Corporeal Archetypes and Power: Preliminary Clarifications and Considerations of Sex

An examination of animate form reveals corporeal archetypes that underlie both human sexual behavior and the reigning Western biological paradigm of human sexuality that reworks the archetypes to enforce female oppression. Viewed within the framework of present-day social constructionist theory and Western biology, 1 show how both social constructionist feminists who disavow biology and biologists who reduce human biology to anatomy forget evolution and thereby forego understandings essential to the political liberation of women.     

The effects of sexual permissiveness,target gender,subject gender,and attitude toward women on social perception: In search of the double standard

The sexual double standard, if held by perceivers, should result in more negative evaluations of sexually permissive females than males. Previous research on the double standard has generally ignored this normative issue, and has instead relied on self-report methods to measure personal sexual behavior and the stated limits of acceptable behavior for others. Male and female subjects, either liberal or traditional in their sex role attitudes, were exposed to a male or female target of one of four levels of sexual permissiveness. On most scales, representing a wide range of social judgments, there was no evidence of a sexual double standard. Limited evidence emerged in that male, but not female, subjects may have exhibited a double standard in their ratings of how sexual the target was. In addition, liberal males and traditional females rated female targets who had casual sex as less agreeable than comparable male targets. Despite the general absence of a double-standard effect, sexual permissiveness affected ratings such that more permissive targets were judged as less moral, less conventional, more assertive, more sexual, marginally more likable and less conforming. The findings are discussed in terms of the double standard, the effects of sexual permissiveness on social perception, and gender differences in perceiving sexuality.     

Sexual Strategies Theory: Built for the Short Term or the Long Term?

The evolutionary paradigm has provided psychology with a different perspective on human behavior, and with beneficial results. Sexual Strategies Theory (SST; Buss and Schmitt 1993) has been the primary evolutionary theory for studying human sexual behavior. A review of some SST-related research suggests that some of the paradigm??s anticipated female-male differences are supported. However, closer examination of this research also reveals substantial female-male similarities in sexual behavior, inconsistent or unclear definitions of several important SST concepts, and the functional omission of several important topics from the SST research agenda. Further, male-female differences in sexuality may be driven by a subset of males. Directions for future research are suggested, including greater attention to individual and contextual factors.     

Cognitive development and aspects of adolescent sexuality

Difficulty with adjustment to sexuality by adolescents has been of increasing concern to both educators and human service professionals in recent years. The cognitive development and behavior of adolescents as it pertains to sexuality and the implications for helping them overcome maladaptive sexual behavior is discussed.     

Genes and human behavior: the emerging paradigm

The physical properties of human beings and other organisms as well as their social behavioral traits are manifestations of both genetic inheritance and environment. Recent behavioral research has indicated that certain characteristics or behaviors—such as schizophrenia, divorce, and homosexuality—are highly heritable and are not governed exclusively by social environment. A balanced view of human behavior includes the effects of social learning as well as of genetically determined behavior. A new paradigm promotes enhanced understanding and acceptance of human diversity, be it cultural, racial, or sexual, and has the potential to unite scientists and theologians by creating common grounds of understanding.     

Gender-specific social experiences and the development of aggressive and sexual behavior in male mice

This study examined influences of gender-specific social experiences on the development of aggressive and sexual behavior in male mice. To determine the effects of gender-specific social experience three different types of groups were constituted after the animals had been weaned. The subjects were randomly assigned to different treatments. Female groups were composed of one experimental male and three female cohabitants. Male groups were composed of five experimental males each, and the mixed-sex groups were composed of two experimental males and of two females. The experimental subjects stayed in these groups until the age of approximately three months, when the testing for sexual and aggressive behavior commenced. For the sexuality tests, a receptive female was placed in the home cage of the experimental male for ten minutes. A nonaggressive male was placed in the home cage of the experimental male for seven minutes for the aggression tests. The experimental males were administered both sexuality and aggression tests, the sequence of testing sexual and aggressive behavior was systematically varied in order to control the influence of the two different types of behavioral tests. The results showed that males with only male social experiences showed fewer responses and were less active in both the aggression and sexuality tests than the males from the two other types of groups. Significant positive correlations between activity during aggression and sexual tests were obtained for all three groups. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Is Good Sex Good for You? Rethinking Sexuality and Health

Despite the central importance of sexuality to human well‐being, the study of sexuality remains marginalized within health psychology, which hampers the ability of clinicians and policy‐makers to promote comprehensive health and well‐being. In this review we discuss the evidence that sexual functioning makes critical contributions to human health, focusing specifically on findings linking sexual activity to morbidity and mortality, to the health‐promoting effects of intimate relationships, and to processes of emotion regulation. We argue that researchers studying the psychology of health and well‐being should more substantively integrate sexuality into their research agendas. Health psychologists’ specific expertise in investigating and interpreting complex, reciprocal associations between subjective emotional states, health‐relevant cognitions, and health‐relevant behavior can make a notable contribution to elucidating some of the most intruiging correlations between sexuality and health that have emerged from medical and epidemiological studies. If we want to foster optimum physical and mental health among youths and adults, we must rigorously investigate the multiple mechanisms through which positive sexual functioning plays a unique and fundamental role in human well‐being across the life course.     

Of Rats and Women: Fetal Sexuality and Hybrid Agency

This paper investigates the way in which the sexuality of women has been posited in relation to rats as experimental subjects, exploring the stakes of a scientific debate that takes the social world of female sexuality as its focus and as a political problem. Studies that purport to understand female sexuality by investigating rat behavior rely on problematic assumptions about sovereign agents motivating sexual behavior. Such studies also aim to do away with so-called deviant sexual behaviors and, as a consequence, gay people. Theories of agential realism and hybridity serve as counterforces to these inherently repressive perspectives by insisting on the multiple determinations of sexuality and subjectivity among women.     

DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR ARTICLE Rethinking women's sexual orientation: An interdisciplinary,relationship‐focused approach

What leads some women to form romantic and sexual relationships with men, and other women to form intimate relationships with women? This article presents a new conceptual paradigm for understanding women's sexual orientation that is emerging from research in such diverse fields as social psychology, sex research, evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, and neuroscience. This approach acknowledges the potential plasticity of women's sexuality and the emphasis that women place on close relationships as a context for sexuality. Research also raises the possibility that for women the biological determinants of sexual desire, attraction, and attachment are not inherently linked to a partner's gender. This article begins with a brief survey of research on women's same‐sex romantic and sexual relationships not only in the United States today but also in other cultures and historical periods. These and other findings are used to critique prevailing conceptual models of women's sexual orientation. Finally, key elements in an alternative paradigm are described.     

A New Paradigm for Women's Sexual Orientation

Abstract

This paper critiques old models of women's sexual orientation that viewed heterosexuality as the norm for mental health, characterized lesbians as masculinized sexual “inverts,” and looked to biology to explain the development of homosexuality. A new paradigm for women's sexual orientation is presented. This paradigm emphasizes the importance of the social context and recognizes the multiple pathways that can lead a woman to identify as lesbian, bisexual or heterosexual. In addition, the main components of sexual orientation are considered as is the potential fluidity of women's sexuality. Throughout, implications of the new paradigm for psychotherapy with women are considered.     

Bodies as open projects: reflections on gender and sexuality

Abstract

This article argues that the social constructivist paradigm falls into the same dualistic trap as biological essentialism when attempting to respond to questions of gender and sexuality. I argue that social constructivism, like biological determinism, presumes a ‘split’ world, where subjective lived experiences are separated from the world of socio-cultural forces. Following a phenomenological approach, grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s ontological view of the body, this article attempts to move beyond the dualistic metadiscourses of social constructivism in maintaining that identity is a fully embodied process. I see gender and sexuality as necessarily embodied and corporeally constituted. In the light of this, I propose an understanding of gender and sexuality that focuses on the centrality of the body as open project. This approach sees gender and sexuality as embodied processes that are enmeshed with the complex fabric of lived everyday experiences and concurrent socio-cultural and historical processes. Drawing on real-life examples, I conclude that gender and sexual embodiment are not one-dimensional according to a binary system of male versus female. Rather, given the documented experience of the indeterminacy and ambiguity of human existence, there are a variety of possible embodiments of humankind.     

The relationship between aggressive and sexual behavior in male mice: Effects of testosterone and parachlorophenylalanine

The purpose of this study was to clarify the connection between aggressive and sexual behavior with the aid of testosterone propionate (TP) and parachlorophenylalanine (PCPA). Previous studies have indicated that aggressive and sexual behavior are positively correlated, and it has been suggested that both behaviors are related to the level of general arousal. Testosterone has documented effects on both aggressive and sexual behavior. It has been hypothesized that these effects are due to an increased level of general arousal. If this is the case, aggressive and sexual behavior could be restored by administration of drugs excitating the central nervous system, e.g., PCPA. The present study examined the effects of TP and PCPA on aggressive and sexual behavior in gonadectomized male mice. Control animals were injected with sesame seed oil or saline. The level of aggressiveness was assessed by means of dyadic tests with gonad-intact male opponents. For the sexuality tests, a receptive female was placed in the home cage of the experimental male. The results showed that male mice injected with PCPA were more aggressive than the males of the other groups, while the TP-exposed males expressed the most sexual activity. Compared to the control group, the PCPA and TP groups were more active in both the aggression and the sexuality tests. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that the earlier documented correlations between aggressive and sexual behavior could be due to both behaviors being dependent on a certain level of general activation. Aggr. Behav. 24:367–377, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Coercive and precocious sexuality as a fundamental aspect of psychopathy

Sexual behavior is closely associated with delinquency and crime. Although psychopaths, by definition, have many short-term sexual relationships, it has not been shown that sexuality is a core aspect of psychopathy. A Darwinian view of psychopathy led to the hypothesis that psychopaths have a unique sexuality involving early, frequent, and coercive sex. Our subjects were 512 sex offenders assessed on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). Five variables reflecting early, frequent, and coercive sex loaded on the same principal component in exploratory factor analysis on a subset of the sample, whereas PCL-R items pertaining to adult sexual behavior did not. Confirmatory factor analysis of the remaining subjects yielded a measurement model containing three inter-correlated factors - the traditional two PCL-R factors, and coercive and precocious sexuality. Taxometric analyses gave evidence of a natural discontinuity underlying coercive and precocious sexuality. Coercive and precocious sexuality yielded statistically significant associations with other study variables predicted by the Darwinian hypothesis. The present findings are consistent with prior empirical findings and support the hypothesis that psychopathy has been a nonpathological, reproductively viable, alternate life history strategy.     

Pseudosex in Pseudotheology

John Beaumont has attempted to revitalize the official RomanCatholic position against the use of artificial contraceptionby reinvigorating the argument against such from natural law.Maintaining that sexual acts are essentially reproductive acts,he holds that the use of contraceptives by married couples reducesintercourse to the same moral level as homosexual acts. He furtherargues that acceptance of birth control has directly led tothe legitimization of homosexual acts in American society. However,his analysis fails to distinguish between historical connectionsbetween the various elements of the sexual revolution and deepmoral relationships. His dependency on the natural law traditionalso results in an impoverished theological vision, which failsto relate human sexuality and the unitive drive to the divineimage in mankind. Only an anthropology which takes account ofthe Holy Trinity as the paradigm for human being can adequatelyground sexuality. This theological context, which is suppliedin the Eastern Orthodox tradition, grounds human sexuality ininterpersonal communion in love. It finds in the unitive drivethe need to realize the fullness of humanity in this experienceof communion, which directly reflects the Trinitarian natureof God. From such a perspective, the moral equation of maritalacts to homosexual indulgences is revealed as a gross distortion.Furthermore, the moral gulf that Beaumont seeks to establishbetween natural family planning and the use of contraceptivescollapses, as does the usefulness of natural law tradition ingeneral to combat the secularization of human sexuality.     

Sexual orientations in perspective

This article presents a new paradigm for understanding the complexity of human sexual, affectional, and erotic attractions--commonly known as sexual orientation. This new paradigm recognizes that there is great diversity among sexual orientations, erotic and emotional attractions, behaviors, and identities and that there are complex interrelations among these dimensions. Sexual orientation is determined by multiple influences, including a wide range of sociocultural factors. The development of sexual orientation is arrived at through multiple pathways. Individuals with the same sexual orientation may have little else in common. Thus, a model of sexual orientation is presented that is based on multiplicity, not sameness, and that examines the overlapping identities and statuses of culture, gender, age, race, ethnicity, class, disability, and sexuality.     

Sexualit?t in Zeiten des Internet

The Internet shows several more or less specific characteristics, in particular accessibility, anonymity, affordability, worldwide connectivity and interactivity. These characteristics hold chances as well as risks for the development of sexuality and sexual relationships. Rarely stressed and investigated are the possible positive effects, such as easier sexual contacts especially for individuals with social deficits, for sexual minorities (e.g. gay, lesbian, transgender, sadomasochists or fetishists), reducing sexual prejudices and stereotypes, better partner matching and easy access to reliable information and counseling platforms about sexual issues. The psychotherapist more often encounters the problematic effects of Internet pornography and cybersex, such as avoiding real life (offline) sexual and non-sexual social contacts, the stress on relationships (e.g. through cyber infidelity), intensifying fantasies and impulses that are harmful to oneself or others up to criminal behavior (e.g. use and circulation of child pornography). Describing a case history this review discusses the role of the Internet in the development of sexual addictive or compulsive symptomatology, including treatment options. Only a differentiated analysis of the chances and risks can counterbalance the increasing tendencies to demonize and pathologize the use of the Internet for sexual purposes.     

Liminal Space,Sexuality, and the Language of #MeToo

#MeToo has advanced the way that we think and speak of sexual abuses of power by creating a powerful social platform in which victims can function as a group, symbolizing what as psychoanalysts we consider unthinkable, while also striking at the inherent paradox that sexuality poses – how to account for the vagaries of human sexuality and its transgressive nature while holding individual and collective abuses of power accountable? My essay addresses such questions by focusing on the way that language fails to hold and symbolize sexuality due to its affective excess and its driven and enigmatic qualities, and advances the idea that the sexual is metabolized in action with an other and not through words and language. Further, that the boundary between what is permissible and what is not is negotiated on both conscious and unconscious levels of knowing, which I refer to as the liminal area of sexuality. I develop these ideas within a post-Lacanian framework and suggest that psychoanalysis must interface with other disciplines in order to bring depth to our consideration of sexuality at its most transgressive as well as to help stretch the symbolic function of language.     

How sex puts you in gendered shoes: sexuality-priming leads to gender-based self-perception and behavior

Scripts for sexual behavior dictate that women be submissive and tender and that men be assertive and dominant, reflecting the stereotypical view of women as communal and of men as agentic. Six experiments tested the hypothesis that exposure to sexuality cues causes men's and women's momentary self-perceptions and concomitant behavior to become more gender-typical. Using both pictorial and verbal prime materials that were presented both supraliminally and subliminally, we found that sex-priming strengthened gender-based self-perceptions (i.e., faster self-categorization as a woman or man; Study 1), heightened identification with one's own gender (Study 2), increased gender self-stereotyping (Study 3), and elicited greater submissiveness in women's behavior and greater assertiveness in men's behavior (Studies 4 and 5). These findings indicate that sex-priming causes self-perception and social behavior to become "attuned" to gender stereotypes. Study 6 demonstrated that these sex-priming effects can be eliminated by modern gender role primes. The potentially detrimental effects of sex-priming and possible countermeasures are discussed.