The Importance Of The Female Egg For Reproduction

During the late 19th century, the ideals of middle-class, respectable sexuality were in a state of flux. Published findings by renowned psychiatrists such as Richard von Krafft-Ebbing and Sigmund Freud helped to recreate and build upon sexual knowledge, establishing never before heard of terms for a variety of sexual behaviors. Often, therein lies an implicit bias when codifying topics of study. Therefore, due to the major shifts during the late 19th and early 20th century in how sexuality is classified scientifically and medically, psychiatry plays a primary role in creating concepts such as “normal” and “abnormal” sexuality.

    In contrast to our contemporary understandings, back in the late nineteenth and twentieth century sexology had just emerged and cast a new way of understanding. There were controversial views on sex and its benefits or dangerous. Our view of sexuality was quite intertwined with biblical and religious inputs. At this time understandings and terminology of same-sex sexual relations were linked with mental illness or considered sinful. Laws were in place to criminalize male sexual activity.

It was not until the twelfth century that homosexuality started to be condemned. This condemnation proved to live through then until now. Due to the fact that America incorporated these early views into its early laws, even the most bland of today's sex acts were seen as unlawful (“Homosexuality and Mental Health”). Since then, these laws have changed, however, there is still a primarily negative connotation on homosexuals when coming from a church or legal standpoint concerning the masses of America.

He contradicted the argument that homosexual behaviour is related to genetic, hormonal or biological disorder. To abolish these views, the author mentions that ‘no school of medicine, medical journal or professional organization has ever recognized such claims (p. 2) - at least at the time he wrote the article in 1994.

In the article, author Vern L. Bullough provided an in-depth look at the research done by sexologist Alfred Kinsey and explaining the contributions he made in the field. The article claimed how Kinsey studied taboo topics and interviewed his students about their lives, a practice never conceived of being done before. The author explained how Kinsley’s controversial work was challenged by Thurman Rice, a, “bacteriology professor who had written extensively on sex, primarily from the view of eugenics” (Bullough 56). These claims were meant to display how society viewed sex as a topic that was not an area of interest for many, but the research done by Kinsley helped push the boundary on the topic and inspire other sexologists to pursue the field.

In “The Myth of Homosexuality” by Christine Downing, there is the discussion of homosexuality and its meaning over the years. Downing begins the article by stating how a myth has classified women-on-women and men-on-men relationships to fall under the same term of homosexuality, but there is much deeper understanding to it than that. The classification under one word has caused a lot of shaping concerning how they are viewed or how they view themselves. In order to look past the surface of what defines the myth, Downing states that we must start with the culture’s myth and it’s origin.

Born this Way? Society, sexuality, and the search for the ‘gay’ gene by Simon Copland discusses the actions people are taking in order to find out how sexuality comes to be. For instance, many are looking at science to find “the” answers. Specifically, a study by Simon Levay who is looking for a possibility of a “gay gene” existing, explained, “small differences in the size of certain cells in the brain could influence sexual orientation in men”(Simon Copland). This is one of many studies and claims scientists have expressed to populations of people believing that there must be a gene out there. People are not searching for this “gay gene” in order to plainly

Despite his belief that the human race is born with innate bisexual tendencies, Freud was assured in his belief that homosexuality was likely the cause of arrested psychosexual development, or in other words, a sexual immaturity. Freud once wrote “homosexuality… is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation”, a theory that led him to believe efforts to reverse homosexuality would ultimately be unsuccessful (Drescher, J). Like Freud, Alfred Kinsey was yet another psychiatrist who began to challenge the negative perception of homosexuality. Sexual Behavior, released in 1948, offered up a nonpartisan and blunt analysis of human sexual behaviors to a staggering degree. Their prominence and magnanimous understanding of sexuality was nevertheless pushed aside, with the new generation of psychoanalysts to look at homosexuality from a pathological position. Unsurprisingly, no psychoanalytic cure was to be found yet this new generation vouched for the idea that heterosexuality was the only biological norm. Even with the lack of any sound evidence, claims of curing homosexuality, through various physical and psychological techniques, was vastly accepted by the scientific community. The idea that homosexuality was a disorder that could be cured was toxic to 20th-century American psychiatry. Paranoia already incited by the post-World War II social conditions in the

During the 1900’s, homosexuals were sent to mental institutions to “cure” them of what was thought to be a disease. There they underwent shock therapy, one of the many methods used in conversion therapy. In 1920 Sigmund Freud began the practice of changing a person 's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. In the beginning homosexuality was also deemed as “ a negative human characteristic caused by immaturity, pathology and family dynamic” (Scoolaid.net). Soon its popularity had scientists such as Eugen Steinach, Sandor Ferenczi as well as his daughter Anna Freud partake in the practice. If they were not sent to mental

Alan Ma Eng (111) – 6377 Critical Response Essay A variety of words, such as queer and gay has had an alternating definition that’s been changed by society, in a way we wish to use it. The article, “Queer Evolution,” was written by Martha Irvine, a journalist at The Associated Press. She believes that the definition of “queer” has been socially accepted to “describe any sexual orientation beyond straight,” despite its history as a derogatory term. Although the author provides some good points, she lacks the discussion of the history of the word queer and detailed statistics to prove her quotations to be true.

In the article “A New Normal” John-Pierre Joyce writes about Homosexuality in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Doctors and homosexual men were very desperate to find a cure for what they considered a disease at the time. In 1957 a doctor went on TV to publically state that he was a homosexual and wanted to become normal and to be cured. This was contradictory to a report published called the Wolfenden Report. In the report it was concluded that there was not enough evidence to prove that homosexuality was in fact a disease. Also Alfred Kinsey did research on how homosexual tendencies could be found in all humans throughout a persons’ life-time, reinforcing the fact that being gay was not a disease.

biased between the male and the female reproductive biology. The article focuses on the role of

The world has come very far with all the dramatic changes we have faced over the years. Wouldn’t you agree? As much change as the world has been through there are still numerous social problems that still exist in society today. Amongst those numerous social problems, sexual orientation and inequality stand out to me. Research from biology, psychology, and sociology is where our understanding of sexual orientation comes from. There are two hypothetical theories researchers have discovered examining the biological basis toward sexual orientation. One concept is the neurohormonal theory, biologist contend that homosexuality is caused by abnormal sex hormone levels in utero. The alternative theory is based on behavioral genetics, determining the source and magnitude of genetic impact on sexual orientation. This theory suggested the concept that gay men were genetically female. Later this theory was proven to be false. Homosexuality was considered as a pathology or mental illness. Not every psychologists agreed with that perspective. A researcher by the name of Havelock Ellis stated that homosexuality was congenital and for that reason it could not be considered as a disease. Sigmund Freud another theorist had the concept that everyone is born bisexual and that either homosexuality or heterosexuality is developed through social and personal experience. Ellis and Freud both concurred that homosexuality was not a mental illness. Despite these researchers’ opinions in 1973,

"It was the sexologists… who were to define same-sex love, to give it a name. The term homosexuality was actually used for the first time in 1869 by Karl Maria Kertbeny, a German-Hungarian campaigner for the abolition of Prussia's laws that criminalized sexual relations between men. Homosexuality was not the only term that the late nineteenth century found to describe sexual relations between persons of the same sex. The term inversion was even more widely used. And in 1870, the German physician Karl Westphal invented the phrase "contrary sexual feeling," in detailing the history of a young lesbian. These expressions all had a

Upon entering this course, my understanding of human sexuality was decent; I was aware of certain aspects of sexuality such as being straight, gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, etc. Nevertheless, I did not realize how expansive sexuality is; it never occurred to me that sexual health, prostitution, marriage, rape, sex trafficking, divorce, families, etc., all fell under the umbrella of human sexuality. Books and essays such as Renee Hill’s Walk Together and David Shneer’s “Out of School” showcased the multiple facets of human sexuality and how terms like queer are not directly related to homosexuality. While sexuality and homosexuality are linked, frequently, people mistake them as being synonymous; before entering this class, I was searching for a definition of sexuality, and often in the thesaurus section of dictionary websites homosexuality and or sexual orientation was considered a synonym of sexuality. Formerly, I too would have agreed they were the same, however, after taking this course, I concluded that homosexuality is just one topic in the broad discussion of sexuality. My understanding of sexuality now is that it