Human Sexuality - Psychological Aspects

Psychological Aspects

Sexuality in humans generates profound emotional and psychological responses. Some theorists identify sexuality as the central source of human personality.

Psychological studies of sexuality focus on psychological influences that affect sexual behavior and experiences. Early psychological analyses were carried out by Sigmund Freud, who believed in a psychoanalytic approach. He also conjectured the concepts of erogenous zones, psychosexual development, and the Oedipus complex, among others.

Behavior theorists such as John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner examine the actions and consequences and their ramifications. These theorists would, for example, study a child who is punished for sexual exploration and see if they grow up to associate negative feelings with sex in general. Social-learning theorists use similar concepts, but focus on cognitive activity and modeling.

Gender identity is a person's own sense of identification as female, male, both, neither, or somewhere in between. The social construction of gender has been discussed by a wide variety of scholars, Judith Butler notable among them. Recent contributions consider the influence of feminist theory and courtship research.

Sexual behavior and intimate relationships are strongly influenced by a person’s sexual orientation. Sexual orientation refers to your degree of emotional and physical attraction to members of the opposite sex, same sex, or both sexes. Heterosexual people are attracted to the members of the opposite sex. Homosexual people are attracted to people of the same sex. Those who are bisexual are attracted to both men and women.

Before the High Middle Ages, homosexual acts appear to have been ignored or tolerated by the Christian church. During the 12th century however, hostility toward homosexuality began to spread throughout religious and secular institutions. By the end of the 19th century, homosexuality was viewed as a pathology. Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud adopted more accepting stances. Ellis argued that homosexuality was inborn and therefore not immoral, that it was not a disease, and that many homosexuals made significant contributions to society. Freud believed all human beings as capable of becoming either heterosexual or homosexual; neither orientation was assumed to be innate. Freud claimed that a person’s orientation depended on how the Oedipus complex was resolved. He believed that male homosexuality resulted when a young boy had an authoritarian, rejecting mother and turned to his father for love and affection and later to men in general. He believed female homosexuality developed when a girl loved her mother and identified with her father and became fixated at that stage.

Freud and Ellis thought homosexuality resulted from reversed gender roles. This view is reinforced today by the media’s portraying male homosexuals as effeminate and female homosexuals as masculine. Whether a person conforms or does not conform to gender stereotypes does not always predict sexual orientation. Society believes that if a man is masculine he is heterosexual, and if a man is feminine he must be homosexual. There is no strong evidence that a homosexual or bisexual orientation must be associated with atypical gender roles. Today, homosexuality is no longer considered to be a pathology. In addition, many factors have been linked to homosexuality including: genetic factors, anatomical factors, birth order, and hormones in the prenatal environment.