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Summary all lectures youth and sexuality
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This is a summary of all the lectures of the course youth and sexuality, written in English. It is structered in bullet points.
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Summary Lectures Youth and SexualityLecture 1
PART 1: SEXUALITY RESEARCH IN THE PAST CENTURY AND NOW
Youth is a fluid concept, which can contain children as well as young adults
People have different ideas about what youth is.
We will focus on adolescents: 12 to 25 years.
Sexuality can be a lever in adolescent development
It is the phase where you will become independent from your parents.
You will develop personal morality and identity.
You will develop meaningful intimate relationships.
Crucial in finding balance between autonomy and connectedness.
And it is the time people take the first steps in terms of exploring desires and
boundaries of yourself and others (consent).
What is sexuality?
Some central concepts we are talking about:
Sexuality is the broad term that can be narrowed down.
For example sex, which refers to ‘that act’.
It is also often explained as sexual orientation, what you are attracted to
(sexuality).
Or to ‘sekse’ and gender, about your own masculinity and femininity.
And to sexual health, which is understood in a narrow sense as sexual
protection, but it also includes sexual dysfunction, violence and positive
sexual experience.
But also sexology as a scientific study of sexuality in a broad term.
The modern study of sexuality: an overview
1. 1900-1940: first period of large growth of scientific interest, sexology research and
societal influence.
Dominated by physicians, which was a divergence from the past (in which
sexuality was mostly a moral issue).
From religious-moral to medical-psychiatric.
, German psychoanalyst laid foundation for sexology: Von Krafft-Ebing and
Freud.
Often considering female desire deviant.
1906: Birth of psychology as a science.
First steps of moving away from LGBT as disease, immoral or a crime.
2. Post WW2: more interdisciplinary, also biology, psychology, sociology.
US leading in sexology: Kinsey, Money.
Alfred Kinsey: Biologist, zoologist, sexoligist → ‘The Kinsey Reports’.
Based his ideas about sexuality on biology.
Revolutionary: he moved the field from medical to
interdisciplinary.
Taxonomy of human sexual behaviors.
Homosexuality as a scale.
Controversial in his time: revelations about masturbation,
orgasm, premarital sex, homosexuality, differences and
similarities between men and women, and more.
John Money: psychologist, sexologist.
Groundbreaking clinical empirical studies on gender identity
development among intersex children.
Highly unethical.
Introduced the term ‘gender’ (1955): all those things that a
person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having
the status of man and woman.
It includes, but is not restricted to, sexuality in the
sense of eroticism.
Criticized for e.g. David Reimer sex reassignment study.
What do you take away from this: he showed that gender and
sex are not totally different or the same.
All these studies seem really unethical, but without these studies we
wouldn’t be where we are now.
Europe: first feminist wave, e.g. Simone de Beauvoir.
3. Sexual liberation (60s): sexual revolution, second feminist wave, oral contraceptives.
Masters and Johnson, ‘discovery’ human sexual response cycle (1966):
Stage 1: excitement.
Stage 2: plateau.
Stage 3: orgasm.
Stage 4: resolution.
A natural physiological process can be blocked by psychological
inhibitions.
Controversial methods: observing people having sex in a lab.
Seeing how the body and people respond.
Laid foundations for behavioral therapy of sexual dysfunctions.
4. 1973-2000: social-constructionist versus medicalization/evolutionary perspective.
Simon & Gagnon: The social sources of human sexuality.
Michel Foucault, Jonh Gagnon, William Simon, Shere Hite, Susan
Brownmiller
Emergence of social-constructivist perspectives
Dismissal of the Freudian idea of ‘sexual instinct’.
Growing attention for sexual violence, sexual equality (m/f).
Sexuality = product of societal regulation, norms, meaning, and the
freedom/ right to express themselves
Sexual behavior = social behavior
Sensitive for interpersonal and intrapsychological cultural
scripts
, 1974: Homosexuality removed from DSM (no longer considered a mental
disorder).
After heated debate, 58% of 10.000 APA psychiatrists voted that
homosexuality is no longer a ‘ mental disorder’.
Increased awareness:
What is normal and abnormal?
What is sexual ‘deviance’ or ‘variation’?
More attention for sexual violence and inequality (Shere Hite, Susan
Brownmiller).
5. Recent developments: professionalization of sexology.
“Discovery” of the full anatomy of the clitoris (Helen O’Connell, US urologist).
It is just as big as a penis, but it is inside.
More attention for sexual pleasure and inequality, e.g., orgasm gap.
Ellen Laan (1962-2021)
Groundbreaking research into female sexual arousal.
Psychologist/ sexologist/ professor / founder of Sexual Wellbeing Nederland
Some myths maintaining sexual inequalities (between heterosexual cisgender men/
women):
1. Men are from Mars, women from Venus
Of 30 sexual behaviors, only 4 moderate differences, and 80,26%
overlap (Petersen & Hyde, 2010).
2. Penis and vagina are important for reproduction and therefore for sexual
pleasure.
Penis-in-vagina sex does not facilitate women’s orgasms.
Sexual inequality observation 1: orgasm gap.
In heterosexual relationships, women have fewer orgasms then the men with
whom they have sex (65% vs 95%; Frederick et al. 2018)
Women in lesbian relationships have more orgasms.
Sexual inequality observation 2: sexual pain
About 10% of women always have pain during intercourse, in men this is rare
Pain during intercourse is prevalent in young women (>50% in NL, De Graaf
et al., 2005)
The expectation of pain impairs arousal → more pain (Brauer et al., 2007)
Sexual inequality observation 3: sexual coercion and sexual violence.
Ellen Laan’s definition of sex: “Sex should not refer to a particular act, but to an
experience: a sexually pleasurable experience that is [can be] affectionately shared
by equal individuals”.
, Sexual similarity observations
Men and women are similar in the capacity to experience sexual
pleasure
Responsivity to sexual stimuli
Sexual desire
Sex drive/ hormones (no, men aren’t always in the mood…)
But: men and women have different opportunities for sexual pleasure
(in heterosexual relationships)
Gendered scripts, coital imperative (penis-in-vagina sex does not facilitate
women’s orgasms)
Towards sexual equality
A prioritization of pleasure for all → health benefits.
Diversity/ inclusion → reduce impact of coital imperative/ gendered scripts.
Discourse of similarities instead of differences (promoting equality is not a women’s
issue).
PART 2: PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
A few important principles:
Sexual development is a lifelong process.
Things you experience during childhood or adolescence can have an
influence later on life.
In which time period you grow up is of large influence.
Sexual development is multidimensional
It is not only about sexual behavior, but also about gender identity, behavior.
Sexual development is context-related.
Bio-psycho-social context is of great importance and has an influence on
what is possible and what typically happens.
Interaction between individual and context.
Individuals have an active role and to a certain point can create their own
environment, for example choosing friends and partner(s).
Sexual development has many paths.
Early childhood age 0-5
Before the child is born, there are also several experiences that have influences.
Context:
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