Myth 9 – You Should Never Have Sex on the First Date

Truths:

• Sometimes, the moment is perfect – it can even begin a commitment/relationship
• Sometimes you only get one chance – nothing ventured, nothing gained
• Always show off your best qualities
• Some men will never open up unless it’s sexual
• Sex early on can lead to quicker self-disclosure and intimacy (i.e. the girl and guy who met at the airport, started touching on the plane, had sex at the hotel, and are now serious)

But there can be:

• The person who treats you like disposable tissue
• The person who starts planning the wedding the next morning
• Pregnancy or STDs. Oops.
• You don’t want your children doing this

So…always be true to yourself. Weigh risks and benefits…and go from there.

Myth 20 – Everyone should cohabitate before marriage:

• You can’t really know someone if you don’t live with her
• When you live together, you will get enough info about your lover’s habits and personality, so that you can better your chances for relationship success
• Cohabitation is good for couples because it avoids the older, patriarchal rules for marriage. It is a much fairer, more egalitarian relationship (no- married men do more child care, more housework, and are more fair about money)
• But cohabitation is sexier- couples don’t take each other for granted
• We can marry when we are ready for children (but that may never come!!!)

Tips if you do cohabit:

• Don’t cohabit for over a year
• Mirror marriage as much as possible

Myth 10 – Even if sex isn’t fantastic in the beginning, it can be fixed

• There are a lot more important things – bad sex is just trivial
• Practice makes perfect, and there’s always sex therapy (practice doesn’t always make perfect, and sex therapists can help but cannot create miracles)
• Sex isn’t that important – especially as you get older
• Once my partner is relaxed with me, she will be wilder and our repertoire will inc.

What to do, then, if the sex isn’t good:

• Don’t get married or get help before committing
• Stop faking sexual responses
• Experiment

• False positives – I think he is but he isn’t
• False negatives – I think he isn’t but he really is
• I think he’s the one so I don’t take in contradictory information
• I think he’s the one SO BADLY that when the relationship dies, I go crazy
• I don’t look at alternative explanations for my feelings of anxiety/romance (i.e. the football player who’s heart started racing when there was bad turbulence and he interpreted that as love for the stewardess whom he later married and divorced)
• I am addicted to the romance that is so highly prevalent in our culture
• I think that if he’s the “one,” he’s always going to be the one
• The American Government is pulling accounting fraud.

Myth 4 – Pick Only Someone You Are Madly in Love With

• Love is enough to see you through
• Life hasn’t really been lived if you haven’t loved with all your heart and soul (this means different things to different people, and what about the trade-off and sacrifice to love with “all your heart and soul?”)

Truths about being MADLY in love:

• You produce hormones that make you act not in your best interest
• You are picking a long-term partner on short-term emotions
• Do you really want to be the person who loves most? You will have the lower hand~ your partner will feel more secure and relies on you loving him so much that he won’t do much to try and keep you
• Give the relationship time so that the madness passes and you can more accurately judge J
• Why not have your own model of love besides mad passion?

Myth 7 – Pick Someone Who Has Sown His or Her Wild Oats and is Now Ready to Settle Down with You

Truths about unfaithful people:

• Studies have shown that unfaithfulness correlates with amount of premarital sex
• There is no physiological craving for sex with a new person – it’s just a learned behavior with a hormonal thrill for conquering someone new
• There may be a hormone-theory of sexual types (i.e. women with more testosterone on average may have a big effect)

• female: changes are mostly in the upper 1/3 of the vagina, strong contractions with .8 second intervals reoccurring 3-15 times per orgasm, uterus elevates and also contracts, clitoris shortens in half
• male: ejaculations with rhythmic contractions, most ejaculate all semen
• both: heartbeat and respiration peak

Resolution

• all changes return to normal
• How to attract women and girls

• accomplishment #2: M/J started the whole field of sex therapy: for orgasmic impairment, premature ejaculation, simultaneous orgasm, dyspeurenia (pain with intercourse), vulvadynia (exterior pain with intercourse), inhibited desire
• accomplishment #3: Wrote Methodological Advances for Observation of Sexual Function
• accomplishment #4: Founded a new vision for female sexuality: in the clitoral vs. vaginal orgasm debate, there was no way to tell what was stimulated; all orgasms involve the clitoris (very little nerve endings in the vagina); the more indirect stimulation, the slower the orgasm response; women are multi-orgasmic
• accomplishment #5: homosexuality (??)

M/J elicited many criticisms:

• 1. mechanistic – mostly masturbators were studied
  2. the first phase was excitement, but what gets you there? they explained arousal, but not desire; Helen Singer Kaplan was the first to explore desire
  3. internal states and sociological facts, such as socialization or traumatic sexual events, were simply not included
  4. model wasn’t listed as a “normal” sample- you had to have a history or masturbation, be somewhat exhibitionistic, and be orgasmic
  5. the studies assumed males and females are sexually the same in most ways
  6. participants were chosen for their ability to talk about it
  7. they ignored class differences
  8. volunteers went through training
  9. the study was goal-oriented (orgasm)
  10. they presumed sex is always a disappointment if orgasm doesn’t happen
  11. largest criticism: M/J created the “medicalization of sexuality”

Physician and Assistant (and Lover)

• First studies done in 1954; research lab was created in the 1960s at Washington University at St. Louis
• Laboratories studied human sexuality- the first subjects to be recruited were recruited for their promiscuity…i.e. prostitutes
• set up plethysmograph (don’t need to know that) to measure blood congestion
• had women masturbate with a dildo equipped with a camera
• after a while, they recruited were “normal” but had to be successful at masturbation (i.e. reached orgasm)
• looked at 10000 episodes
• some diseases may never be cured
• wrote the Human Sexual Response Cycle (accomplishment #1): excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution

Excitement

• general body arousal: heart rate, blood pressure and breathing increases, “sex flush” is present, sweating of the mucus membrane, vasocongestion

Plateau

• additional body changes or intensification of those changes in the excitement phase
• women: distention and lengthening of the vaginal wall, outer 1/3 of the wall becomes engorged, more vaginal tightness, creation of a smoothness in the muscle, clitoris flattens and hides beneath the clitoral hood
• men: blood flows into the penis, penis doubles in size, muscle tension increases greatly, possible tightening and lifting of the scrotum

1. Prostitutes: bottom rung are “street walkers-” they are the most likely to be raped/robbed assaulted, they work 5 days/week, mostly do fellatio (intercourse is less than ¼ of the time); middle class is made of brothel workers (i.e. Mustang Ranch)- think of Nevada…they have legal prostitution…also think of massage parlors that hide their real agendas! The upper echelon of prostitution includes “call girls,” “chorus girls,” and “keps”- they are normally educated and beautiful and can earn 100-250 or 500-2500 dollars a night…they often work through contracts/services or referrals…they are often on contract by the month with payment in tuition or gifts…this leads to a much more long-term economic relationship

MALES: they are young and often have street culture; known as “chickens” or “pimps” and are chased by “chicken hawks” (straight men); within the gay culture, they work clubs and bars which provide an anonymous environment for married men (bathrooms and cars)…study of license plates with men in the bathroom?; there are also places like Bugis street in Singapore- market in the daytime, transsexual nuttiness at night

2. Well… Kinsey noted that 69% of all males had been to a prostitute, but in 1994, 17% of males and 2% of females had been to one; within males, half are occasional customers, half are repeaters; 40% are married, and 90% of those said that their wives had no idea; in Atlanta, the average age was 35 and 54% were white, 40% were black
3. sexual addiction has such characteristics as sexual risk taking, obsessional quality with prostitues and pornography, excessive masturbation; Carnes (1983) defined it was 1) secret, 2) abusive to self or others, and 3) used to avoid pain; it’s almost NEVER about emotional connections; one can be preoccupied (sex all the time), compulsive (beyond control), ritualized (patterns), or in despair (feeling the guilt)
4. EFFECTS: pragmatism vs. ?, self interest over values, sexuality of powerful men, compulsive sexuality, sexuality and sexual aggressiveness of young women, sexual harassment is much more murky, adultery in American families, kidding each other about what is or is not unfaithful or non-monogamous, an appetite to be voyeurs ourselves

Gender of Seuxuality Theories

· Essentialists: desire is biological and evolutionary; cause of desire is genetically programmed reproductive functions specific to males and females; consequences are male independence in reproduction and female-centered child-rearing practice and passivity are the cause, rather than the result, of gendered social institutions

· Social Constructionists: desire is sociological and contextual; causes of desire are social institutions and social interaction signal and sanction “male” and “female”- gendered norms of behavior; consequences are support for or opposition to sex/gender-segregated reproductive and social practices depends on social definitions of men, women, and sexuality

· Integrative: desire is contextual and physical; causes of desire are bodies, environments, relationships, families, governments shaping sexuality; consequences are policies address some biological differences such as pregnancy and work, and emphasize the impact of social forces, interaction, and societal programs

Gender of Sexuality Vocabulary

· Whatever…I’m too tired to care.

Theories of Choice, Network, and Scripts and Norms

· Scripting theories assume that patterns of sexual conduct in a culture are sexually derived, that human beings possess no biological instincts about how to act sexually, that through a process of acculturation lasting from birth to death, individuals acquire patterns of sexual conduct that are appropriate to their culture, and people may not enact the scripts provided by their culture exactly but instead my make minor adaptations to suit their own needs

· Choice Theory: concerned with how people utilize the resources available to them in the pursuit of one or more specific goals: choosing partners on the long-term based on overall value, skill, scarcity, likeness in aspirations à private choices

· Network Theories: based on dyads; assumes that partnerships may conform to certain regularities that have been observed regarding social relationships more generally, that the features of the relationship itself will be important in determining what activities will occur, and that sexual dyads do no exist in a vacuum but are instead embedded within larger networks of social relationships

Study the sexual response cycle!

Evil Preacher‘s fraud exposed?

· From social control to individual sexual choice

· From a focus on reproduction to a focus on intimacy and pleasure

· From sexual archetypes to sexual diversity

· From religious to secular

· Now using sexuality for political gain

· Shifts in culture, technology, and ecology

Reactions to:

· Growth of cities

· Outbreak of utopian sexual communities during the early to late 19^th century (Shakers, Oneidans, Mormons)

· The new mass media and availability of contraception and abortion info

· Birth of the public health movement

· Shakers: get red of sexuality and its tragedies and heartbreak- have crazy dancing instead

· Oneidans: wanted the pleasure of sex without consequences (pregnancy, romance)

· Mormons: specific attack on monogamy; but gave up polygamy for statehood

· Merry Mount: blatantly free community founded by Thomas Morton- free love, free sex

· Puritans: see New England/Plymouth

Public Health Movement/Mass Media/Contraception Boom and Legality

· Anthony Comstock (1880s-1920s) – known for Comstock Laws in 1929 that presocuted thousands for circulating birth control information; there were also obscenity laws for even talking about sex

· Margaret Sanger – created the Planned Parenthood movement, but she was part of the “contagion” group and eugenics movement- lots of immigrants were coming and she didn’t believe we needed their genes to be mixed in the woodpile

· In the South: Jim Crow laws, Miscegenation Laws (laws against people of mixed races producing offspring), Mann Act (against traveling over state lines for immoral purposes); there was a fear of racial/ethnic sexuality

· Started in 1954 followed by a lab created at WUSL in 1960s

· Lab studies on human sexuality

· First recruited the promiscuous and prostitutes

· Had women masturbate with a dildo equipped with a camera- required some degree of exhibitionism

· Then recruited for people who were “normal” but had to succeed at masturbation

· Looked at 10000+ episodes

· Clinically documented multiple orgasms in women and the source of lubrication; also showed that orgasmic contraction does not suck up sperm into the uterus

· Also argued “phallic fallacy”- the clitoris and penis are not analagous

· Accomplishments: 1) wrote human sexual response cycle, 2) started the whole field of sex therapy, 3) wrote Methodological Advance for Observation of Sexual Functions, 4) created a new vision for female sexuality (ie reject Freud’s mature vs immature orgasm), and 5) data on homosexuality

· Criticisms: mechanistic (mostly masturbators), 1^st phase is masturbation, but what gets you there? it explains arousal but not desire…desire to later be explored by Helen Singer Kaplan, internal states or sociological facts were simply not included, the model wasn’t listed as a normal sample (ie you had to reach orgasm, have a history of masturbation, etc), the study assumed males and females are alike sexually, p’s were chosen for their ability to talk about it, they ignored class difference, the study was goal-oriented, sex was presumed a disappointment if there was no orgasm, “MEDICALIZATION OF SEXUALITY”

Early U.S. History

· PROTESTANTS: like Confucianism, it was all about the family; in the 1600s, emigrants were worried about displeasing God by leaving the old world and wanted to create Godly communities; if one sinned, it brought down the whole group…Puritans; sex ratio brought about higher fertility rates and channeled sex into marriage. The TV1 is an important document

· In Plymouth, they liked sex, but only for reproduction; adultery wasn’t true if it was with a single woman, you could drivorce a prude or an impotent person; the whole family lived in one-room houses with one bed; women were believed to have to have an orgasm for conception; contraception was highly disapproved of- abstinence, coitus interruptus, lactation

· 18^th c. New England: sex was for marriage and reproduction; there was courtship/bundling with a bundling board

· 19^th c. New England: growth of cities, sex was being looked at more as “good”- not just for reproduction but for happiness; female sexual purity (?), more attempts at limiting the family, technological advances in contraception (esp. in the 1840s), mass media on contraception and abortion

· Late 1800s New England: up come the moral entrepreneurs: Constock, Mormons

· Chesapeake/South: not so much emphasis on the family because you didn’t need to succeed in business based on a family (New England had a religious, utopian nature about it); people who moved there had more vaired origins; men far outnumbered women compared to New England and therefore Chesapeake women could be tempted by many other men; sodomy laws were less extensive than in New England; indentured female servants were present and could not marry- therefore were offered sexual advances; huge illegitimacy rates

· First modern researcher on sexuality

· Sexuality is a disease

· Model of sadism and masochism- women are submissive

· Started conversation on importance of fantasy and behavior

· TREATED homosexuality- instead of punishing

· Aware of female sexuality and exploitation of women

· Introduced study of fetishism

Havlock Ellis

· MD in Victorian England

· Wrote Psychology of Sex in 1896

Freud

· Developed id (innate wants and desires), ego (surface of personality- what we show, how we act), superego (conscience, right and wrong…deep)

· Said sex drive was important as the drive, say, for eating

· DRIVE creates appetite and need; sociologists say that culture creates drive

· Libido, erogenous zones

· Theories of childhood sexuality (first year – oral, second year – anal, third to fifth year – phallic, sixth – latency, repression)

· Brought up castration fears, Oedipus complex, Electra complex

· Had some theories on female sexuality…like what do women want anyways? He also believed in mature vs. immature orgasms

Kinsey

· Father of modern empirical research on human sexuality

· Taxonomist and biologist…first worked on the gall wasp

· Created the Kinsey scale – coded on outlets to orgasm, it was a scale from 0à6 in which 0 was completely heterosexual, 6 was completely homosexual; it was based on fantasy, behavior, who you love, and intensity of attraction and desire

· Findings on female sexuality: females more sexual than believed, half not virgins when married, multiple orgasms are possible

· Findings on homosexuality: 37% of men came with another man, 4% gay their whole life

· Criticisms: oversampled students, educated, prisoners, protestants while undersampling rural populations, the uneducated, Jews and Catholics, etc; interviewed a pedophile without reporting him, the prison data was upsetting, and his data was mechanical- and behavior-driven without the context of a relationship

· Scholars are a community and therefore can possess obscene materials