1. PowerPoint® Presentation by Jim Foley
Motivation and Work
PowerPoint® Presentation
by Jim Foley
© 2013 Worth Publishers

2. Module 33: Sexual Motivation, and the Need to Belong

3. Topics to get very involved with
Sex:
The Sexual Response Cycle
Sexual Disorders
Hormones and Sexuality
Adolescent Sexuality
Sexually Transmitted Infections
Sexual Orientation, Origins: Genes, Brain, Prenatal Hormones
Values related to Sex
The Need to Belong:
Sustaining Relationships
The Pain of Ostracism
Social Networking:
Options
Effects
Maintaining Balance and Focus
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4. Another Human Motivation: Sex
Sexual motivation may have evolved to enable creatures to pass on their genes. Issues to explore about sex:
physiological, including the response cycle (with disorders of sexual response), hormones, and stimuli
developmental, especially in adolescence
sexual orientation and its possible origins
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More about the first sentence: sexual motivation is adaptive, with those more motivated passing on the greatest number of genes. This makes male promiscuity a successful trait (out of many) for passing on genes.
The difference between hunger and ses: both are necessities for the species, but only hunger is a necessity for the individual. Many people function well with sex as a minor or non-existent motivation (or drive).

5. The Physiology of Sexual Activity
The Sexual Response Cycle
Four phases, to orgasm and back
Disorders of the Sexual Response Cycle
Problems with desire and response
Hormones and Sexual Behavior
Effects and role of testosterone and estrogen
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I have changed the title of the topic “Sexual Disorders” because there are many other sexual disorders not mentioned here that may come to the minds of students, such as fetishism, sadism, and paraphilias. Here, we’re focusing on the ones related to the sexual response cycle.

6. The Sexual Response Cycle
Beginning in the late 1950s, William Masters and Virginia Johnson observed sexual arousal and orgasm to learn about the typical pattern of human response to sexual stimulation. Their findings:
Phase
Physiological Response
Excitement
Genitals fill with blood and lubricate, ready for intercourse; breathing and pulse become rapid
Plateau
The changes related to excitement reach a peak
Orgasm
Contractions all over the body; sexual release
Resolution
Enlarged genitals release blood; male goes through refractory phase, women resolve slower
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Instructor: you could remind students that this study was based on a sample of people willing to be observed in arousal and orgasm. What adjustment might we have to make in generalizing the results to the whole population? Do students think that the era of the study or the laboratory conditions limit the applicability of the results? If so, how? How might unobserved, spontaneous sexual response be different than these phases seen in the laboratory? Given the era of the study (the initial phase was ) , do students think that results would be different now?

7. Sexual Response Disorders
Some people have a variation or impairment in some phase of the sexual response cycle. These variations are sometimes distressful or problematic enough to be seen as disorders: premature ejaculation erectile dysfunction low sexual desire lack of orgasm response
These can improve with behavioral therapy, other psychotherapy, and/or medication.
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Again, I have modified the title of the topic to narrow it (see explanation on earlier slide notes) but I left the term “disorders.” Do students see a problem (stigma, etc) using that term?
These disorders impair arousal and response; the paraphilias direct arousal and response to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative response cycle. Psychologists and psychiatrists once believed homosexuality was a disturbance of normative sexual response. In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the DSM-II classification of mental disorders.

8. Hormones and Sexual Motivation
Sexual desire and response is not as tied to hormone levels in humans as it is in animals.
During ovulation, women show a rise in estrogen and also in testosterone.
As this happens, sexual desire rises in women and also in the men around them (whose testosterone level rises).
Low levels of testosterone can reduce sexual motivation.
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9. The Psychology of Sex
Like hunger, sexual desire is a function of biological factors, internal drives, external and imagined stimuli, and cultural expectations.
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10. The Effect of External Stimuli
All effects of external stimuli on sexual behavior are more common in men than in women.
The short-term effect of exposure to images of nudity and sexuality increases sexual arousal and desire.
Possible dangers include:
the distortion of our ideas of what is appropriate and effective for mutual sexual satisfaction.
the habit of finding sexual response through idealized images may lead to decreased sexual response to real-life sexual partners.
Imagined Stimuli
The brain is involved in sexuality; people with no genital sensation (e.g. spinal cord injuries) can feel sexual desire.
The brain also contains dreams, memories, and fantasies that stimulate sexual desire.
Fantasies are not just a replacement for sexual activity; they often accompany sex.
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11. Adolescent Sexual Activity
Adolescents often begin to engage in sexual activity, including intercourse. This may be related to basic drives but is mostly a function of social environment.
Sexual intercourse rates, and age of first intercourse, vary widely among cultures, families, and historical periods.
How can we tell it isn’t just a function of biology?
Sexual activity includes risks
that may be magnified in adolescence such as:
pregnancy while still in school.
sexually transmitted infections.
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I have modified the title of “Teen Pregnancy” to go beyond the obvious “adolescent sexual activity puts you at risk of teen pregnancy” to highlight the disruption of the typical path to independent or emergent adulthood.

12. Teen Pregnancy and Contraception
American teens have higher rates of pregnancy and abortion than European teens. Possible reasons include:
inadequate communication about birth control with parents and sexual partners.
guilt about sex may make American teens less likely to plan for it and use contraception.
alcohol use may make impulsive sex more likely and impair decision making.
media portrayals in the United States make unprotected sex look common and free from consequences.
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Instructor: you might add the following background material: "the term “homosexual” was first used in the 1800s; were there “homosexuals” before the 1800s? The issue is politically charged and hotly disputed. Clearly there were people who engaged in homosexual acts, but saying they had a homosexual ‘identity’ may be introducing a modern view of sexuality that was alien to the times. Most premodern people viewed sexual acts as homosexual or heterosexual, but they did not classify the people performing the acts

13. Sexually Transmitted Infections
Unlike the risk of pregnancy, the risk of STIs multiplies and spreads, and condoms do not offer sufficient protection for STIs like herpes.
Sex and bad math: Herb has sex with 9 people, each of whom has 9 other partners who each have sex with 9 people. To how many people could his STI spread?
511
(Laura Brannon and Timothy Brock study estimate)
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Instructor: in case students challenge that figure, you can point out that 9 x 9 x 9 = 729. However, that total in the real world is likely to count some partners twice, so “511” may reduce the number to the likely number of separate individuals potentially contracting the STI.

14. Factors Correlating with Sexual Restraint
Participation in abstinence education programs, even when randomly assigned to participate
High intelligence test scores, thinking of consequences, and focusing on future achievement
Strong religious beliefs and involvement
Presence of father in the home
Participation in activity helping others, even when randomly assigned to participate
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15. Sexual Orientation Statistics
How many people are exclusively homosexual?
Based on a compilation of surveys:
3 percent of men and
1-2 percent of women.
Are the surveys missing anyone?
These surveys protected anonymity, BUT they defined sexual preference as sexual activity. Many do not act on their preference.
Sexual orientation refers to one’s preferences as an object of sexual attraction.
This attraction may not necessarily result in sexual activity, but may exist in the form of desires, interests, infatuations, and fantasies.
“Identity” as either heterosexual, bisexual, or exclusively homosexual, emerges in puberty.
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Sexual preference, especially if it is bisexual or homosexual, may not be revealed or acted on when one’s attractions are the subject of prejudice.
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Does protecting anonymity ensure honest answers about a stigmatized subject? People may worry about information being revealed or tracked despite the promise of anonymity, and they may not want to document a stigmatized behavior even to themselves. This is actually a problem in all self-reported surveys, such as those that ask, “how happy is your marriage,” or “how satisfied are you with your life.”

16. Sexual Orientation and Mental Health
Forty years ago, homosexuality was considered a psychological disorder.
Having a homosexual orientation in today’s society still puts one at risk for anxiety and mood disorders because of the stress of discrimination and isolation, and the difficulty in finding satisfying and loving relationships.
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17. Origins of Sexual Orientation
Theories suggesting that sexual preference is related to parenting behaviors or childhood abuse are not supported by evidence.
Differences appear to begin at birth. This could be genetic, or it could be caused by exposure to hormones or antigens in the womb.
The fraternal birth order effect: being born after a brother increases the likelihood of being gay.
Cause or Effect? The brain and other differences in sexual orientation
Heterosexual men have a certain cell cluster in the hypothalamus that, on average, is larger than in gay men and in women.
Gay men are more likely than straight men to be poets, fiction writers, artists, and musicians.
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A comment implied in the text about these two examples: non-sexual differences between gay and straight men could be biological but could also be a function of the social experience of being gay in this society.

18. Biological and Behavioral Differences Associated with Sexual Preference
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19. Biological Differences Associated with Sexual Preference
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20. Genetics and Homosexuality
In fruit flies, a difference in one gene determined sexual orientation and behavior.
Homosexuality seems to run in families and among identical twins, but still emerges spontaneously, even in one of a pair of twins.
Genes related to homosexuality could be passed on by siblings or by people not living exclusively according to their sexual orientation.
Homosexuality and Gender
Hormones that affect gender may also affect sexual orientation.
In mammals, female fetuses exposed to extra testosterone, and male fetuses exposed to low levels of testosterone, often grow up with:
bodies, brains, and faces with traits of the opposite sex.
the sexual attraction expected of the opposite sex to one’s own sex.
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21. Sexual Orientation: Acceptance
Whatever the level of evidence accumulates that sexual orientation becomes part of one’s identity because of biology:
it is possible to accept another person’s sexual orientation and behavior.
This acceptance seems to be growing, at least in the acceptance of homosexual life commitment in the form of marriage.
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As more people are open about their sexual orientation, acceptance may spread thanks to the mere exposure effect. However, the acceptance of gay and lesbian friends and family members does not always translate into general acceptance and vice versa.

22. Human Values and Sex Research
As psychologists write about sexual activity, most attempt to be non-judgmental and value-free in discussing various sexual behaviors.
Some suggest that people should be reminded of the consequences of their actions.
Others note that sex should be associated with love (this is not just a romantic ideal; sex in a love relationship has been found to be more emotionally and sexually satisfying).
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Instructor: “consequences of their actions” refers to teen pregnancy, STIs, and the quote in the text from a 1982 child-rearing expert: “Promiscuous recreational sex poses certain psychological, social, health, and moral problems that must be faced realistically.”

23. Another Motivation: “To Belong”
What do people need besides food and sex?
Aristotle: friends
Alfred Adler: community
In Middle English, to be wretched [wrecche] means to “be without kin nearby”
Roy Baumeister, Mark Leary, and Abraham Maslow:
“To Belong.”
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Belonging refers to being connected to others; part of a group or family or community.

24. Why do we have a need to belong?
Evolutionary psychology perspective: seeking bonds with others aids survival in many ways
Keeping children close to caregivers
Mutual protection in a group
Cooperation in hunting and sharing food
Division of labor to allow growing food
Emotional support to get through crises
Why do we have a need to belong?
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25. Balancing Bonding with Other Needs
The need to bond with others is so strong that we can feel lost without close relationships.
However, we also seem to need autonomy and a sense of personal competence/efficacy.
There a tension between “me” and “us,” but these goals can work together.
 Belonging builds self-esteem, and prepares us for confident autonomy.
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26. The Need to Belong Leads to:
loyalty to friends, teams, groups, and families.
However, the need to belong also leads to:
changing our appearance to win acceptance.
staying in abusive relationships.
joining gangs, nationalist groups, and violent organizations.
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Abusive relationships typically undermine our autonomy and our sense of self-efficacy/competence. Ironically, this makes us less likely to leave an abusive relationship.

27. Disrupted Bonds, New Beginnings
Children repeatedly moved away from primary caretakers in childhood may have difficulty forming deep attachments in adulthood.
People losing a loved one or moving away from a hometown can feel grief.
Being ostracized, cut off from social contact or excluded, can lead to real physical pain.
And yet people can find resilience and relief from pain by building social connections.
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28. Social Networking = Social Connection?
Connecting online can be seen as taking turns reading brief words about each other, or as an experience of connection and/or belonging.
Portrayal of one’s self online is often close to one’s actual sense of self.
Use of social networking can become a compulsion, sacrificing face-to-face interaction and in-depth conversation.
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Regarding the face-to-face interaction: I suggest pointing out here that something called “Facebook” may have reduced our exposure to both faces and books.