Abstract From Aristotle and Plato studying animals. To 1653 William Harvey discovering the importance of the female egg for reproduction. Anton Van Leeuwenhoek in 1678 used the microscope to identify sperm as a seed. Elizabeth Osgood Goodrich Willard came up with the term sexology and opened to the research to understand sex in a whole new level. In this paper we will learn about a couple different sexologist and how they did the research on sex. Keywords: Havelock Ellis, Kurt Freund, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Masters & Johnson 1897 Havelock Ellis reflected his view of gays and lesbians as having an inside out, or inverted pattern of erotic attraction. Ellis had a desire to investigate the nature of sex. He needed to have a physiological understanding of humanity before he turned his attention to the psychology. Ellis was determined then to become a physician. Despite his training Ellis never made the practice of his medical training central to his professional life (Bering, 2013). One of this sexologist’s most important contributions was his clarifying that homosexuality is a psychological orientation, not simply a random sex act or behavior involving the same sex. He didn’t personally believe that gay and lesbians were perverts, but he used this term to convey how religious moralist wrongly saw homosexuals and other deviants as deliberately going against what is right, since for hundreds of years before it ever connoted anything sexual, pervert was an epithet
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
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.
Is it possible for two people who have never interacted with each other throughout their lives to share the same fate? In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is a young boy who decides to run away from his abusive father, accompanied by an escaped slave who believes that he will be sold and separated from his family. Huck has no choice but to take on an adventurous journey, which allows his relationship with the slave, Jim, to blossom while testing their mental and physical skills. In correlation, in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Linda Brent is a respected slave who is “passed down” to an abusive owner and faces harsh treatment. This leaves her no choice but to run away from the pain she endures. Her only wish is to be free
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
This gave the reader a sense of where sexology was at the time before he began studying that field. The two most prominent names in sexual research were Havelock Ellis, a physician who received his medical degree to safety study sex, and Magnus Hirschfield, a physician who would later be classified as a sexual historian. The two physicians had a hands-off approach to their research where a large portion of their findings were, “usually interpreted in terms of traditional views and were supplemented by historical materials or reports of anthropologists” (54). This quote was meant to describe how the practices of early sexologists were flawed in that their research based more on philosophies rather than actual contact with people. Kinsey took a much different approach and was not afraid to ask anyone about topics ranging from female orgasms to masturbation, as he, “gathered his data wherever he could find it, but he also reported the source of his data” (59). The quote previously mentioned by Bullough provided an effective argument for the claim that Kinsey was able to push the boundaries on sexuality by sampling anyone he could about the topic, which went against the previous how researchers went about gather material since
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.
The social construction of stereotypes regarding male to female roles is a reflection of our societies worldview and has been passed down through history. Given the evolution of feminism, it has become a dominant issue within society’s social structure. Our value hierarchy places greater importance on masculinity as opposed to feminity. Despite the many years of fighting for equal rights for both gender related issues, it appears women are still living below men.
"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
Primary Care Physicians are the first contact with the health care system, having private practices, working in health clinics, and can have an influence in treating adolescent and youth with mental health disorders. Various factors have been associated with mental health in the adolescent and youth population. PCPs say they always ask their adolescent patient about mental health issues and their knowledge is excellent regarding mental health complaints (Romer & McIntosh, 2012). Many adolescents and youths have very trusting relationships with their PCPs and are more likely to freely explain and or express their emotional, psychological, and physical feelings. PCPs are tasked with the job of screening their adolescent patient for mental
The Anglican Church, more commonly known as The Church of England, exists worldwide and has been since 1534. The service of an Anglican Church communion can be witnessed at St Matthews Anglican Church, West Pymble, Sydney. What is also evident in this worship are the beliefs of Christianity. These beliefs include that Christ is fully divine and fully human, God is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is one God, Jesus resurrected and his eternal life after death.
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,
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