Sexuality And Society
Sexuality and Society
I. Understanding Sexuality.
A. Sex refers to the biological distinction between females and males.
B. Sex and the body.
1. Primary sex characteristics refer to the organs used for reproduction, namely, the genitals. Secondary sex characteristics are bodily differences, apart from the genitals, that distinguish biologically mature females and males.
2. Sex is not the same thing as gender.
3. In rare cares, a hormone imbalance before birth produces intersexual people, human beings with some combination of female and male characteristics.
4. Transsexuals are people who feel they are one sex even though biologically they are the other.
C. Like all dimensions of human behavior, sexuality is also very much a cultural issue.
1. Almost any sexual practice shows considerable variation from one society to another.
2. SEEING OURSELVES-National Map 8-1: First-Cousin Marriage Laws across the United States. There is no single view on first-cousin marriage in the United States.
3. One cultural universal is the incest taboo, a norm forbidding sexual relations or marriage between certain relatives.
II. Sexual Attitudes in the United States.
A. Alfred Kinsey set the stage for the sexual revolution by publishing a study of sexuality in the United States in 1948.
1. The sexual revolution came of age in the late 1960s when youth culture dominated public life and a new freedom about sexuality prevailed.
2. The introduction of "the pill" in 1960 both prevented pregnancy and made sex more convenient.
B. The sexual counterrevolution began in 1980 as a conservative call for a return to "family values" by which sexual freedom was to be replaced by sexual responsibility.
C. Although general public attitudes remain divided on premarital sex, this behavior is broadly accepted among young people.
D. WINDOW ON THE...
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