All You Wanted to Know About Sex (16 page)

In a number of countries they have separate bars, theaters and other business establishments which may cater primarily to homosexual individuals.

Female homosexuals may also exchange rings and marital vows in formal ceremonies. Lesbians place greater emphasis on the quality of their interpersonal relationship and less on its sexual aspects.

Causes of Homosexuality

Some investigators view biological factors as playing the key role in the development of homosexual behaviour.

1. Genetic and Hormonal Factors
   According to a number of investigators homosexuality results from an abnormal
   Androgen-Estrogen
   ratio.
   

2. Homosexual Experiences and their Positive Reinforcement
   It is also associated with pleasant homosexual experiences during adolescence or early adulthood.
   

3. Negative Conditioning of Heterosexual Behaviour
   When any boy or girl is ridiculed, rebuked, rebuffed and humiliated in his effort to approach members of the opposite sex he or she may turn towards homosexuality as source of affection and sexual outlet. Early sexual relations under unfortunate circumstances may have a comparable effect.
   

4. Family Patterns
   Family patterns may create a wide range of adjustment problems and even severe maladjustment. A dominant seductive mother and a weak or absent father or a mother frustrated by an unhappy marital relationship may establish homosexual relations.
   

5. General Socio-cultural Factors
   The severity of social sanctions for deviations may markedly influence the incidence of homosexual and other unconventional sexual life styles.
   

Various surveys show that perhaps one in two adults is likely to have had one or more experiences involving someone of the same sex, and that at least half of those who haven’t have felt sexually attracted to someone of their own sex.

When people are confined to single-sex institutions like prisons, boarding schools, ships on long voyages, for extended period of time, their sexual preferences tend to bend somewhat towards what is available.

In societies where homosexuality is accepted, it will be open and public, but where it is regarded as perversion, it will be forced underground.

The fact is that there has been no society, and no time in history, when homosexuality has not existed. It occurs among very primitive peoples and in advanced societies. In ancient Greece and Rome, for example male homosexuality was open, accepted and common, and held to be very pure and high form of life.

It is now recognised that people who prefer same-sex are not sick physically or mentally. They are perfectly happy to be the way they are. That is the reason why they are called Gay.

Homosexuality is still stuck with some of the old labels—”Not natural”, “Against nature”. Though these are slowly fading. The taboos against homosexuality are really the old thinking of sex is only for reproduction. Discovering that someone is a homosexual, comes as a shock to most people.

Incest

Culturally prohibited sexual relations between family members such as a father and daughter, brother and sister, mother and son etc. are called Incest.

In every society incestuous behaviour does occur. But its actual incidence is unknown since it takes place in a family setting and are the least reported.

Social taboos or law against incest are found in particularly all societies but the degree of relationship may differ from society to society.

These are the Main Causes of Incest

1. Accidental Incest
   It may happen when brothers and sisters share the same bedroom during préadolescent or adolescent period. They may tend to engage in sexual exploration and experimentation.
   

2. Severe Psychopathology
   Individuals such as alcoholics and psychotics may indulge themselves in incestuous relation with the lowering of their inner control.
   

3. Paedophilia
   It may happen when a father has an intense craving for young children as sex objects including his own daughter.
   

4. A faulty Pattern Model
   When a father sets an undesirable example for his son by engaging in incestous relations with his daughter, and may encourage his son to do like wise.
   

5. Family Pathology and Disturbed Marital Relations
   When any family has low morals or is disorganised, a rejecting hostile wife may encourage such relations.
   

Paedophilia

Paedophilia is a psychosexual disorder in which an adult desires sexual relations with a child. The sexual activity may consist of heterosexual intercourse, fellatio, or anal intercourse. It may also be limited to looking and touching occasionally. The child is induced to manipulate the sex organs of the paedophiliac or to engage in mouth-genital contacts. In most cases the victim is known to the offender and usually there is no physical coercion.

The main causes of Paedophilia are :

1. Immature Personality
   The person who has never been able to establish or maintain satisfactory interpersonal sexual relationship. He feels sexually comfortable only with children.
   

2. The Regressed Offenders
   It may happen when any person discovers that his wife or girlfriend is having an affair with another man.
   

3. The Conditioned Offenders
   Those individuals who have had their definite sexual experiences with young boys. This conditioned behaviour continues into adulthood in terms of sexual preference.
   

4. The Psychopathic Offenders
   Those who prey on children in search of new sexual thrills. Such offenders usually have a history of antisocial behaviour.
   

Sodomy

Sexual intercourse between a man and another man is called sodomy. The sodomy is derived from the ancient city of Sodom where corruption was so rampant that it was destroyed. Sodomy is regarded as unnatural sexual intercourse.

Avisodomy

Avisodomy is the sexual intercourse between a human male and a bird. The birds commonly used for this purpose are—chickens, ducks, geese and turkey because of their accomodating anatomy. This practise seems to be worldwide, as old as human history, and still quite current.

Bestiality

Sexual relations with animals through intercourse, masturbation, fellatio, rubbing, anal penetration or having one’s genital licked is called bestiality. It also includes deriving sexual pleasure and excitement from observing the sexual activities of animals and from a fetish based upon animal furs or skin.

Zoophilia

Zoophilia is a psychosexual disorder in which farm animals or household pets are persistently preferred or exclusively used to achieve sexual excitement.

Sadism

Sadism is a psychosexual disorder, or paraphilia in which sexual excitement is obtained by inflicting pain on the sexual partner. Sadist act may consist of physical cruelty, such as flogging or bondage, or mental cruelty as in humiliating the partner. The suffering may be inflicted on either a consenting or a non-consenting person, and may range from mild injury to raping, torturing or even killing the victim. Full sexual gratification is obtained from the sadist practice. A sadist may even slash a woman with a razor or prick her with a needle, experiencing an orgasm in the process.

These are the main causes for Sadism:

1. Negative Attitude Towards Sex
   Sadist activities may protect an individual with negative attitudes toward sex from the full sexual implications of his behaviour, and at the same time may help him express his contempt and punishment of the other person for engaging in sexual relation. For many sexually inadequate and insecure individuals, the infliction of pain is apparently a safe means of achieving sexual stimulation, strong feelings of power and superiority over his victim may for the time being shut out underlying feelings of inadequacy and anxiety.
   

2. Painful Experience
   It may also be due to any experience in which sexual excitation and possibly orgasm have been associated with the infliction of pain.
   

3. Psychopathological Condition
   It may also happen due to lowering of inner controls and the deviations of symbolic processes as in Schizophrenia and other severe form of psychopathology.
   

Masochism

It is a psychological disorder in which the individual persistently derives pleasure from pain inflicted on the self instead of on others as in the case of sadism.

Masochistic behaviour usually comes about through conditioned learning, as a result of early experiences. An individual comes to associate pain with sexual pleasure.

Voyeurism

In this disorder an individual derives sexual satisfaction from secretly observing people in the nude or in the act of undressing or engaging in sexual activity. Scotophilia and inspectionalism are also synonymous terms.

Viewing the body of an attractive female seems to be quite stimulating sexually for many males. The privacy and mystery that have traditionally surrounded sexual activities has tended to increase curiosity about them. If a youth with such curiosity feels shy and inadequate in his relations with the other sex, it is not surprising for him to accept the substitute of peeping. In this way he satisfies his curiosity and to some extent meets his sexual needs without the trauma of actually approaching a female. Peeping activities often provide important compensatory feelings of power and superiority on the one being looked at.

Exhibitionism

Exhibitionism is a psychosexual disorder, or paraphilia, characterized by a compulsive need to expose one’s body, particularly the genital organs, as a means of achieving sexual excitement. The act is usually performed by a male in the presence of a female, children or unsuspecting adults. It is accompanied by masturbation. The surprise, fear and horror aroused in this act gives him the extra thrill he needs to achieve erection and ejaculation. In some instances exposure of the genitals is accompanied by suggestive gestures or masturbatory activity but more commonly there is only exposure. Its main causes are:

1. Personal Immaturity
   Such exhibitionists seem to have inadequate information, feels shy and inferiority in approaching the opposite sex. They are immature in their sex role development, even though they may be well educated and competent in other life areas. Some have doubts and fears about their masculinity, combined with a strong need to demonstrate masculinity and potency.
   

2. Inter-Personal Stress
   Married exhibitionist appears to be reacting to some conflict or stress situation in his marriage.
   

3. Association with other Psychopathology
   Exhibitionist is associated with sociopathic personality disorder. Such individuals have a history of poor school adjustment and erratic work records. Often they have had difficulties with authorities as consequence of other antisocial acts. Their exhibitionism appears to be just one more form or antisocial behaviour to achieve sexual excitation and gratification. In some cases it is related with schizophrenic reactions.
   

Fetishism

It is also a psychosexual disorder in which sexual gratification is repeatedly or exclusively achieved through fondling, kissing or licking inanimate objects such as woman’s shoes or undergarments, garters or locks of hair. Handling these objects often accompanied by sexual fantasies and masturbation. In order to obtain the required object, the fetishist may commit burglary, theft or even assault. The articles most commonly stolen by fetishists are women’s underthings.

Many stimuli can come to be associated with sexual excitation and gratification. Most people are stimulated to some degree by intimate articles of clothing and by perfumes and odours associated with the opposite sex. It causes conditioning experience. Fetishistic patterns of sexual gratification usually become the preferred patterns only when they are part of a larger picture of maladjustment.

Amputation fetishism, Anal fetishism, Breast fetishism, Foot fetishism and Shoe fetishism are also its parts.

Common Questions for Adolescents

Q.l Why do people have sex?

Ans
. The term sex is derived from the Latin word
sexus
, which means to cut or to divide. Sex is the natural way of ensuring the continuation of species. Animals never think about it, they only respond to chaning levels of sex hormones which stimulate the reproductive urge. But as far as human beings are concerned it is made complicated by thoughts and feelings. We have sex because it gives us pleasure. Sex is the center of a loving relationship, a true bond between two people. The basic sex drive is a universal experience, but what turns people on diffères from culture to culture. The rules and customs which govern sexual behaviour vary enormously from place to place.