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Books > Social sciences > Psychology > Sexual behaviour
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.
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."
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.
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."
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.
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."
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.
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."
What if we took sex out of the box marked 'special', either the worst or best thing that a human person can experience, and considered it within the complexity of reality? In this extraordinary book, despite longstanding tabloid-style sexual preoccupations with villains and victims, shame and virtue, JoAnn Wypijewski does exactly that. From the HIV crisis to the paedophile priest panic, Woody Allen to Brett Kavanaugh, child pornography to Abu Ghraib, Wypijewski takes the most famous sex panics of the last decades and turns them inside out, weaving what together becomes a searing indictment of modern sexual politics, exposing the myriad ways sex panics and the expansion of the punitive state are intertwined. What emerges is an examination of the multiple ways in which the ever-expanding default language of monsters and victims has contributed to the repressive power of the state. Politics exists in the mess of life. Sex does too, Wypijewski insists and so must sexual politics, to make any sense at all.
Methodological problems have hampered researchers' efforts to understand and control AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic. This practical book addresses these problems by using actual health research case studies to develop strategies regarding design and sampling, measurement, and analysis and modeling issues. Researchers working on both biological and behavioral aspects of the disease will find this work a singularly effective tool to improve their study designs.
Sexual Orientation in Child and Adolescent Health Care serves as a resource for child health care professionals including pediatricians, family physicians, nurses, pediatric psychologists, child and adolescent psychiatrists, and social workers. The issues of sexuality and sexual orientation now generate great interest among those who treat children. This volume describes the effects of stigmatization on non-heterosexual physicians, patients, and students, and discusses a variety of clinically relevant topics including the development of sexual orientations, children of gay or lesbian parents, young children with gender atypical behavior, and the healthcare needs of gay and lesbian adolescents. The last two chapters describe methods for improvement in medical education and medical care, and provide extensive resources available to professionals and consumers.
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.
Over the past decade, the AIDS pandemic has propagated so widely and exerted such a dev astating impact that one may properly ask the question, Why not concentrate all AIDS efforts on disease control alone? Why link AIDS with women's reproductive health? What is the scientific basis for this linkage? And how might AID~ control and women's health objectives be promot ed simultaneously? These questions constitute the principal themes addressed in this monograph. The 15 chapters in this volume are intended to provide state-of-the-art reviews of key interac tions between AIDS and women's reproductive health for an audience of scientists and policy makers in the AIDS and population fields. Impetus for this monograph comes in pan from what we perceive to be an inadequate global response, thus far, to AIDS and women's health ;>roblems. A common platform has failed to emerge among the disparate professional communities working in the areas of AIDS, STDs, and family planning. As a result, endeavors in these fields have been isolated, and opportunities for joint action have been missed. An enormous and, as yet, unharnessed potential exists for power ful interdisciplinary collaborations that could strengthen policies and programs against these pressing health problems of humankind.
What are the differences between the sexes? That is the question that Ann Oakley set out to answer in this pioneering study, now established as a classic in the field. To answer it she draws on the evidence of biology, anthropology, sociology and the study of animal behaviour to cut through popular myths and reach the underlying truth. She demonstrates conclusively that men and women are not two separate groups: rather each individual takes his or her place on a continuous scale. She shows how different societies define masculinity and femininity in different and even opposite ways, and discusses how far observable differences are based on biology and psychology and how far on cultural conditioning. Many books have discussed these vital issues. None, however, have drawn on such an impressively wide range of evidence or discussed it with such clarity and authority. Now newly reissued with a substantial introduction which highlights its continuing relevance, this work will continue to inform and shape dialogues around sex and gender for a new generation of scholars and students.
Until recently, studies of women's health received scant research attention in the context of the overall magnitude of research conducted on health. Even for health issues that affect both men and women, most research has been limited to male subjects, leaving a large gap in our knowledge base concerning women's health. Finally, the decade of the 1990s is ushering in a shift in this inequity. In 1990 the U.S. National Institutes of Health issued a compelling report citing the lack of sufficient research on women's health as a major gap in our knowledge, and a mandate has been issued to add women as study subjects in research or to document why they have not been included. Such directives will undoubtedly lead to a much-needed burgeoning of research activities in the area of women's health as we approach the twenty-first century. Despite limited research resources, however, there have been steady, scientifically rigorous voices in the wilderness for the last several years, and many of the best investigators are represented in this volume. These workers have led the vanguard in exploring psychosocial factors that are likely to differentially affect women's and men's health. For example, women and men engage in social roles that often differ, if not in quantity, then certainly in quality. Sex differences in role expectations, environmen tal qualities, role burdens related to the domains of work and family, and abilities to adapt to and cope with stressful situations may have a distinctive impact on health."
This book offers a genealogy of the medicalisation of sexual appetite in Europe and the United States from the nineteenth to twenty-first century. Histories of sexuality have predominantly focused on the emergence of sexual identities and categories of desire. They have marginalised questions of excess and lack, the appearance of a libido that dwindles or intensifies, which became a pathological object in Europe by the nineteenth century. Through a genealogical approach that draws on the writings of Michel Foucault, A Genealogy of Appetite in the Sexual Sciences examines key 'moments' in the pathologisation of sexuality and demonstrates how medical techniques assumed critical roles in shaping modern understandings of the problem of appetite. It examines how techniques of the patient case history, elixirs and devices, measurement, diagnostic manuals and pharmaceuticals were central to the medicalisation of sexual appetite. Jacinthe Flore argues that these techniques are significant for understanding how a concern with 'how much?' has transformed medical knowledge of sexuality since the nineteenth century. The questions of 'how much?', 'how often?' and 'how intense?' thus require a genealogical investigation that pays attention to the emergence of medical techniques, the transformation of forms of knowledge and their effects on the problematisations of sexual appetite.
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.
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."
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. |
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