I. Large variation across time and culture
Examples:
- Courtship
- Pain
- Masturbation
- Premarital sex
- Homosexuality
II. Historical Influences on Western culture
1. Hebrew - agrarian society
- sex seen in religious terms
- sex has social consequences
- sex linked to national loyalty
- patriarchal - male-dominance
- women as property/unclean
- nonreproductive sex taboo
Ý
2. Christian - also agrarian/patriarchal
- anti-sex
- anti-body
- sex = procreation
- women as property
- women are carnal, less than men
- Victorian era - culmination
3. Asian Cultures
4. Recent
- Human Potential Movement - 70s
- industrialization - cities, cars
- technological - birth control pill
- longer lifespan
III. Three Contemporary Cultures Compared
A. Inis Beag - sexually repressed
B. Mangaia - sexually open
C. Mehinaku - sexually active AND anxious
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A. "Inis Beag" - Irish community
1. Characteristics of community
2. Sexual Practices - Examples
Do NOT practice/ speak of:
- tongue kissing
- male mouth on female breast
- female hand on penis
- cunnilingus (oral sex on woman)
- fellatio (oral sex on man)
- anal coitus
- extramarital coitus
- postmarital coitus
- homosexuality
- sexual contact with animals
- fetishism
- sadomasochistic behavior
3. Beliefs
- Women's Cycles
- Male Sex Drive
- Female Orgasm
- Nudity
4. Source of Attitudes - Examples
III. B. Mangaia - Polynesian South Pacific
1. Sexual behavior
- many words - very open
- male practices, roles
- courtship - "night crawling"
- double standard
-female roles
- pleasure/female orgasm
- disability not a barrier to sex
C. Mehinaku - Amazon
1. Very eroticized
- extramarital sex ok
- males - high sex drive
- fantasies, myths - death & sex
2. Male dominated
- gender segregated areas - rape
- menstruation dangerous
- no female orgasm
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3. Current U.S. culture is most like?
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