PSYCH422:
Lesson 1: Introduction to Human Sexualities
Lesson Overview
Welcome to PSYCH422 – Human Sexuality! This semester, we are going to be diving into a number of different topics surrounding human sexuality.
This course is divided into 15 lessons, each covering a different topic related to human sexuality. Throughout the course, you will be introduced to a number of different theories about human sexuality as well as different methods to studying human sexuality.
The purpose of this first module is to introduce you to the major methods used to study human sexuality and introduce you to some of the questions that these methods investigate.
Lesson Objectives
Upon conclusion of this lesson, you should be able to do the following:
- Define sex and sexuality
- Identify the major influences of our understanding of sex/sexuality
- Identify the major methods of studying human sexuality
Lesson Readings & Activities
By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Course Schedule.
A (Very Brief) History of Sex and Sexuality
Sex and Sexuality
Our understanding of sex and sexuality is constantly evolving and some of our major ideas about sexuality are quite modern. Let’s start by reviewing two terms that are foundational in this course:
Sex: (1) the distinction between male and female; (2) engaging in sexual behaviors. The first definition is often referred to as a biological determination (contrasted with gender which is a social determination – we will dive into this more in a later module).
Sexuality: the entire realm of human experience that is more or less closely connected with sex. This includes (but is not limited to):
- gendered traits
- sexual attraction/relationships
- romantic attraction/relationships
- childbirth and parenting
- contraceptives and disease
- the relationship between our sexual identity and social structures (including law, religion, and medicine)
When you think of sexuality, what else comes to mind?
Sexuality Has Changed Over Time
Take a moment and just think about what comes to mind when you think about sex, gender, love, romance…
Many of these images are probably based on a very modern construction of human sexuality. I imagine that, with some deviations, the major images that came to mind look like those in Figure 1.1:
As you read in Chapter 1, human sexuality has a long and varied history. For example, polygamy (marriage/mating with more than one partner) was once widely practiced but has now largely been replaced with monogamy (marriage/mating with only one partner). Sex was once considered “normal” only if engaged in for procreative purposes. In addition, the sex/gender binary (using a male/female classification) is a modern construction and many cultures have historically recognized more than two genders.
Influences on Human Sexuality
So, what causes these changes in our understandings about sex and sexuality? A number of different factors!
- Sex and sexuality are influenced by:
- Evolution
- Social Structures (e.g., religion, laws, social stratification)
- Geographical changes
- Attitudes toward and understanding of marriage
- The way in which researchers approach the study of sex/sexuality
You will see examples of the above influences throughout this course. To give you a quick introduction as to how these influences work together to transform our understanding of aspects of sex/sexuality over time, watch the short video below (narrated by out comedian, Wanda Sykes) and try to identify examples of some of the above influences.
Methods of Studying Human Sexuality
The methods of studying human sexuality that we will see in this course are: biomedical, psychological, cultural anthropology, and sociology. Our focus will be on the psychological, but it is important to understand the other methods as well.
The pages that follow will go a bit more in depth on the various methods and provide an example of a finding using that method.
Biomedical
The biomedical approach to studying human sexuality has allowed researchers and clinicians to study both the human brain and human behavior in more direct ways than was historically possible. This approach encompasses several different techniques including genetic, hormonal, and a variety of brain imaging methods. Drug treatments that target specific sexual disorders and reproductive cancers also fall under this approach.
Genetic approaches have traditionally fallen under two broad areas - behavioral genetic and molecular genetic. Psychologists have studied the heritability of a broad range of traits using behavioral genetic methods such as family studies, twin studies, and adoption studies. Several traits such as gender identity, sexual orientation, and sociosexuality have been investigated to see whether they have a familial and heritable component. We will discuss these traits in greater detail later in the course.
Another significant area of medical advancement has been made in the area of sex hormone research, including research in sexual development and differentiation, and the neuroendocrinology of sexual disorders. We will look at these key areas of human sexuality later in the course.
Psychological
Psychology is the study of mental processes and behavior. While there are a number of different subfields within psychology, we will focus on three.
Social psychology
Social psychology is the study of how we think about, influence, and relate to other people. Some of the major topics surrounding sex/sexuality that social psychologists study are sexual attraction, relationships between intimate partners, sexual violence and violence between intimate partners, and prejudice/discrimination toward sexual minorities.
One famous social psychological study was conducted by Russell Clark and Elaine Hatfield in 1989. They had an attractive woman approach different men on a large college campus. After introducing herself, the woman would claim to have noticed the man around campus and found him attractive. Then, she would ask the man three questions: Would you go out on a date with me? Would you go back to my apartment with me? Would you go to bed with me? Clark and Hatfield also repeated the experiment with an attractive man approaching different women walking around campus.
What did they find? While men and women were equally likely to agree to go out on a date with the study confederate, men were much more likely to agree to go back to the person’s apartment, and even more likely to agree to go to bed with her. In fact, while no women agreed to go to bed with the stranger, more men (75%) agreed to this scenario than to just going on a date (50%)!
This study inspired many more studies that investigated sociosexuality, or the interest in casual sex. We will return to the Clark and Hatfield study later in the course to consider other factors that may influence sociosexuality.
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is the study of internal mental processes. Often, cognitive psychologists study brain activity alongside environmental factors. In addition, some cognitive psychologists work with animals (largely primates) to make inferences about human behavior.
Cognitive psychologists have long sought to understand sex/gender differences and connect cognitive differences to biological differences. One set of findings suggest that males have an advantage in math because they have better spatial cognition (knowledge about spatial environments) than females do (Geary et al., 2000). We will return to a discussion of sex/gender differences in a later module.
Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology uses the application of evolutionary principles to study the human mind and human behavior. Many aspects of human mating behavior have been studied cross-culturally (and in naturalistic settings) in an effort to understand how evolution has influenced our genes to interact with the environment in ways that promote certain sexual feelings and behaviors. Researchers have looked at a wide variety of behavioral patterns such as why females across the world tend to be pickier than males when choosing a sex partner, why sexual vs. emotional jealousy may show a sex difference, and why we find some people more attractive than others.
Evolutionary psychologists have used Darwin’s sexual selection theory to posit that females and males follow different reproductive strategies because they experience different kinds of risks in their reproductive pursuits. Two main features of sexual selection that are commonly seen in nonhuman animals are competition among males and choice by females.
Sociology
Sociology is the scientific study of society. While the methods described above often focus on the individual or the individual’s relationship to one person (or multiple people), sociologists study sex/sexuality in relation to larger social structures and institutions. Sociologists often use large-scale surveys to better understand trends in a given society.
For example, using large-scale surveys, sociologists have found that the percentage of women and men who said that they have had sex with a same-sex partner is much higher than the percentage of people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, 2019). In other words, there seems to be a discrepancy between sexual identity and sexual behaviors – something that we will explore more in a later module.
In addition to large-scale surveys, sociologists also use qualitative research, or in-depth (non-numerical) research such as interviews, big data, or large amounts of data that is collected via search engines, corporations, etc., and ethnographies, or studying an individual culture/group by engaging in on-site fieldwork (the researcher often lives among the group being studied).
Lesson Summary
In Lesson 1, you learned the basic definitions of sex and sexuality which form the foundation of the next fourteen lessons. It is important to remember that our understanding of sex/sexuality is ever changing, and researchers use a number of different theories and approaches to studying human sexuality. While this course will largely focus on findings from psychology (social, cognitive, and evolutionary), we will also incorporate findings from the fields of biomedicine, cultural anthropology, and sociology. Importantly, findings from these various fields are, at times, at odds with one another. Therefore, try to compare and contrast findings and think about how different theories/methods might come together to inspire new research questions.