Reading Level: All levels.
| Chapter Guide Topic Guide | Personal Health | Disciplines
Your Complimentary Custom Book |
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| Chapter: Sexuality and Intimacy | ||
| Add | 17 pp. | Adolescent Sexuality |
| Discusses teenage sexuality from a multi-cultural perspective. Looks at the implications of the American suppression of women’s sexual desire on sexual activity, contraceptive use, and adolescent pregnancy. | ||
| Add | 18 pp. | Alternative Paths in Adulthood |
| Top | Stereotypes about deviant groups such as lesbian couples and women who do not marry are countered with research on their relationship characteristics and life satisfaction. Living together without marriage; the consequences of divorce (psychological, social, and economic); and the complexities of remarriage and ‘‘blended families’’ are explored. | |
| Add | 7 pp. | Wright, “Evolution of the Big O” (Contemporary) |
| In a thorough and sometimes humorous article, Wright summarizes the major theories about the nature and origins of the human orgasm. The article argues that the origins and purpose of the male orgasm are more clearly defined than those of the female orgasm, noting, however, that the debate on the evolution of the orgasm has yet to reach a climax. | ||
| Add View | 27 pp. | Gerstel: Gender and Families (Chapter) |
| Are marriage and parenthood based on love and companionship or on mutual economic dependence? Gerstel delves into the underpinnings of family life by examining patterns of family dependence and how dependence varies by gender. | ||
| Add View | 16 pp. | Seidman: Heterosexism in America: Prejudice Against Lesbians and Gay Men (Essay) |
| Top | Prejudice and intolerance towards homosexual feelings and behavior is pervasive in America. This essay examines the sources, organizations, and harmful effects of making heterosexuality a social norm. The lesbian and gay movement is seen as a response to this social injustice. | |
| Add | 9 pp. | Lesbian and Bisexual Women |
| Stereotypes of lesbians and bisexual women are countered with current research. Sexuality is viewed as a continuum rather than a matter of dichotomous hetero/homosexual categories. Especially interesting is a discussion of how women may identify themselves as lesbians at almost any point in the lifespan from adolescence to late middle age. | ||
| Add | 13 pp. | Penelope, Julia, “The Lesbian Perspective” |
| Penelope argues that courage and willfulness are necessary in order for someone to identify herself as a lesbian, and that when she does so she steps out of the male map of reality into uncharted territory, which requires continuous and furious self-definition. Every lesbian has to some extent developed distrust and the habit of lying as a result of living as part of ‘‘heteropatriarchy,’’ and these feelings are carried into the lesbian community and affect lesbian’s communications with one another. She believes argument is necessary to the development of community and that the perspective that argument is war is a male one. She believes lesbians must recreate language for their needs, and says both ‘‘woman’’ and ‘‘gay’’ are categories constructed by men which make lesbians and their agendas invisible. Reading Level: All levels. | ||
| Add View | 20 pp. | Edwards: Marriage and Families Around the World (Chapter) |
| Top | Edwards offers a cross-cultural analysis of marriage and its differing forms including monogamy, polygamy, and polyandry. This chapter examines the interaction of marriage with family structure, exploring its effects on authority, reproduction, and kinship ties. | |
| Add | 23 pp. | Marriage: Life in an Institution |
| Marriage is discussed as both a personal relationship and a normative social institution. Patterns of marriage are described: traditional, modern, egalitarian, and dual-career. Power in marriage, marital satisfaction, and psychological adjustment across the life cycle are explored. A special focus is gender equality-can (and should) it exist in marriage? | ||
| Add View | 21 pp. | Grauerholz: Power in Intimate Relationships (Essay) |
| This essay argues that despite seemingly widespread acceptance of gender equality in society, power is not shared equally in most intimate relationships. | ||
| Add View | 26 pp. | Schwartz: Sex as a Social Problem (Chapter) |
| Top | This chapter focuses on both why and how societies seek to control sexual behavior. It begins with a discussion of the roots of social control, naming the agents of the control of sexual behavior ‘‘Moralists, Medicalists, and Politicians.’’ Two examples of American sexual regulation, ‘‘Premarital and Extramarital Sexuality’’ and ‘‘Homosexuality and AIDS’’ are followed by brief summaries of public policy problems on sex, including prostitution, abortion, sexual assault, and incest. | |
| Add | 30 pp. | Sexuality and Violence |
| Incest, acquaintance sexual assault and rape, and wife beating are considered as forms of violence against women rather than as forms of deviant sexuality. Pornography and the way women are portrayed in the popular media are considered in terms of the way they normalize sexual violence and make it more socially acceptable. | ||
| Add | 24 pp. | Sexuality in a Social Context |
| Sexual scripts encode beliefs and values about female and male sexuality and provide internalized guides for sexual behavior. They are learned through language, advertising and aspects of popular culture such as the romance novel. The effects of these sexual scripts on self-esteem, sexual satisfaction, and health can be particularly limiting and harmful for women. | ||
| Add | 2 pp. | Syfers, “Why I Want a Wife” |
| Top | In this article, which appeared in the first issue of Ms. Magazine (1971), Syfers provides a cynical profile of the wifely role, and concludes, ‘‘who wouldn’t want a wife?’’. | |