SXL – Samenvatting Hoorcolleges
HC 1: Introduction into sexology
Exam: 20 MC questions that make up 60% of the grade, and 5 open questions that make up 40% of the
grade.
No questions about:
- Numbers
- Tables and figures
In this course certain phenomena or characteristics are discussed. The topics that are discussed are the ones
that are most common. If you yourself do not identify with these topics, it does not mean that what you
experience is abnormal. There’s a natural difference between people, where most people have a certain
experience or criteria, and other people don’t. But this is all still normal, and it is dynamic. The experience
you have now, may not be the same in ten years.
VB: Sexual motivation;
High or low sexual motivation is not necessarily wrong or abnormal. It’s problematic if you’re not happy with
it.
It can also be problematic when one partner does not match with another partner in regards to a certain
sexual characteristic; both partners are still completely normal (not broken), but because of the mismatch
it may cause problems in the relationship.
Sex used to be really important for determining the taxonomy of species. Species were considered the same
if they could have sex and that would lead to offspring that would also be able to reproduce.
VB: Bonobos and chimpanzees are not able to have offspring together. They are not considered the same
species. But they also have a very different sex language; they would not recognize sexual signals in each
other that signify they are interested in sex. Which is why they probably would not have sex in the first place.
Taxonomy of species can be clearly defined, but whether or not someone is having sex can not be as clearly
defined.
VB: Kissing monkeys;
Maybe they’re having sex or close to having sex, or maybe they’re having a dental check up, or maybe they
are passing each other food because their hands were dirty.
Sex is so hard to define because it exists because of social agreement. Sex is a social construct, this means
there is room for interpretation and there are no true (or only few) boundaries to the construct.
VB: Bill Clinton did not feel like oral sex with his secretary was a sexual act, in his view only penetrative sex is
considered a sexual act.
,Like a color spectrum, there is not a clear boundary between what is sex and what is different behavior.
There is a grey area.
VB: When someone touches your feet, this may not be sexual at all to you. It may lean to the “non sexual”
part of the spectrum. But for some, they relate feet very strongly to sex. This is actually logical because the
homunculus on the sensorimotor cortex connects feet to the genitalia. But this differs between people. How
strongly you may associate this with sex may also depend on who is touching you.
The WHO defines sex as “the sex act”, they view it as sexual intercourse where there’s penile vaginal
penetration. This does not take into account the grey area of sex.
Definition of sex in this course:
Sex= behavior or any action that produces sexual arousal and increases the chance of an orgasm or any type
of (sexual) reward.
This is a very broad definition of sex, but this captures al the grey areas of sexual behavior and sexuality.
What do most people consider sexual behavior:
- Deep kissing: only a small minority thinks this is sexual behavior.
- Stimulation of the nipples: more people think this is sexual behavior, but this is still a small minority.
- Oral stimulation with orgasm: this is 50/50.
- Penile-vaginal intercourse with orgasm: almost everyone thinks this is sexual behavior.
- Penile-anal intercourse with orgasm: almost everyone thinks this is sexual behavior.
When talking about sex in this course, we talk about:
- Sexual behavior
- The actions related to sex
- Sexual intercourse
Biological sex= taxonomy used to describe someone’s genotype (XX, XY, XXY, etc.).
Gender= the roles of any gender that are constructed in society.
Like cis- (=agreement between biological sex and the gender someone identifies with) or trans-
(=biological sex an the gender someone identifies with is different).
,Some numbers:
- 1 in 10 people identifies themselves as being asexual.
- Personal importance of sex:
o 10-12% of people don’t feel like sex is important to them
o The majority will feel like sex is at least somewhat important to them, this comes with
standard deviation. Some will feel like sex is really, really important to them, and others will
find it slightly important, etc.
But for most people it’s not the most important part of their lives.
o A small minority will not know whether sex is important to them or not.
- People with a penis think about sex around 20-30 times a day, people with a vagina think about 10-
15 times a day.
Sexology= the scientific study of human sexuality, including sexual identity, interests, development,
behaviors and functions. This is studied from a bio-psychosocial perspective.
Bio-psycho-social perspective in sexology:
There’s an association between age of first coitus, testosterone levels and religion. When testosterone levels
are higher, the age of first coitus is younger. This interacts with religion; when someone does not go to
church the effect of testosterone is larger than when someone goes to church. So religious people with a
high testosterone level will have first coitus on a later age than non-religious people with high testosterone.
But the age of first coitus was self reported, it is possible that people who go to church are more likely to
give a social desirable answer because they feel like they’re not allowed to have sex before marriage or at a
young age.
This is how sexology is approached, scientifically and from several perspectives.
Relevance of sexology:
- Sex can be important or of influence on someone’s wellbeing.
- We’re exposed to sexual stimuli all the time:
o People quite often think about sex.
o Songs, movies, etc. are often about sex as well. It’s a relevant part of life.
o Sex is even used in advertisement, it attracts our attention.
VB: Sign in front of joe and the juice;
Fuck nudes, send me you’re playlist. They put it there because they say it lures people inside,
it’s a catchy and surprising phrase. Sexual words like fuck, also add an additional layer of
meaning, it showcases relevance or emphasis.
, Why is sex so important to us humans:
1. Offspring/progeny:
- Sex is related to making offspring.
- Sex promotes variation, sexual reproduction in humans takes place between two people.
This causes two sets of DNA to merge and become one in offspring. This results in variation
in the population, which enables species to adapt to the environment. So this is a large
advantage of sexual reproduction.
VB: This is why animals who are able to reproduce on their own (like some sharks), will
choose to do so with a partner when they’re available. Only when there’s no partner
available will they reproduce on their own.
2. Bonding and friendship:
- Sex causes the formation of an emotional bond, these close bonds are important for
emotional wellbeing.
- It’s easier to care for offspring with someone else, than alone. So sex provides a close bond
which promotes working together in raising offspring.
3. Pleasure:
- People have sex, deliberately trying not to get offspring. Which indicates that pleasure may
even be a more important factor of sex than the offspring it can result in.
VB: People use contraception, abortion.
VB: Masturbation is also very common, which is pleasurable but will never lead to offspring.
4. Money:
- Because there’s pleasure in sex, it can also be used to make money of it. People pay for sex,
or for things related to sexual behavior. This creates a business in sex.
VB: 40 million sex workers world wide. 80% is female. 80-90% is 13-25 years of age because
young bodies/young people are often found more attractive.
5. Other:
- Physical exercise.
VB: Partnered sex is at least as healthy as a long walk.
- Self-esteem.
- Good against boredom.
Incentive motivation model:
- This model is a motivational model, it can be used to explain motivation in humans. This motivation
can be sexual but also non-sexual; like hunger or thirst.
- Sexual motivation= the intensity of approach behavior to a sexual partner (or themselves).
The approach behavior part of this definition is important, because it enables researchers to
observe this behavior in other species as well. Animals are easier to research because you can
exert more control over certain variables and situations.
- This model describes the steps that people go through, from being in a non-sexual state towards a
state in which sex takes place. It also describes feedback of stages.
- The model states that there are stimuli in this world that can evoke a sexual response in us (=sexual
incentive stimuli). This happens because people can have representations related to those stimuli,
because of these representations the stimuli can signify sexual reward. It gives the stimuli a sexual
significance. This then increases the sexual motivation.
o Sexual incentive stimulus= any stimulus activating the sexual central motive state, a genital
response and eventually sexual approach behavior in the receiving organism. These are
often stimuli related to other people or consist of our fantasies.
o Alliesthesia= a stimulus is perceived as pleasant or unpleasant depending on an individual’s
internal state.
HC 1: Introduction into sexology
Exam: 20 MC questions that make up 60% of the grade, and 5 open questions that make up 40% of the
grade.
No questions about:
- Numbers
- Tables and figures
In this course certain phenomena or characteristics are discussed. The topics that are discussed are the ones
that are most common. If you yourself do not identify with these topics, it does not mean that what you
experience is abnormal. There’s a natural difference between people, where most people have a certain
experience or criteria, and other people don’t. But this is all still normal, and it is dynamic. The experience
you have now, may not be the same in ten years.
VB: Sexual motivation;
High or low sexual motivation is not necessarily wrong or abnormal. It’s problematic if you’re not happy with
it.
It can also be problematic when one partner does not match with another partner in regards to a certain
sexual characteristic; both partners are still completely normal (not broken), but because of the mismatch
it may cause problems in the relationship.
Sex used to be really important for determining the taxonomy of species. Species were considered the same
if they could have sex and that would lead to offspring that would also be able to reproduce.
VB: Bonobos and chimpanzees are not able to have offspring together. They are not considered the same
species. But they also have a very different sex language; they would not recognize sexual signals in each
other that signify they are interested in sex. Which is why they probably would not have sex in the first place.
Taxonomy of species can be clearly defined, but whether or not someone is having sex can not be as clearly
defined.
VB: Kissing monkeys;
Maybe they’re having sex or close to having sex, or maybe they’re having a dental check up, or maybe they
are passing each other food because their hands were dirty.
Sex is so hard to define because it exists because of social agreement. Sex is a social construct, this means
there is room for interpretation and there are no true (or only few) boundaries to the construct.
VB: Bill Clinton did not feel like oral sex with his secretary was a sexual act, in his view only penetrative sex is
considered a sexual act.
,Like a color spectrum, there is not a clear boundary between what is sex and what is different behavior.
There is a grey area.
VB: When someone touches your feet, this may not be sexual at all to you. It may lean to the “non sexual”
part of the spectrum. But for some, they relate feet very strongly to sex. This is actually logical because the
homunculus on the sensorimotor cortex connects feet to the genitalia. But this differs between people. How
strongly you may associate this with sex may also depend on who is touching you.
The WHO defines sex as “the sex act”, they view it as sexual intercourse where there’s penile vaginal
penetration. This does not take into account the grey area of sex.
Definition of sex in this course:
Sex= behavior or any action that produces sexual arousal and increases the chance of an orgasm or any type
of (sexual) reward.
This is a very broad definition of sex, but this captures al the grey areas of sexual behavior and sexuality.
What do most people consider sexual behavior:
- Deep kissing: only a small minority thinks this is sexual behavior.
- Stimulation of the nipples: more people think this is sexual behavior, but this is still a small minority.
- Oral stimulation with orgasm: this is 50/50.
- Penile-vaginal intercourse with orgasm: almost everyone thinks this is sexual behavior.
- Penile-anal intercourse with orgasm: almost everyone thinks this is sexual behavior.
When talking about sex in this course, we talk about:
- Sexual behavior
- The actions related to sex
- Sexual intercourse
Biological sex= taxonomy used to describe someone’s genotype (XX, XY, XXY, etc.).
Gender= the roles of any gender that are constructed in society.
Like cis- (=agreement between biological sex and the gender someone identifies with) or trans-
(=biological sex an the gender someone identifies with is different).
,Some numbers:
- 1 in 10 people identifies themselves as being asexual.
- Personal importance of sex:
o 10-12% of people don’t feel like sex is important to them
o The majority will feel like sex is at least somewhat important to them, this comes with
standard deviation. Some will feel like sex is really, really important to them, and others will
find it slightly important, etc.
But for most people it’s not the most important part of their lives.
o A small minority will not know whether sex is important to them or not.
- People with a penis think about sex around 20-30 times a day, people with a vagina think about 10-
15 times a day.
Sexology= the scientific study of human sexuality, including sexual identity, interests, development,
behaviors and functions. This is studied from a bio-psychosocial perspective.
Bio-psycho-social perspective in sexology:
There’s an association between age of first coitus, testosterone levels and religion. When testosterone levels
are higher, the age of first coitus is younger. This interacts with religion; when someone does not go to
church the effect of testosterone is larger than when someone goes to church. So religious people with a
high testosterone level will have first coitus on a later age than non-religious people with high testosterone.
But the age of first coitus was self reported, it is possible that people who go to church are more likely to
give a social desirable answer because they feel like they’re not allowed to have sex before marriage or at a
young age.
This is how sexology is approached, scientifically and from several perspectives.
Relevance of sexology:
- Sex can be important or of influence on someone’s wellbeing.
- We’re exposed to sexual stimuli all the time:
o People quite often think about sex.
o Songs, movies, etc. are often about sex as well. It’s a relevant part of life.
o Sex is even used in advertisement, it attracts our attention.
VB: Sign in front of joe and the juice;
Fuck nudes, send me you’re playlist. They put it there because they say it lures people inside,
it’s a catchy and surprising phrase. Sexual words like fuck, also add an additional layer of
meaning, it showcases relevance or emphasis.
, Why is sex so important to us humans:
1. Offspring/progeny:
- Sex is related to making offspring.
- Sex promotes variation, sexual reproduction in humans takes place between two people.
This causes two sets of DNA to merge and become one in offspring. This results in variation
in the population, which enables species to adapt to the environment. So this is a large
advantage of sexual reproduction.
VB: This is why animals who are able to reproduce on their own (like some sharks), will
choose to do so with a partner when they’re available. Only when there’s no partner
available will they reproduce on their own.
2. Bonding and friendship:
- Sex causes the formation of an emotional bond, these close bonds are important for
emotional wellbeing.
- It’s easier to care for offspring with someone else, than alone. So sex provides a close bond
which promotes working together in raising offspring.
3. Pleasure:
- People have sex, deliberately trying not to get offspring. Which indicates that pleasure may
even be a more important factor of sex than the offspring it can result in.
VB: People use contraception, abortion.
VB: Masturbation is also very common, which is pleasurable but will never lead to offspring.
4. Money:
- Because there’s pleasure in sex, it can also be used to make money of it. People pay for sex,
or for things related to sexual behavior. This creates a business in sex.
VB: 40 million sex workers world wide. 80% is female. 80-90% is 13-25 years of age because
young bodies/young people are often found more attractive.
5. Other:
- Physical exercise.
VB: Partnered sex is at least as healthy as a long walk.
- Self-esteem.
- Good against boredom.
Incentive motivation model:
- This model is a motivational model, it can be used to explain motivation in humans. This motivation
can be sexual but also non-sexual; like hunger or thirst.
- Sexual motivation= the intensity of approach behavior to a sexual partner (or themselves).
The approach behavior part of this definition is important, because it enables researchers to
observe this behavior in other species as well. Animals are easier to research because you can
exert more control over certain variables and situations.
- This model describes the steps that people go through, from being in a non-sexual state towards a
state in which sex takes place. It also describes feedback of stages.
- The model states that there are stimuli in this world that can evoke a sexual response in us (=sexual
incentive stimuli). This happens because people can have representations related to those stimuli,
because of these representations the stimuli can signify sexual reward. It gives the stimuli a sexual
significance. This then increases the sexual motivation.
o Sexual incentive stimulus= any stimulus activating the sexual central motive state, a genital
response and eventually sexual approach behavior in the receiving organism. These are
often stimuli related to other people or consist of our fantasies.
o Alliesthesia= a stimulus is perceived as pleasant or unpleasant depending on an individual’s
internal state.
