SEXUAL ORIENTATION

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Usually seen as dichotomous
• hetero/homo
• seen as discrete traits
• Hetero
• normal ? heterosexism
• Homo
• abnormal
• Bisexual
• ???

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Small of population
• 1-10
• But vast ripple effects
• family, friends, etc.
• rejection
• discrimination, persecution
• assault, death
• broken homes
• trauma
• suicide

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Homophobia
• Cultural attitude based on religious teachings
• Freud Fear of own homosexual tendencies
• Adams, Wright and Lohr (1996) gave test to
  measure homophobia to male college students
• Group 1 high scores
• Group 2 low scores
• All participants were hooked to plethysmograph
  that measured erection
• They all watched film clips of hetero, gay and
  lesbian sex
• Group 1 54 had increased penile erection to gay
  (male) tapes
• Group 2 24
• Conclusion Freud was on the right track

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• In order to study homosexuality we need
• 1. Head count who is? need a definition
• 2. Definition
• a. self-label
• Can contradict each other
• b. behaviour
• c. how often? when?
• d. loose boundaries gays have sex with the
  opposite sex
• heterosexuals have sex with the same sex
• e.g. Tea room men, Indonesian men
• 3. Causes

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Gender differences
• In an experiment heterosexual and homosexual
• males and females watched videos of
• a. heterosexual sex
• b. male gay sex
• c. lesbian sex
• d. nude males
• e. nude females
• f. bonobos having sex
• The participants were hooked to a
• plethysmograph and were asked to report
• verbally when they were aroused.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Results
• a. heterosexual males became aroused when
  watching heterosexual sex, lesbian sex and nude
  females
• b. homosexual males became aroused when watching
  male homosexual sex and nude males
• c. both homosexual and heterosexual males had a
  100 concordance between plethysmograph results
  and self report of arousal

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• d. both heterosexual and homosexual women were
  aroused by all the videos according to the
  plethysmograph, but their self reports were at
  odds with objective data women are not aware
  when they are aroused.
• e. males were not aroused by the bonobo video,
  females were!
• Another gender difference
• a. more women self-label bisexual than males
• b. more women switch sexual orientation over
  their life times

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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. (Anal
  intercourse the norm in most countries)
• ethnic minorities in Canada are more in the closet

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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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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Retrospective memory
• unreliable
• Alternate reality a common developmental theme
• adopted, Martian, different
• Early attractions, crushes
• heavily shaped by culture
• Selective memory
• Children bisexual (Freud)
• Capable of arousal with either sex can later
  remember always being attracted to same sex

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Bisexuality
• If based on one encounter (at least)
• 33
• Higher sex drive, more sexual activity in
  general, including masturbation. More high risk
  behaviour.
• Majority married (heterorole)
• Sexual pleasure oriented regardless of other
  persons sex

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• 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. Called
  fence-sitters, some feel pressured to go in
  either direction
• Many gays reject the concept, saying that bis are
  misguided homosexuals

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• So
• numbers difficult to estimate
• definition
• fuzzy
• causes
• flimsy support for several hypotheses
• real danger
• prejudice

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS
• Genetic
• More concordance in identical twins, but does not
  rule out environment otherwise it would be 100
  concordance instead of 52.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Prenatal factors
• No agreement in different studies, contradictory
  data
• Hypothesized
• severe maternal stress (no effects)
• also, maternal stress is retrospective
• no tally of stressed expectant mothers who had
  heterosexual children
• very high levels of estrogen ? lesbian offspring
• birth order males with several older brothers ?
  gay
• some studies show a complicated relationship
  between birth order and handedness (right or left
  handed)
• some found a correlation between orientation and
  finger size index and ring finger ratio or 2D4D

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS (Contd)
• Brain differences
• Small sample. Non-comparable some died of AIDS.
  Is the difference due to orientation or to
  disease and its treatment? LeVay
• Other differences found, but all in adults after
  the fact (chicken/egg)
• Would need to look at newborn brains and if
  differences found follow-up into adulthood and
  observe sexual orientation
• Endocrine imbalance
• No differences found.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Learning
• Possible in some cases. Personal negative
  experience could override social reinforcement
  patterns. Also, peer group can provide more
  reinforcement than society at large.
• Sociological theories
• Importance of labels. Labels affect perception.
  Perception affects behaviour. This can influence
  self-perception, leading to self-labeling.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Reiss
• Rigidly polarized societies have higher incidence
  of same-gender sex. But only applies to males.
• Another scenario
• very permissive societies, experimentation OK.

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Bem The Exotic Becomes Erotic
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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Bems Theory criticisms
• There is NO abundant evidence of inborn
  aggression and activity levels by gender, its
  all contaminated by culture.
• Homosocial activities are mostly a cultural
  phenomenon.
• Children who dont fit the gender stereotypes are
  clearly told they are odd and wrong.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Bems Theory criticisms (Contd)
• 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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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Asexual category
• Not attracted to either sex. Non-existent sex
  drive.
• 1. Hormonal deficiency or imbalance
• 2. Central nervous system misconnection
• 3. Possible early trauma childhood sexual abuse
• 4. Pituitary tumors
• 5. Aspergers (autism spectrum)
• 6. Personality disorder (schizoid)
• 7. Late bloomers
• Research is scarce
• Can engage in sex usually to please partner.
• Some engage in masturbation.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Freud undifferentiated at birth (polymorphous
  perverse)
• Phallic stage Oedipus/Electra
• Identification with same sex parent
• Kinsey continuum
• Very complex issue
• All beings potential for both
• Embryological/developmental parallel

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Situational variables
• Several possible ways to acquire sexual
  orientation
• Basic human needs shared by all
• sensual/sexual fulfillment
• socio-emotional connection

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Bell and Weinberg typology of gays (sample of
  979)
• Close coupled
• one long-time partner, marriage type
  relationship, few problems, few sex partners,
  infrequent cruising.
• Open coupled
• steady live-in partner but also many outside
  ones, lots of cruising. More likely to have
  problems and to regret being gay.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Bell and Weinberg typology of gays (sample of
  979) (Contd)
• Functional
• not coupled, high number of sex partners, few
  problems. Younger, high sex drive, few regrets.
• Dysfunctional
• not coupled, high number of partners, many sex
  problems as well as psychological problems,
  tense, unhappy, depressed.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• Bell and Weinberg typology of gays (sample of
  979) (Contd)
• Asexual
• low in sexual interest and activity, less
  exclusively gay, very secretive, loners, highest
  incidence of suicide thoughts.

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SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• 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.