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Sexual Motivation
Sex Is Natural
• We are all motivated to have sex.
• Without that motivation, none of us would
be here.
How do we (as scientists) find out about sex?
We ask!!!!
Kinsey’s Studies
• Confidential interviews with
18,000 people (in early
1950’s).
• Most men and half of all
women have premarital sex.
• Almost all men and women
masturbate.
• Women who had orgasms
while masturbating were more
likely to report having orgasms
after marriage.
Good Start- but major problems with his study- sampling, questions etc….
The Physiology of Sex
• In the 1960’s William Masters and Virginia
Johnson set out to explore the physiology
of sex.
• 382 females and 312 males.
• Only people who were willing to have sex
and display orgasm in a lab environment.
• Filmed more than 10,000 sex cycles.
Results of M & J Study
The Sexual Response Cycle (Four Stages)
1. Excitement Phase: genitals become
engorged in blood (men and women) and
women will lubricate.
2. Plateau Phase: excitement peaks,
breathing, pulse increases, tip of penis
may exhibit seminal fluid, clitoris retractsorgasm feels imminent.
Results of M & J Study (Continued)
3. Orgasm: muscle contractions all over the body,
women’s contractions actually help propel
sperm and position uterus to increase chances
of conception. Man and woman only aware of
rhythmic genital contractions.
4. Resolution Phase: everything slows down and
men enter a refractory period (which can last
from minutes to over a day) where he is
incapable of another orgasm.
The Psychology of Sex
• Only some people are externals when it
comes to hunger- but we are all externals
when it comes to sex.
• Heiman 4 tape study.
• People can find sexually explicit images
either pleasing or disturbing- but they are
none the less biologically arousing.
Can External Sexual Stimuli have
adverse effects?
• Movies of women being coerced or forced
into sex tend to increase the viewer’s
acceptance of the false idea that women can
enjoy it.
• Viewing X-Rated films can diminish people’s
satisfaction with their own partners.
Expectations change.
• After viewing attractive women or men on
TV- people judge their own partners as less
attractive.
Imagined Stimuli
• Images inside our heads can also effect
our sexual motivation.
• Both dreams and daydreams can lead to
orgasm.
• But fantasies to not correspond to realityjust because a women fantasizes about a
man “taking her” does not mean she will
want it in reality!!!!
Adolescent Sexuality
Culture
•About ½ of all high school kids in US report having sex- rates are higher in Western
Europe but lower in Arab or Asian countries.
Also change over time in the same culture: in 1900 3% of women reported having
sex by 18. Now that number is around half.
Only about 1/3 of sexually active male
teenagers use condoms- WHY?
•
•
•
•
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Ignorance
Guilt around sex
No Communication
Alcohol Use
Mass Media norms
of unprotected
promiscuity
We have discussed the energizing of sexual
motivation but have yet to discuss its direction:
Sexual Orientation
• An enduring sexual attraction toward
members of either one's own gender or
the other gender.
Percentage gay, how it feels, cities, brothers.
How is Sexual Orientation
Determined
• There has been NO evidence that
sexuality is socially determined.
• Kids raised by gay parents are no more
likely to be gay that if they were raised by
hetero parents.
Thus, it is likely that sexuality
is biologically determined.
The Brain
• Simon LeVay discovered that there is a cluster
of cells in the hypothalamus that is larger in
heterosexual men than in heterosexual women
or homosexual men.
•However, the cluster could be socially
developed or some other biological factor.
Genetics
• If one identical twin is homosexual, the
other twin has about a 50% chance of
being gay (about 20% for fraternal twins).
What does this mean?
Prenatal Environment
• Current research seems
to point to the hormonal
levels in the prenatal
environment.
•We have been
able to create
lesbian sheep!!!
What are the ethical
issues here?