Ethics of Globalization and the AIDS Crisis from a Jewish Perspective

This essay explores what Jewish ethics has to say about globalization in relation to the AIDS crisis. Special attention is paid to the consequences in affirming current intellectual trends to transcend traditional limits in both society and thought for rethinking traditional Jewish values. The discussion proceeds from two presuppositions. The first is that there is an intimate connection between ethics, science, and politics. The second is that the history of Jewish ethics involves three distinct forms that are generally correlated but rarely identical in content and moral judgment. These three forms are law, wisdom or virtue, and covenant. The discussion considers related issues of accidental connections in time between the bubonic plague and Zionism and between AIDS and homosexuality in relation to moral–theological issues related to divine providence and distributive justice.     

不同性别比和资源获取能力对未婚男性择偶标准的影响

本研究分别采用文字启动和图片启动两种方式,探讨不同性别比下男性择偶标准的动态变化。实验1和实验2的结果均显示:相比于男多女少启动,在女多男少启动下,男性对女性"好资源"的要求会明显升高。不同性别比启动和男性资源获取能力(而不是童年经济状况)在男性择偶标准上存在着交互效应。相比于男多女少启动,资源获取能力强的男性在女多男少启动下对女性好资源的要求会明显提高,而资源获取能力弱的男性在两种启动下对女性好资源的要求没有显著变化。结论:对资源获取能力强的男性而言,对女性"好资源"的偏好是择偶选择过多时所产生的奢侈需求。     

Integrating Sex Therapy Interventions with Couple Therapy

This conceptual/clinical paper presents a couple, integrative, psychobiosocial model of assessment, treatment, and relapse prevention for common sexual dysfunctions. The goal is to encourage couple therapists to integrate sexual permission-giving, scientifically and clinically relevant sexual information and guidelines, and specific sexual suggestions/interventions into their couple work. The artificial barriers between couple and sex therapy is to the detriment of couples who need to address intimacy and sexuality problems.     

Black Box Arguments

“Black box argument” is a metaphor for modular components of argumentative discussion that are, within a particular discussion, not open to expansion. In public policy debate such as the controversy over abstinence-only sex education, scientific conclusions enter the discourse as black boxes consisting of a result returned from an external and largely impenetrable process. In one way of looking at black box arguments, there is nothing fundamentally new for the argumentation theorist: A black box argument is very like any other appeal to authority, and what might be said about any particular form of black box will turn out to be a particularized version of what might be said about evaluating arguments based on authority. But in another way of looking at black box arguments, they are a constantly evolving technology for coming to conclusions and making these conclusions broadly acceptable. Black boxes are to argumentation what material inventions are to engineering and related sciences. They are anchored in and constrained by fundamental natural processes, but they are also new things that require theoretical explication and practical assessment.     

Reliability of heterosocial skills measurement with sex offenders

The heterosocial skills of 79 sex offenders were assessed using two self-report inventories, the Social Anxiety and Distress Scale (SAD) and the S-R Inventory of Anxiousness (SRI). In addition, staff members rated the offenders on modified versions of the SAD and the Heterosocial Skills Behavior Checklist for Males (HSB). Twenty-one offenders were also videotaped during a brief interaction with a female confederate. The tapes were rated using the HSB. All ratings and videotapings were conducted twice within a two-week period. The two self-report scales showed good test-retest reliability (r=.88) and correlatedr=.63 with each other. However, the SAD correlated significantly with the Crowne-Marlowe Social Desirability Scale and showed significant change from first to second administrations. The SRI showed less reactivity to social desirability and changed less over time. The staff ratings showed higher test-retest (r=.72–.76) than interrater (r=.36–.43) reliability. They correlatedr=–.56 with each other and did not show a significant relationship to the Crowne-Marlowe. However, both staff-ratings changed significantly from test to retest. Inspection of correlations between staff and self-report measures indicated that these instruments may be strongly affected by rater variance. Different measures completed by the same person correlated higher than the same measure completed by different persons. The HSB showed high levels of interrater agreement (90–100%) and split-half reliability (r=.95–.97). However, test-retest reliability was poor for the overall score and for the category measuring form of conversation. Categories measuring voice and affect were moderately reliable over time (r=.53–.74). However, the voice category scores changed substantially from first to second videotaping. On almost all measures used in this study, the sex offenders' scores were similar to those derived from normal populations. Only the category measuring affect on the HSB seemed to differentiate this group from normals.     

Preschool Children’s Pretend and Physical Play and Sex of Play Partner: Connections to Peer Competence

This study was designed to examine associations between preschool childrens pretend and physical play with same-sex, other-sex, and mixed sex peers and childrens social competence with peers. Sixty predominately middle-class preschoolers (33 boys, 51 European-American) were observed on the playground at their school over a period of 4 months. Childrens same-sex, other-sex, and mixed-sex peer play was observed, and teachers and peers provided assessments of childrens social competence. Analyses revealed that children who engaged in more same-sex pretend play were better liked by peers and were viewed by teachers as being socially competent. In addition, girls who engaged in same-sex exercise play and boys who engaged in same-sex rough-and-tumble play were better liked by peers, whereas boys who engaged in rough-and-tumble play with other-sex peers were less liked by peers. The results suggest that child gender and gender of playmate are important factors in the association between pretend play and rough-and-tumble play and childrens social competence with peers.     

Is it Really Just About Being More Like a Fag? Confronting the Gay Male Model Mantra

Although the debate between feminism and queer is by now a fairly old and some might argue, trite and overwrought one, in this paper I direct my attention to a specific feminist assessment of queer that I find to be especially unhelpful and pernicious: the automatic linkage of queer with the exaltation of a gay male subjectivity. This article is informed by my own ethnographic research on lesbian/queer public sexual cultures; specifically, two Canadian lesbian/queer bathhouses, where public sex and sexual exploration are encouraged. I argue that this contention, that lesbians who espouse queer are aping (gay) male sexuality and subjectivity—due to the privileging of non-normative sexual practices found within the gay male community—does two things: (re)essentializes genders and sexualities, and, more importantly, robs non-gay male subjects (e.g., women, lesbians, butches, trans identified individuals) of their own agency. In sum, I believe that this linkage to a supposed gay male imitation, and concomitantly, viewing lesbian/queer sexual cultures, behaviors, configurations, and signifying sexual economies as mere derivatives of gay male culture, reinforces lesbian/queer invisibility and (re)centers the heterosexual matrix. For the sake of lesbian/queer subjects’ own viability, lesbian/queer sexualities must thus be pulled out of this discursive trap.