The Importance Of The Female Egg For Reproduction

Early efforts to understand the range of human sexual behavior came from European doctors and scientists, including Sigmund Freud and Magnus Hirschfield (American Psychological Association, (APA), n.d). Sexuality is an important aspect of a person’s identity. Many challenges had were overcome for the LGBT population to express that part of their identity.

Media coverage surrounding alternative sexualities has also expanded in recent years and, in the wake of gay liberation and the emergence of lesbian and gay studies, an ever increasing flow of academic documentation pertaining to sexual orientation has flourished. We now know more about homosexual lives in general and about the experiences of particular groups such as those in prison those who offer sex in exchange for money and those who lived during particular historical periods. However, with the knowledge and awareness about what it means to be gay or lesbian has increased considerably, there remains an ignorance on a number of homosexual issues. Explanations of why sexual orientations differ are still inadequate, and in a

    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.

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

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

LGBT acceptance has varied greatly over time in every culture in the world. For example, while it is commonly accepted that homosexual relations were common in Ancient Greece and Rome, the same cannot be said for the Middle Ages’ Holy Roman Empire. In American culture throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, sodomy was the phrase used to describe all “deviant” sexual acts. A homosexual lifestyle was unthinkable, mainly due to the high rate of Christians who devoutly believed in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. However people such as Walt Whitman, Charlotte Cushman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, among others all achieved greatness in literature, the arts, and other fields, while also maintaining a secretive LGBT identity (Norton, 2004). To say that the proven biological inclinations of LGBT people is a “new” occurrence that exists solely due to societal acceptance simply contradicts historical evidence.

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

"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