Sexual Orientation

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Sexual Orientation
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Terminology

• Sexual Orientation
• Sexually attraction
• Capable of love
• Sexual Identity
• Self identity
• Homosexual
• Heterosexual
• Bisexual

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Terminology

• The scientific study of homosexuality
• Frequency
• Who is?
• Need a definition
• Self-label
• Behaviour - objective
• How often?
• When?
• Tearoom trade, Indonesian men

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Homosexuals

• Problematic
• Negative stereotypes
• Emphasizes behavior
• Ambiguous
• Lesbian
• Gay men
• Bisexual men
• Bisexual women

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Lesbians

• Greek poet Sappho
• Lived on the island of Lesbos
• Love of poetry
• Wrote to other women

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Bisexuals

• 33 - if based on one encounter
• More sexual activity in general
• Masturbation
• More high risk behaviour
• Higher sex drive
• Sexual pleasure oriented
• Majority married
• Heterorole

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Definitions

• Danger
• 71 of bisexual men do not tell their female
  partners
• STDs AIDS
• Adolescent males
• Very common transitional stage
• Difficulty
• Rejected by both hetero and homo
• Fence-sitters
• Pressured to go in either direction
• Many gays reject the concept, saying that bis
  are misguided homosexuals

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Asexuals

• Not attracted to either sex
• Non-existent sex drive
• Hormonal deficiency
• Central nervous system misconnection
• Possible early trauma

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Who is gay?

• Kinsey
• 37 of all males had at least one same sex
  experience to orgasm in adulthood
• 1 10 of the population
• Canadian Community Health Survey
• National Health and Life Styles Survey
• Twice as many men as women

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Overall
Males Females
Exclusively Heterosexual 92 95
One Same-Gender Experience 7-8 4-5
Bisexual lt 1 lt 1
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Bell and Weinberg Typology

• Sample of 979
• Close coupled
• One long-time partner
• Marriage type relationship
• Few problems
• Few sex partners
• Infrequent cruising

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Bell and Weinberg Typology

• Open coupled
• steady live-in partner
• Also many outside partners
• Frequent cruising
• More likely to have problems
• More likely to regret being gay

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Bell and Weinberg Typology

• Functional
• Not coupled
• High number of sex partners
• Few problems
• Younger
• High sex drive
• Few regrets

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Bell and Weinberg Typology

• Dysfunctional
• Not coupled
• High number of partners
• Many sex and psychological problems
• Tense
• Unhappy
• Depressed

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Bell and Weinberg Typology

• Asexual
• Low in sexual interest and activity
• Less exclusively gay
• Very secretive
• Highest incidence of suicidal thoughts
• Loners

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Attitudes

• Heterosexism
• Heterosexual normal
• Homophobia
• Strong, irrational fears of homosexuals
• Homonegativity
• Negative attitudes and behaviors toward
  homosexuals
• Cultural attitude based on religious teachings

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Attitudes

• Same sex marriage
• Equal rights
• Minority group
• Stereotypes
• Many negative consequences
• Assault
• Rejection
• Discrimination
• Suicide

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Attitudes

• Same-sex sexual activity illegal in Canada
• Decriminalized in 1969
• Criminal code still discriminates
• Age of consent for anal sex is 18 (14 for
  vaginal)
• Charter of Human Rights
• Sexual orientation prohibited ground for
  discrimination

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Research

• Adams, Wright and Lohr (1996) gave test to
  measure homophobia to male college students
• Group 1 high scores
• Group 2 low scores
• All participants hooked to plethysmograph
• Watched film clips of hetero, gay and lesbian sex
• Group 1 54 had increased penile errection
• Group 2 24 had increased penile circumference

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Gender Differences

• In an experiment heterosexual and homosexual
  males and females watched videos of
• Heterosexual sex
• Male gay sex
• Lesbian sex
• Nude males
• Nude females
• Bonobos having sex
• The participants were hooked to a plethysmograph
• Aasked to report verbally when aroused

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Gender Differences

• Heterosexual males became aroused when watching
• Heterosexual sex
• Lesbian sex
• Nude females
• Homosexual males became aroused when watching
• Male homosexual sex
• Nude males
• 100 concordance between plethysmograph results
  and self report

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Gender Differences

• Both heterosexual and homosexual women were
  aroused by all the videos
• According to the plethysmograph
• Self reports were at odds with objective data
• Women are not aware when they are aroused
• Another gender difference
• More women self-label bisexual than males
• More women switch sexual orientation over their
  life times

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Several possible ways to acquire sexual
  orientation
• Basic human needs shared by all
• Sensual/sexual fulfillment
• Socio-emotional connection

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Possible variables involved
• Genes
• Hormones in utero
• Subtle intrauterine interactions
• Brain timing
• Early influences
• Identity problems
• Social stereotypes, prejudice

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Cannot look for THE cause
• INTERACTIONS
• Individual differences in etiology
• Circumstances
• Jail, boarding school
• Cross-cultural evidence
• Prescribed homosexuality at certain age-stage
• Definition found in many cultures
• Gay man is the one that is penetrated

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Genetic
• Twin Studies

Monozygotic Dizygotic Adopted
Genetic Similarity 100 50 0
Concordance Rate 52 22 11
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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Prenatal factors
• Sexual differentiation and innappropriate
  hormones
• Severe maternal stress (animal studies)
• Maternal stress is retrospective
• No tally of stressed expectant mothers who had
  heterosexual children

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Prenatal factors
• Very high levels of estrogen
• Lesbian offspring
• Birth order (Canadian)
• Males with several older brothers
• 2D4D finger-length ratio
• Handedness
• No agreement in different studies, contradictory
  data

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Brain differences
• Hypothalamus
• Small sample
• Non-comparable
• Cause of death
• Difference due to orientation or to disease and
  its treatment?
• Other differences found, but all in adults after
  the fact (chicken/egg)
• Endocrine imbalance
• No differences found

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Learning
• Possible in some cases
• Polymorphously Perverse
• Personal negative experience could override
  social reinforcement patterns
• Also, peer group can provide more reinforcement
  than society at large.

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Sociological theories
• Importance of labels
• Labels affect perception
• Perception affects behaviour
• Can influence self-perception
• Leading to self-labelling.

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Development of Sexual Orientation

• Reiss
• Negative pathway
• Rigidly polarized societies have higher incidence
  of male-male sex
• High maternal involvement Low paternal
• Little opportunity to learn
• Positive pathway
• Very permissive societies
• Experimentation OK.

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Bem The Exotic Becomes Erotic
Boys more active and aggressive
Different exotic
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Bems Theory Criticisms

• There is NO abundant evidence of inborn
  aggression and activity levels by gender
• Contaminated by culture
• Homosocial activities are mostly a cultural
  phenomenon
• Children who dont fit the gender stereotypes are
  told they are odd and wrong

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Bems Theory Criticisms

• Many gays are gender typical in their
  interests, appearance, etc. Bem fell for the
  effeminate guy/macho woman stereotype of gays.
• Many atypical (i.e., boys who played with dolls,
  girls who played with trucks) kids do not go on
  to become gay.

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Bell, Weinberg and Hammersmith

• In depth interviews comparing gays/ lesbians and
  straights.
• No support for psychoanalytic, learning or
  sociological (labelling) theories.
• They speculate a biological basis but have no
  data.