Understanding Sexuality

Sexuality and Society

I. Understanding Sexuality.
A. Sex refers to the biological distinction between females and males.
B. Sex and the body.
1. Primary sex characteristics refer to the organs used for reproduction, namely, the genitals. Secondary sex characteristics are bodily differences, apart from the genitals, that distinguish biologically mature females and males.
2. Sex is not the same thing as gender.
3. In rare cares, a hormone imbalance before birth produces intersexual people, human beings with some combination of female and male characteristics.
4. Transsexuals are people who feel they are one sex even though biologically they are the other.
C. Like all dimensions of human behavior, sexuality is also very much a
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University took advantage of the consumer-tracking potential of the Internet, and over an eighteen-month period studied what pornographic material was actually being consumed at a number of Usenet newsgroups. They reached a number of conclusions:
There is a great deal of online pornography. On the newsgroups with image files, some 83 percent of the images were pornographic in nature, and in total the researchers examined over 900,000 explicitly written video and photographic materials.
According to the researchers, pornography probably represents "one of the largest (if not the largest) recreational applications of computer networks."
Pornography is quite lucrative for its purveyors. The top five subscriptions-based adult bulletin-board services (BBS) of the many thousands in the market all make over one million dollars annually.
Pornographic consumers are widespread. In keeping with the Internet's decentralized nature, the researchers tracked clients from every state in America and over forty countries, some of which ban all forms of explicit
They argue that teaching about homosexuality has the effect of condoning such behavior. Other parents are concerned because they believe that this topic is being introduced too early. When the New York city school district developed a program entitled "Children of the Rainbow," designed to promote acceptance of a wide variety of diverse lifestyles, many parents and local school boards objected because a unit in which teachers urged their students "to view lesbians/gays as real people to be respected and appreciated" was originally targeted for the first grade. Chancellor Joseph Fernandez eventually backed off, agreeing that consideration of sexual orientation could be delayed until the fifth or sixth grade. Opponents to inclusive curricula have also been concerned about the placement of books such as Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy's Roommate, and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride in school libraries, even if such books are not on required reading lists. Many school districts allow students to be excused from classes in which homosexuality is discussed, although few parents take advantage of this option _ only 1.5 percent in Fairfax County, Virginia, did