexual assault is when someone is coerced into a sexual act or forced. Consent is when someone basically gives you permission or they agree to do something with you, in this case they agree to have sexual intercourse with you. But, if someone were to give you consent while they are intoxicated then that is actually not consent. With so many people not knowing what consent is or how to clarify it, a group of young people, ages 18 and
Genetics, biology, and upbringing are all key aspects in determining one’s sexual orientation. Many of the factors are combined to make up how a person feels or who he or she is attracted to. There is no definite answer to why someone has a particular orientation, but there are studies that sugge...
Many people have trouble identifying themselves as asexual, sexual or they are just not sure. The following study was done in order to examine the number of asexual individuals in a confined group of people. The goal of the study or experiment was to analyze reasons behind people identifying themselves as being asexual. Asexuality is identifying oneself as not being attracted to anyone at all. Thus, eliminating the thought of sexual behaviors such as, but not limited to, frequency of touching/petting/kissing, masturbation, intercourse and arousal. In the hypothesis of the experiment, the experimenters predicted scores on desire domain for both men and women to be comparable to available data with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD).
Most perfume products need to have some sort of sexual appeal attached to them for marketability; outside of that, the products will not be profitable to the creators. The idea behind the ad is to ultimately sell to the onlooker a bottle of perfume; but, careful image analysis shows that focus is drawn away from the perfume and it is put on the individual (presenting some sort of sexual appeal) who is posing next to or with the product. This ignites questioning; why should the product have a sexual appeal to it? What if the character is removed in the ad and only the bottle of perfume remains; will it sell? Investigations according to Reichert, Heckler and Jackson show that “sexually charged advertisement can lead to greater behavioral intentions
The first reference to lesbian love in Indian Literature was in the Rig Veda. According to Gita Thalani there were legislations against lesbian love, validating only procreative sex. The code of Manu contains the punishments meted out to women engaging in homosexual acts, a virgin girl who engages in love-making with another deserves the punishment of being fined and beaten. Thus we see that lesbianism and homosexuality were not only present in ancient India, but were also suppressed and punished.
Despite it's negative consequences such as making victims feel degraded and fear for their safety, cat-calling and street harassment are situations that have been normalized in society and accepted when it should be something people can be punished for by receiving fines or tickets. It is arguable that cat-calling and street sexual harassment are recognized as something that is a problem today, but with very little research actually examining how sexual harassment and other similar forms of sexism are negatively effecting women, and very little to almost nothing done to stop the system of sexual objectification, do people really consider it that much of an issue?
Just like Alfred Kinsey said “The world is not divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white.” The world is divided into people that want many different things in life, everyone has a different opinion and mind set on what they want. Some people have other beliefs and values than other people, so we cannot judge them for being themselves. I believe that sexuality is the way that you express yourself through sex, or sexual actions. There are many factors that go into sexuality. I mainly learned about how sex worked through my health and child development classes. There were other things that contributed to my knowledge on sex, those were media, talking with friends or people at school, and my family values. How I think about sex is greatly impacted by these factors, some factors impacted me more than others but all of them still have an impact on my beliefs today.
In order to discuss the biology of gender identity and sexual orientation, it is necessary to first examine the differences between multiple definitions that are often mistakenly interchanged: sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Sexual orientation is defined by LeVay (2011) as “the trait that predisposes us to experience sexual attraction to people of the same sex as ourselves, to persons of the other sex, or to both sexes” (p. 1). The typical categories of sexual orientation are homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual. Vrangalova and Savin-Williams (2012) found that most people identify as heterosexual, but there are also groups of people that identify as mostly heterosexual and mostly gay within the three traditional categories (p. 89). This is to say that there are not three concrete groups, but sexual orientation is a continuum and one can even fluctuate on it over time. LeVay (2011) also defines gender as “the ...
Sex is generally defined the medical definition involving the sex organs, and participation by more than one party, but as humans are complicated beings this is insufficient to provide an account of sex. In Thomas Nagel’s essay “Sexual Perversion” he addresses the psychological account of sexuality with a phenomenological approach. Nagel describes a scenario of Romeo being aroused by Juliet, and Juliet being aroused by Romeo, and Romeo being aroused by Juliet’s arousal, and so on and so forth (Nagel 37). This progression of sexual arousal between two parties is the basis for which Nagel understands of sex. This progression eventuates in physical contact wherein the other becomes more and more “possesible” by physical contact, and the progression of arousal (Nagel 39). This progression of arousal in two parties, and the embodiment by physical contact is how Nagel describes sex. This definition provides Nagel with a basis for describing sexual perversion as anything that lacks the progression of arousal between two or more conscious individuals eventuating in physical contact that emb...