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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Sexual behaviour
Based on an extensive interview study with lesbian, transgender and queer BDSM practitioners, this book sheds new light on sexuality and current theoretical debates in gender and queer studies. It critically discusses practices of establishing consent, pushing boundaries, playing with gender and creating new kinds of intimacies and embodiments.
This book seeks to problematize knowledge and practices regarding 'male rape' and its relationship to feminism, examining this issue from a Foucauldian perspective. Feminist constructions of 'male rape' can plausibly be claimed to operate as a 'regime of truth', but one must question whether this is running counter to patriarchy.
This book sets out an integrated systems model which utilizes a public health approach and 'whole of society' philosophy for preventing and responding to child sexual abuse. It guides those engaged in policy, practice and planning concerning gender based violence and child abuse towards a more systemic approach to tackling these problems.
The search for artificial means of enhancing sexual experience is timeless and can even be found in the opening passages of Genesis (3:7) where Adam and Eve discovered sex as they took a bi te of the forbidden fruit: "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. " While others may interpret the "opening of their eyes" as simply an awareness of male and femaleness, John Milton and others regarded the forbidden fruit as an aphrodisiac and in Paradise Lost, described in greater detail what happened: "But the false fruit For other operation first displayed Carnal desire infiarning. He on Eve Began to cast lascivious eyes; she hirn As wantonly repaid; in lust they burn. " Not only did Milton regard the "forbidden fruit" as an aphro disiac, he also identified it as an apple, and an apple it has re mained until this day. Sexual behavior has always been one of the most fascinating and attention-arresting activities in human history and there has been no decrease in the fascination and curiosity it still arouses in the human psyche. 1 2 Introduction As timeless as the topic of sexual behavior is that of aphro disiacs. For example, after the "forbidden fmit," the Bible specifi cally identified mandrake as an aphrodisiac (Genesis 30:14-17): "And Reuben went, in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother, Leah."
This volume is the first major exploration of the issues relevant to young people who are affected by sexual exploitation and trafficking from a variety of critical perspectives. Issues include accommodation, gangs, migrant and refugee communities, perpetrators, international policy and the language through which we construct child exploitation.
Despite continuing ageist beliefs that sexuality is a privilege designed only for the young and physically healthy, research continues to indicate that the majority of older adults maintain interest in sexuality and may engage in fulfilling sexual behavior well into their last decade of life. Unfortunately, many professionals remain unaware of general knowledge of elderly sexuality, including the expected and normal physiological changes that can occur within the context of both male and female aging. The presence of chronic illness and other medical problems certainly can influence the expression of an aging adult's sexuality, and emergent research suggests that there are effective ways to cope with menopause, heart disease, arthritis, incontinence, diabetes, sleep disorders, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction (ED), among others. Dramatic changes have taken place within the last decade alone in terms of non-surgical treatment for incontinence and ED, with forms of sex therapy, biofeedback, and PDE-5 inhibitors. Regrettably, many aging adults and their care providers remain unaware of their increased risk factors for STDs, including HIV infection via lack of knowledge, changes in the vaginal lining, and typical declines in immune function. Estimates suggest that by the year 2020, more than half of all individuals living with HIV will be over the age of 50. Although some high quality professional books are available for clinicians, they tend to be disjointed research bibliographies, edited volumes on a narrowly focused aspect of elderly sexuality, or texts that are more than 10 years old. With the extent of new information available regarding sexuality and aging, an up to date, empirically based text is necessary.
The Machines of Sex Research describes how researchers worldwide integrated technology into studies of human sexuality in the postwar era. The machines they invented made new ways of seeing bodies possible. Some researchers who studied men used machines like penile strain gauges to police "deviant" male sexuality; others used less painful devices like penis-cameras to study women's sexual responses and map the physiology of their arousal and orgasm. While researchers used the findings from their technological innovations to propose their own views of how people should view their bodies and should manage their sexual lives, their readers interpreted their findings to enact their own visions of sexuality. Drucker shows how the use of machines in sex research provided some of the intellectual underpinnings of the sexual revolution and the women's and gay rights movements, and in turn how the sex research community developed new machines for investigations that would enhance sexual happiness rather than constrict it. The Machines of Sex Research is a key read for those interested in the intersections between human sexuality, technology, and twentieth-century social movements. Describes the little-known history of the machines of human sex research in the postwar era Shows how researchers worldwide invented and used machines to study human sexuality and the body in new ways, and how they used and improved each other's designs Relates the relationship between the machines of sex research to Cold War sexualities and gender and sexual liberation movements.
The media today is filled with powerful men in trouble for their sexual behaviors, and invariably, they are diagnosed as sexual addicts. Since Adam first hid his nakedness from God and pointed the finger at Eve, men have struggled to take responsibility for their sexuality. Over the past three decades, these behaviors have come to reflect not a moral failing, but instead, evidence of an ill-defined disease, that of "sexual addiction." The concept of sexual addiction is a controversial one because it is based on questionable research and subjective moral judgments. Labeling these behaviors as sex addiction asserts a false, dangerous myth that undermines personal responsibility. Not only does this epidemic of sex addiction excuses mislabel male sexuality as dangerous and unhealthy, but it destroys our ability to hold people accountable for their behaviors. By labeling males as weak and powerless before the onslaught and churning tide of lust, we take away those things that men should live up to: personal responsibility; integrity; self-control; independence; accountability; self-motivation; honor; respect for self and others. In The Myth of Sex Addiction, Ley presents the history and questionable science underlying this alleged disorder, exposing the moral and cultural judgments that are embedded in the concept, as well as the significant economic factors that drive the label of sex addiction in clinical practice and the popular media. Ley outlines how this label represents a social attack on many forms of sexuality-male sexuality in particular-as well as presenting the difficulty this label creates in holding people responsible for their sexual behaviors. Going against current assumptions and trends, Ley debunks the idea that sex addiction is real, or at least that it is as widespread as it appears to be. Instead, he suggests that the high-sex behaviors of some men is something that has been tacitly condoned for countless years and is only now labeled as a disorder as men are being held accountable to the same rules that have been applied to women. He suggests we should expect men to take responsibility for sexual choices, rather than supporting an approach that labels male sexual desire as a "demonic force" that must be resisted, feared, treated, and exorcised.
Many issues remain unresolved in sexuality. In some cases this is because the infor mation is not available to resolve them. In others it is, but the available conclusions the information supports block its acceptance, because they conflict with the posi tions of dominant groups in the politics of sexuality. Possibly the most obvious example is the determination of many theorists to ignore the evidence that while men rarely report being sexually assaulted, when questioned in community surveys, they make up a third of the victims, and a quarter of the perpetrators of sexual assault are women. These findings are incompatible with the feminist theory that sexual assault is not a sexual act, but normal male behavior motivated politically, to maintain men's dominance of women. Most research supporting the theory investigated women only as victims and men only as aggressors. Some feminists have dismissed the need for any research to support their beliefs on the ground that such research is "busy work" establishing what women already know. One belief considered not to require re search is that heterosexual pornography made for a male audience increases the prevalence of rape by encouraging rape-supportive attitudes of male aggression and female submission. No criticism has been directed at the soft-core pornography of "Mills and Boon" stories written for women that promote similar attitudes.
Here, Daniel A. Hart analyzes the results of an intensive twenty-year longitudinal study of men's development. Integrating a wide range of research approaches, Hart assesses personality trait, structural-developmental, and crisis-transformational factors in the study of lives followed over time. The author then develops an original framework for understanding the psychological similarities and differences in men's lives.
There are few topics in sex research as compelling and confounding to researchers, clinicians, and the general public as that of transsexualism. Upending normative notions of gender, eroticism, and identity, it poses significant scientific and clinical challenges. The book addresses a fascinating and largely unexplored topic within the study of transsexualism: The feelings and desires of conventionally masculine men who are attracted to women yet want to become women themselves. Through a collection and discussion of vivid first-person narratives, the book provides an in-depth examination of these men's unusual propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of themselves as women and how these men's sexual feelings influence their decisions to seek or undergo sex reassignment. These narratives about autogynephilia by autogynephilic male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals provide the first comprehensive documentation of the erotic ideation that underlies the most common form of MtF transsexualism. The narratives provide empirical evidence for Blanchard's theory of MtF transsexual motivation, and thus are of interest to researchers and theorists studying the phenomenology of MtF transsexualism. The narratives are likely to be eye-opening to psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians, and other professionals who work with MtF transsexuals: Most clinicians probably do not fully appreciate the erotic underpinnings of their clients' condition. A better understanding of their clients' autogynephilic feelings and motivations would enable these professionals to provide more empathetic and effective clinical care.
The Different Faces of Motherhood began during a conversation between the two editors, developmental psychologists who have spent our professional careers working with infants and very young children. We are well aware of the impor tance of infants to their mothers and of mothers to their infants. However, we were particularly aware of the fact that, whereas our knowledge about infants increases exponentially . each decade, our assumptions about mothers change relatively little. We were concerned about the theories that underlie the advice given to mothers and also about the assumption that mothers appear to be generic. More and more we have learned about individual differences in babies, but not more and more about individual differences in mothers. Our second concern has been to expand our knowledge about mothers. Our assumptions were few and our questions were many. We believed that the experience of women would vary greatly, both in outlook and in behavior, depending on each woman's age, marital status, finan Cial status, ethnicity, health, education and work experience, as well as a wom an's own experience in her family origin and her relationship to her husband. If we are to understand child development and believe that the early years are important in a child's life, then it seems critical to examine our beliefs about mothers. If we are to understand human development, then being a mother is surely an important area of inquiry."
As a researcher whose work focuses largely on the causes and conse quences of unwanted pregnancy, I may appear to be an unlikely candidate to write a foreword to a book on infertility. Yet, many of the themes that emerge in the study of unwanted pregnancy are also apparent in the study of infertility. Moreover, this volume is an important contribution to the literature on fertility, women's health issues, and health psychology in general, all topics with which I have been closely involved over the past two decades. Neither pregnancy nor its absence is inherently desirable: The occurrence of a pregnancy can be met with joy or despair, and its absence can be a cause of relief or anguish. Whether or not these states are wanted, the conscious and unconscious meanings attached to pregnancy and in fertility, the responses of others, the perceived implications of these states, and one's expectations for the future all are critical factors in determining an individual's response. In addition, both unwanted pregnancy and failure to conceive can be socially stigmatized, evoking both overt and subtle social disapproval. Fur ther, they involve not only the woman, but her partner, and potentially the extended family. Finally, both of these reproductive issues have been poorly researched. Because both are emotionally charged and socially stigmatized events, they are difficult to study. Much of the early literature relied on anecdotal or case reports."
The publication of this volume at this time appears particularly auspi cious. Biological, psychological, and social change is greater during the pubertal years than at any other period since infancy. While the past two decades have witnessed a virtual explosion of productive research on the first years of life, until recently research on adolescence, and particularly on puberty and early adolescence, has lagged substantially behind. This book provides encouraging evidence that things are changing for the better. Considered separately, the individual chapters in this book include important contributions to our growing knowledge of the biological mechanisms involved in pubertal onset and subsequent changes, as well as of the psychological and social aspects of these changes, both as con sequences and determinants. In this regard, the book clearly benefits from the breadth of disciplines represented by the contributors, includ ing developmental endocrinology, adolescent medicine, pediatrics, psy chology, and sociology, among others."
Integrating behavioral, psychoanalytic, and biological perspectives into a unique multi-modal approach, the authors present a new diagnostic and treatment methodology which is flexible enough to account for individual variations in sexually perverse disorders. Alongside this methodology, they highlight the key issues concerning these disorders to provide the general practicing clinician with a practical guide for treating the sexually deviant patient.
Families are undergoing dramatic changes in our society. Our tradi tional views are being challenged by new family arrangements. These new family arrangements are forcing redefinitions of what consti tutes a family and raising significant issues regarding the potential developmental consequences for children in these families, if such exist. Moreover, the ramifications of redefined families and their bear ing on children's development extend into the legal, political, and societal arenas. This book focuses on the relationships between di verse family arrangements and children's development, as well as on legal and social implications. Our interest in this area emanates from our experience in directing the Fullerton Longitudinal Study. In the course of this investigation, we observed families undergoing transformation, most commonly in maternal employment and marital status. Our initial research on the role of maternal employment in children's development provided the scientific foundation for our interest. Just as we feel that maternal employment and dual-earner families should be comprehensively re searched regarding their relationships to children's development, we also believe that other contemporary family arrangements should receive extensive attention in the developmental literature. Hence, the idea for this book emerged.
Public health has a legacy of neglect regarding social and behavioral research. Too often, prompted by technical and scientific progress, we have ignored even marginalized-the vital "human element" in health thinking and prac tice. Thus, for example, while family planning programs focused on providing a choice among safe and effective contraceptive methods (a supremely worthy goal), the central issue of sexuality and sexual behavior was generally neglected. Similarly, the enormous and important efforts to develop rapid and reliable diagnostic and treatment methods for sexually transmitted diseases helped divert attention away from the crucial issues of sexual practice. In short, we seem to have difficulty addressing the fundamental behaviors-including sex, drug taking and other intoxications, and violence-that are central to the major causes of preventable morbidity, disability, and premature mortality in the world today. Our collective reluctance to examine and understand ourselves is also expressed in the oft-repeated pipedream that scientific progress will "take care of" the HIV / AIDS pandemic by delivering a preventive vaccine, an effective cure, or both. Yet even a cursory glance at the relationship between scientific/ technical progress and health shows that meeting the scientific challenges is only one step toward effective application of the vaccine or drug. It is typical, not atypical, that hepatitis B vaccine is only now becoming relatively freely available to large populations in the developing world, more than a decade after the vaccine's licensure.
This thirteenth volume in the series addresses an increasingly salient worldwide research, design, and policy issue-women and physical environments. We live in an era of worldwide social change. Some nation-states are fracturing or disintegrating, migrations are resulting from political up heavals and economic opportunities, some ethnic and national animosi ties are resurfacing, and global and national economic systems are under stress. Furthermore, the variability of interpersonal and familial forms is increasing, and cultural subgroups-minorities, women, the physically challenged, gays, and lesbians-are vigorously demanding their rights in societies and are becoming significant economic and political forces. Although these social-system changes affect many people, their im pact on women is especially salient. Women are at the center of most forms of family life. Whether in traditional or contemporary cultures, women's roles in child rearing, home management, and community relations have and will continue to be central, regardless of emerging and changing family structures. And, because of necessity and oppor tunity, women are increasingly engaged in paid work in and outside the home (women in most cultures have historically always worked, but often not for pay). Their influence in cultures and societies is also mounting in the social, political, and economic spheres. In technological societies, women are playing higher-level roles, though still in small numbers, in economic and policy domains. This trend is likely to acceler ate in the twenty-first century.
A useful tool for practitioners, researchers, theorists, and advanced students, Handbook of Sexual Assault analyzes the nature and extent of the problem of sexual offending and classifies the types of offenders according to an empirically developed system. In addition, contributors present the theories of the etiology and maintenance of sexual offending; offer various perspectives and factors relevant to accurate assessment; and detail contemporary treatment procedures.
Drawing on hundreds of interviews with 15-22 year old straight and gay male athletes in both the United States and the United Kingdom, this book explores how jocks have redefined heterosexuality, and no longer fear being thought gay for behaviors that constrained men of the previous generation.
As we enter the last decade of the twentieth century, the AIDS epidemic looms ever larger and threatening. The specter of upwards of a million deaths in the United States and perhaps many millions worldwide from a sexually transmitted virus shakes our belief in modem medical science, while challenging the foundations of democratic society. Almost ten years into the epidemic, and with an enormous body of basic science research on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), we still do not know why AIDS emerged when it did or how to stop its spread. A very humbling experience for scientists, clinicians, public health experts, politicians, and the general public. Yet there are signs that a well coordinated multidisciplinary research program can conquer the epidemic and, perhaps, provide the basis for preventing future epidemics. The HIV family of viruses is now better understood, both in terms of structure and function, than any other virus. Genetically engineered peptides and nucleic acids are being tested as specific treatments or vaccines against HIV infection/disease. Most prom ising are the strides which have been made in understanding those aspects of human behavior which have contributed to the spread of HIV infection and which must be substantially modified if AIDS is to be controlled and eventually eradicated. The basis of that understanding has roots in a diverse set of disciplines which have converged in the work presented in this book."
The author has written an unusually fresh work, applying a biopsychosocial approach to the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range and degree of disorders. The book will provide mental health professionals and graduate students with a trustworthy, sophisticated introduction to sexual health and its problems.
In a review written in 1979, I noted that there was a paucity of research examining the effects of maternal employment on the infant and young child and also that longitudinal studies of the effects of maternal em ployment were needed (Hoffman, 1979). In the last 10 years, there has been a flurry of research activity focused on the mother's employment during the child's early years, and much of this work has been longi tudinal. All of the studies reported in this volume are at least short-term longitudinal studies, and most of them examine the effects of maternal employment during the early years. The increased focus on maternal employment during infancy is not a response to the mandate of that review but rather reflects the new employment patterns in the United States. In March 1985, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 49.4% of married women with children less than a year old were employed outside the home (Hayghe, 1986). This figure is up from 39% in 1980 and more than double the rate in 1970. By now, most mothers of children under 3 are in the labor force."
Rough-and-tumble play provided one of the paradigmatic examples of the appli- tion of ethological methods, back in the 1970's. Since then, a modest number of - searchers have developed our knowledge of this kind of activity, using a variety of methods, and addressing some quite fundamental questions about age changes, sex diff- ences, nature and function of behaviour. In this chapter I will review work on this topic, mentioning particularly the interest in comparing results from different informants and different methods of investigation. Briefly, rough-and-tumble play (or R&T for short) refers to a cluster of behaviours whose core is rough but playful wrestling and tumbling on the ground; and whose general characteristic is that the behaviours seem to be agonistic but in a non-serious, playful c- text. The varieties of R&T, and the detailed differences between rough-and-tumble play and real fighting, will be discussed later. 2. A BRIEF HISTORY OF RESEARCH ON R&T In his pioneering work on human play, Groos (1901) described many kinds of rough-and-tumble play. However, R&T was virtually an ignored topic from then until the late 1960's. There was, of course, a flowering of observational research on children in the 1920s and 1930s, especially in North America; but this research had a strong practical o- entation, and lacked the cross-species perspective and evolutionary orientation present in Groos' work. |
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