A. Media Portrayals of Sexuality
o American Youth devote more time to media than to any other waking activity.
o Summarizing a handful of studies on the relationship between exposure to sexual media and our sexual behavior, Prof. Jane D. Brown (2002), reports that the media:
1. Keep sexual behavior visible,
2. Reinforce a consistent set of sexual and relationship norms,
3. Rarely include sexually responsible models.
o This form of persuasive communication is altering patterns of social communication and interpersonal relationships.
TELEVISION
o Among all types of media TV has been the most prevalent, pervasive, and vexing icon.
o Exposure to sexual content on TV is a significant contributor to many aspects of young people's sexual knowledge, beliefs, and behavior.
o TV is demonstrating consistent negative impact of exposure to sexual media content among teens and young adults.
o Media content does not reflect the realities of the social world; rather, the media images of women and men reflect and reproduce a set of stereotypical and unequal but changing gender roles.
B. Sexuality Across Cultures and Times
o Culture takes our sexual interests-our incitements or inclinations to act sexually-and molds and shapes them, sometimes celebrating sexuality and other times condemning it.
o Among the variety of factors that shape how we feel and behave sexually, culture is possibly the most powerful.
o Sexual Orientation: is the pattern of sexual and emotional attraction based on the gender of one's partner.
o Heterosexuality: refers to emotional and sexual attraction between men and women.
o Homosexuality: refers to emotional and sexual attraction between persons of the same sex.
o Bisexuality: is an emotional and sexual attraction to both males and females.
o Gender: The characteristics associated with being male or female.
o Thus, culture and a host of other factors help to shape masculinity and femininity, while biology defines men and women.
o In Transsexuality, a person with a penis, for example, identifies as a women.
o Transgendered individuals have an appearance and behaviors that do not conform to the gender role ascribed for people of a particular sex.
o Societal Norms and Sexuality
o When we label sexual behavior as "natural" or "unnatural" we are typically indicating whether the behavior conforms to our culture's sexual norms.
o Normal sexual behavior: is behavior that conforms to a group's average or median patterns of behavior. A mere statistical term for psychologists.
o Instead of looking at what is normal and not, psychologists look at sexual diversity-that is sexual variety and diversity.
o The most that could be said of a person is that his or her behaviors are more or less typical or atypical of the group average.
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