WARNING: VERY LONG POST BUT VERY HELPFUL AND WORTHWHILE!
THIS INFORMATION WAS TAKEN FROM A BOOK. MUCH OF IT IS PARAPHRASED BUT SOME WAS TAKEN DIRECTLY TO FROM THE BOOK. THIS IS A COLLEGE TEXTBOOK, I AM NOT USING IT IN ANY FORM TO MAKE THIS ‘MY WORK.’ I GIVE ALL CREDIT TO THE AUTHORS: S.A. Rathus and L.F. Rathus
We can learn how our bodies respond to sexual stimulation- what turns us on and what turns us off- through personal experience. Person experience teaches us little, however, about the biological process that bring about sexual response and orgasm.
Terms:
Gender- One’s personal biological status.
Coitus: Sexual Intercourse
Erotic: Arousing sexual feelings or desires
Gener identity: One’s personal experience of being male or female
Gender Role: Complex clusters of ways in which males and females are expected to behave within a given culture
Human sexuality: The ways in which we experience and express ourselves as suexual beings.
Bisexual: Sexually responsive to either gender
Sexologist: A person who engages in the scientific study of sexual behavior
Copulation: Sexual intercourse (from the Latin ‘copulare’ which means “to unite” or “to couple”
Defense mechanisms: Automatic processes that protect the ego from anxiety by disguising or ejecting unacceptable ideas and urges
Ethnocentric: The tendency to view other groups or cultures according to the standard’s of one’s own.
Gender dysphoria: The subjective experience of incongruity between genital anatomy and gender identity or role.
I am trying to condense as much information as I can because if I type the whole thing…I will get screamed at, plus it would take me forever and a day. There are in fact different perspectives on homosexuality such as the biological perspective, evolutionary perspective, the cross-species perspective, cross, cultural perspective, psychological perspective, sociological perspectives and much more. What I think my book is leaning towards is that ‘it’s a biological happening.’
Principle of critical thinking:
Do not oversimplify- Consider the statement “Homosexuality is inborn.” There is some evidence that sexual orientation may involve biological predispositions such as genetic influences. However, biology is not destiny in human sexuality. Gays, lesbians, and heterosexual orientations appear to develop as the result of a complex interaction of biological and environmental factors.
There was a study done where men would sit in a room and watch videos of 2 males having intercourse and a male and female having intercourse. There is this thing called a “Penile Strain Gauge” that measures the vasocongestion in males, providing an objective measure of level of sexual arousal. The study found that a part of the brain we have, the ‘hypothalamus’ tends to be larger in men that are gay.
This study has been done on women also as many other studies have been done. But, there is some evidence in a college textbook that there are biological factors leading to homosexuality.
Talking about the environmental ways of thinking of things. If a female baby is born and wrapped in a blue blanket that could perhaps be an environmental factor. If this girl child has been brought up to play aggressively and is bought fire engines and building blocks instead of Barbie’s, there may be an influence there. If this same child goes to school acting and dressing like a boy- she may think she is part of the ‘he’s. But when this child grows up and learns that girl’s don’t act the way that she is acting…she may begin to think she is different. As this study cannot be done for the child’s sake, you must think about all of the possibilities before coming to any conclusion. Parents may have a boy and decide they wanted a girl so they ‘try and teach him how to be a girl.’
There are also many many studies done with hermaphrodites and how they should be raised.
From a very early age to children, preteens and even teens experiment. Just like college students often experiment with drugs and alcohol, the younger people experiment with different things. Some things could be like playing house and you being the mother. If you don’t like being the mother, you may try being the father and like it much better, and just because at 6 years old you like being the father better, does not give any focus on what one will grow up to be. Even at 9 years old…girls are starting to wearing make-up and stuff like that and starting the “I am too fat” kinda thing. This may lead to one female ‘trying something sexual’ with another female because they may think that they have nothing in common with boys. This also does not prove at any point, that the female is a lesbian. She may be in her experimental stage. Although, this isn’t to say that the girl will be straight when she is older but in no ways does it show homosexuality. Also, the girl may be coming to terms that she is gay…and that may take years to even let yourself believe it let alone accept it.
There is another whole chapter in the book about accepting who you are. And also, “How to come Out” Obviously, what the book says doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do for YOU. It gives accounts of people who have and haven’t come out yet and how they feel about it and how they think their friends will respond or how their friends did respond. The author gave some suggestions of ‘coming out.’ She also does suggest that as hard as it may be to come out, “coming out” may not only help you but other people too. And it may bring society to actually believe it’s ok to be gay. It’s the same scenario with something that nobody else wants to do. Someone’s got to start the bandwagon- why not it be you? If your gym teacher tells the class to run around the gym 3 times and the whole class stands their complaing- the teacher will get mad, just as you will have this burden on your back of being gay if not coming out. But, if you get up and start running your 3 laps around the gym, there will be someone to follow and so on and so forth because there will be a consequence if they don’t. Such a consequence can happen of ‘not coming out’ is having a burden on you. If you start, people will be likely to follow. People are afraid to start, but once it’s started, it becomes ok to do ‘come out.’ So, be a leader and let the crowd jump on the wagon and you will be happy that you now, are the leader of the band!
Since this is BWW, my reference will turn to Avenue Q for a moment. The whole point of Avenue Q is that life isn’t perfect, things go wrong, people are mean and racist, the world is a scary place and most importantly pertaining to this conversation is that “It’s Ok to be gay” Do you think Johnny/Barrett would be playing Rod if they didn’t think they would get somewhere with it? They are playing the character to try and reach people who are closed minded about such a subject. Plus, they are trying to show that “Sex/Sexual Orientation” isn’t a bad thing and it shouldn’t be thought of as a taboo subject. Rod wouldn’t be a character/puppet in the show if the directors didn’t think his character could possibly make a difference.
NOTE: So, I hope I made some kind of impact with this information. Take it or leave it but please don’t leave me with all kinds of crap degrading me telling me how long this post was. I just took 2 hours writing this; when I was planning to do something else. I did this because I felt it may be helpful. I am sure that you all can please give me some respect. If you want more information….there is *looking* 482 more pages on human sexuality. If you want more info, please PM me and specify what information you’d like, if you don’t want anymore info, just simply don’t respond. All I am doing is asking for respect….
People like you are the reason I'm on medication.
