1. Society The Basics
FOURTEENTH EDITION
Chapter 6
Sexuality and Society

2. Learning Objectives
6.1 Describe how sexuality is both a biological and a cultural issue. 6.2 Explain changes in sexual attitudes in the United States. 6.3 Analyze factors that shape sexual orientation. 6.4 Discuss several current controversies involving sexuality. 6.5 Apply sociology's major theories to the topic of sexuality.

3. The Power of Society

4. Understanding Sexuality Learning Objective 6
Understanding Sexuality Learning Objective 6.1: Describe how sexuality is both a biological and a cultural issue.
Sex: Biological distinction between females and males

5. Culture and Attractiveness (1 of 2)
Culture sets the standards for attractiveness.
Attractiveness underlies our choices about reproduction.
All of the people pictured here are considered beautiful by members of their own society.

6. Culture and Attractiveness (2 of 2)
Sexually active students were linked to each other through networks of common partners much more than anyone might have expected. In all, common partners linked half of the sexually active students, as shown in the diagram.

7. A Biological Issue Primary sex characteristics
Organs used for reproduction
Secondary sex characteristics
Bodily development that distinguishes mature males and females

8. Sex and the Body (1 of 2) Intersexual people (hermaphrodites)
Possessing some combination of female and male genitalia
Transsexuals
People who feel emotionally linked to one sex, but are biologically the other
Often expressed feeling is “trapped in the body of the wrong sex”
Disregard conventional ideas about how males and females look and behave

9. Sex and the Body (2 of 2)
We are used to thinking of sex as a clear-cut issue of being female or male.
But transsexual people do not fit such simple categories.
In 2008, Thomas Beatie, age 34, became pregnant and gave birth to a healthy baby girl; since then, he has given birth to two additional children.
Beatie, who was born a woman, had surgery to remove his breasts and legally changed his sex to bear children.
What is your response to cases such as this?

10. Sex: A Cultural Issue (1 of 2)
Cultural variation
Showing affection and sexual position
Notions of modesty
Restrictions placed upon openness

11. Sex: A Cultural Issue (2 of 2)
The incest taboo
Found in every society
Forbidding sexual relations between relatives
Rooted in biology
Necessary element of social organization in human species

12. NATIONAL MAP 6–1 First-Cousin Marriage Laws across the United States

13. The Sexual Revolution (1 of 3) Learning Objectives 6
The Sexual Revolution (1 of 3) Learning Objectives 6.2: Explain changes in sexual attitudes in the United States.
Over the course of the past century, social attitudes in the United States have become more accepting of most aspects of human sexuality.
What do you see as some of the benefits of this greater openness?
What are some of the negative consequences?

14. The Sexual Revolution (2 of 3)
Profound changes in sexual attitudes and practices
1920s: Roaring Twenties
1948: Kinsey research

15. The Sexual Revolution (3 of 3)
1960s: A new openness toward sexuality
Birth-control pills
Double standard challenged
Premarital and extramarital sex
Men and women almost equal in premarital sex.
American youth broadly accept premarital sex.
75% of men and 90% of women remain faithful.

16. Figure 6-1 The sexual Revolution: Closing the Double Standard

17. Global Map 6-1 Contraceptive Use in Global Perspective

18. Table 6–1 How We View Premarital and Extramarital Sex
Survey Question: “There’s been a lot of discussion about the way morals and attitudes about sex are changing in this country. If a man and a woman have sexual relations before marriage, do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all? What about a married person having sexual relations with someone other than the marriage partner?”
Premarital Sex
Extramarital Sex
“Always wrong”
21.0%
78.4%
“Almost always
wrong”
5.5
11.9
“Wrong only sometimes”
15.8
6.7
“Not wrong at all”
54.1
1.2
“Don’t know”/No
Answer
3.6
1.8
Source: General Social Surveys, 1972–2012: Codebook (Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, 2013), pp. 421–22.

19. Sexual Orientations (1 of 3)
Although a larger share of men than women report having had two or more sexual partners by age twenty, the sexual revolution greatly reduced this gender difference.

20. Sexual Orientations (2 of 3)
Sex between adults
1/3 have sex a few times a year or not at all.
1/3 have sex once to a few times a month.
1/3 have sex with a partner two or more times a week.

21. Sexual Orientations (3 of 3)
Roots of sexual orientation
Mounting biological evidence for genetics
Social influences cannot be discounted

22. The Sexual Revolution: Sex over the Life Course
Patterns of change with age
By mid-twenties, about 90% of both women and men report being sexually active with a partner at least once during the past year.
Young adults report the highest frequency of sexual intercourse at eighty-four times per year.
This number falls to sixty-four times for adults in their forties and declines further to about ten times per year for adults in their seventies.

23. Sexual Attitudes in the US
The sexual counterrevolution
The return to family values and sexual responsibility
Limited partners
STDs
Premarital sex

24. Sexual Orientation: Types (1 of 3) Learning Objectives 6
Sexual Orientation: Types (1 of 3) Learning Objectives 6.3: Analyze factors that shape sexual orientation.
Heterosexuality
“Hetero:” The other. Sexual attraction to someone of the other sex
Homosexuality
“Homo:” The same. Sexual attraction to someone of the same sex

25. Sexual Orientation: Types (2 of 3)
Bisexuality
Strong attraction to both sexes
Asexualiy
Lack of sexual attraction to people of either sex

26. Sexual Orientation: Types (3 of 3)
One factor that has advanced the social acceptance of homosexuality is the inclusion of openly gay characters in the mass media, especially films and television shows. In the popular musical-drama series Glee, Chris Colfer plays Kurt Hummel, who came out as being gay during the first season of the show. How would you assess the portrayal of homosexuality in the mass media?

27. Gay Rights Movement Public attitudes moving toward greater acceptance
Homosexuality no longer defined as an illness
Use of term homophobia
Gay marriage legalized in some states

28. Sexual Controversies Learning Objective 6
Sexual Controversies Learning Objective 6.4: Discuss several current controversies involving sexuality.
Teen pregnancy
U.S. has highest rate compared to other high- income countries.
Pregnancy among unmarried teenage women, once a social taboo, has become part of the mass media.

29. National Map 6-2 Teenage Pregnancy Rates across the United States

30. Sexual Controversies: Pornography
Pornography is sexually explicit material intended to cause sexual arousal.
Supreme Court gives local communities the power to decide what violates community standards.
Pornography in the U.S. is a $10 billion/year industry.
Pornography is criticized for moral and political reasons.

31. Sexual Controversies: Prostitution
Selling of sexual services
Social and cultural ties
Most common in poor countries where:
Patriarchy is strong.
Opportunities to earn a living are restricted.

32. Prostitution Types of prostitution A “victimless crime?” “Call girls”
Workers in controlled parlors
“Street walkers”
A “victimless crime?”
Police stage only occasional crackdowns.
The sex trade subjects many women to kidnapping, emotional abuse, and violence.

33. Sexual Violence and Abuse (1 of 3)
Myths about rape
Rape always involves strangers.
Women provoke their attackers.
Rape is simply sex.

34. Sexual Violence and Abuse (2 of 3)
Rape
A violent act that uses sex to hurt, humiliate, or control another person
Expression of power, not sex
About 12% of high school girls and 5% of high school boys reported being forced into having sexual intercourse against their will.

35. Sexual Violence and Abuse (2 of 3)
Date rape (or acquaintance rape)
Forcible sexual violence against women by men they know
Accounts for 70% of all rape
High danger on college campuses

36. When Sex Is Only Sex: The Campus Culture of “Hooking Up”
Student responses to the survey suggest that hookups have three characteristics.
First, most couples who hook up know little about each other.
Second, a typical hookup involves people who have been drinking alcohol, usually at a campus party.
Third, most women are critical of the culture of hooking up and express little satisfaction with these encounters.

37. Theories of Sexuality (1 of 2) Learning Objective 6
Theories of Sexuality (1 of 2) Learning Objective 6.5: Apply sociology's major theories to the topic of sexuality.
Structural-functional analysis
Need to regulate sexual behavior
Latent functions
Evaluation
helps us see the important part sexuality plays in the organization of society
Sometimes ignores gender

38. Theories of Sexuality (2 of 2)
Symbolic-interaction analysis
The social construction of sexuality
Sexual practices vary from culture to culture.
Evaluation
Constructed character of familiar social patterns revealed.
Not all sexual practices are so variable so broader social structure may be missed.

39. Social Conflict and Feminist Theories
Social-conflict analysis
Highlights dimensions of inequality
Shows how sexuality reflects patterns of social inequality and helps perpetuate them
Queer theory
Evaluation
Shows that sexuality is both a cause and effect of inequality
Suggests that many people do not see sexuality as a power issue

40. Applying Theory Sexuality Structural-Functional Theory
Symbolic-Interaction Theory
Social-Conflict and
Feminist Theories
What is the level of analysis?
Macro-level
Micro-level
What is the importance of sexuality for society?
Society depends on sexuality for reproduction.
Society uses the incest taboo and other norms to control sexuality in order to maintain social order.
Sexual practices vary among the many cultures of the world.
Some societies allow individuals more freedom than others in matters
of sexual behavior.
Sexuality is linked to social
inequality.
U.S. society regulates women’s sexuality more than men’s, which is part of the larger pattern of men dominating women.
Has sexuality changed over time? How?
Yes.
As advances in birth control
technology separate sex from
reproduction, societies relax some controls on sexuality.
The meanings people attach to virginity and other sexual matters are all socially constructed and subject
to change.
Yes and no.
Some sexual standards have
relaxed, but society still defines women in sexual terms, just as homosexual people are harmed by
society’s heterosexual bias.

41. The Abortion Controversy (1 of 2)
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Established legal access to abortion
Pro-choice
Supports a woman's right to choose abortion
Pro-life
Opposes abortion as morally wrong
Circumstances of the pregnancy
Makes a big difference in how people see this issue

42. The Abortion Controversy (2 of 2)