Friday 4 November 2011

Sin



                I            INTRODUCTION   Vaginismus, involuntary spasm of the muscles in the vaginal wall. This occurs when attempts are made to introduce an object into the vagina, for example, during sexual intercourse, insertion of a tampon, or when a doctor or nurse attempts to perform an internal examination.
                II        CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS
Vaginismus affects about 1 in 500 women in western Europe between the ages of 15 and 64. In some cases it is an emotional condition that can have profound effects on a woman’s relationships as it renders penetrative intercourse very difficult or impossible. Although the term is sometimes used more loosely, vaginismus is a complete muscle spasm that is beyond the woman’s control and not simply the tensing of the vaginal muscles that may occur as a result of fear or inexperience. It may also be caused by vaginal injury, or as a result of dryness (such as that occurring after the menopause), of following inflammation of the vagina or bladder (cystitis).

Vaginismus may occur as a primary or secondary condition, that is, one of a number of symptoms of a given disease. Primary vaginismus is the description given to the condition in women who have never been able to tolerate penetration. Secondary vaginismus is when a woman has previously had normal sexual relationships, including penetrative intercourse, but is now no longer able to tolerate this. Vaginismus may make pregnancy impossible, although it is occasionally possible for a woman to become pregnant without penetration if the sperm are released around the entrance to her vagina. Many women receiving treatment for infertility may be embarrassed to admit to their doctor that the true cause of their inability to conceive is due to vaginismus.
                III    TREATMENT
There are various treatments for some kinds of vaginismus. Some doctors will perform surgery on the vaginal wall or mechanically stretch the vagina while the woman is under an anaesthetic. Vaginal dryness may be alleviated by hormone replacement therapy. Women who suffer from psychologically based vaginismus are less likely to benefit from these treatments, and most prefer to try some form of therapy or counselling which may help them to come to terms with their sexuality, or cope with other problems and traumas, such as rape.

There are many different types of therapy available. It may be on a one-to-one basis with a therapist or a nurse, or partners may choose to attend a group therapy session together. Some counsellors work alone, others in pairs; some run parallel groups for women and their partners. Behavioural therapy may involve teaching women to insert objects into their vaginas; other therapists prefer to treat only the emotional and not the physical symptoms. Some women find that homoeopathy or relaxation therapy is useful.

Contributed By:
Claire Elizabeth Lewis
[1]


Bisexuality
                I            INTRODUCTION   Bisexuality, sexual attraction to both sexes.

Bisexual people are able to fantasize about and enjoy both homosexual and heterosexual acts of lovemaking, although some bisexual people prefer one gender of partner more than the other. Bisexuality should not be confused with transvestitism, which is wearing the clothes and adopting the appearance of a person of the opposite sex, or with transsexualism, which is identification with the gender role of the person’s opposite sex. However, it is not true to say that transsexuals or transvestites may not be bisexual. Bisexual people generally are content with the gender they were born to; as may have been believed, they do not possess both sets of sexual organs, as does a hermaphrodite.
                II        BACKGROUND
Historically, bisexuality was condoned and approved of in ancient Greece, specifically with regard to relationships occurring particularly between older, often married, men and youths as a form of friendship or as an initiatory and teaching relationship. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, Greek heroes are sexually active with partners of both genders. Among some Polynesian societies this is still the case.

Research and anecdotal evidence suggests that bisexuality is far more prevalent than exclusive homosexuality, and that it is a sexual identity shared by millions of people worldwide. In the 1940s, in a major social research programme, Alfred Charles Kinsey examined patterns of sexual behaviour and found that 37 per cent of men in the United States had experienced homosexual orgasms; some 25 per cent of men had had incidental homosexual encounters (13 per cent for women). However, as only 5 to 10 per cent of men considered themselves homosexual, it is clear that same-gender sex is neither unusual nor exclusive to homosexuals. Kinsey found that some people had no preference as to their partner’s gender; in others, sexual identity had not become fixed, or they had a sexual identity that included both.
                III    THEORIES OF BISEXUALITY  It has been suggested that human sexual orientation exists along a continuum. This has been an existing theory since scientific examination of sexuality began in the 19th century. Sigmund Freud suggested that sexual life included the child’s capacity to gain pleasure from many different body zones. He described infants and children as “polymorphously perverse”—that they could gain sexual pleasure from almost anything. Carl Jung linked bisexuality to the presence in the unconscious of a person’s opposite gender. This he called the “anima” (the woman in the man), and “animus” (the man in the woman), which he said exist as “potentials”.
Despite the widespread inclination of men and women to reproduce, there is no hard evidence that humans have an inborn instinct towards gender-specific sexual behaviour—that is, being attracted to one gender only throughout life. If this were not so, attachment to parents of the same gender would be difficult, as would close intimacy with same-gender siblings or friends. Adolescents often develop strong attractions (“crushes”) for same-gender friends as part of normal sexual maturation. Hence, in psychoanalytical theories, bisexuality is a normal part of childhood experience. Its presence in adulthood may be non-differentiation from this state, or the fulfilment of more than one potential.

Problems arise for bisexual people as most societies have particular taboos that make multiple or varied sexual choices difficult. This can lead to bisexual people feeling that they have to make a forced choice to enter into either exclusive heterosexual or homosexual relationships, which therefore possibly causes emotional distress to them and their partners. Guilt can arise from the difference between who they really are and how they want to live, and who they believe society expects them to be.

Contributed By:
Dale Mathers
[1]


Homosexuality
                I            INTRODUCTION   Homosexuality, sexual attraction to, and physical and emotional involvement with, someone of the same gender: male with male, female with female. As first used, the term referred to women as well as men, though more recently terms such as “gay” or “lesbian”, with a variety of national variations, have been increasingly used to describe specific identities organized around homosexual desires.
Homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is found in all cultures at all periods of history. However, it has been subject to thousands of years of prejudice, discrimination, and oppression, enshrined in religious and legal prohibitions and popular fear, and has often been met with violent opposition. Yet, there are many cultures that have managed to integrate some aspects of homosexuality into acceptable and recognized social forms, and, since the 1960s, in most Western countries at least, male and female homosexuals have become vocal advocates of their own cause.
The term “homosexuality” was not invented until the 1860s, and its emergence reflected a growing awareness of the existence of diverse sexual patterns. The term was intended to be a more neutral alternative to the traditional language of sin, degeneracy, and perversion that had dominated thinking about same-sex activities in the West, and which had their roots in biblical prohibitions. However, the word soon became part of the new language of sexology (the scientific study of sexual behaviour); for many, homosexuality moved from being a sin to being a sickness.
                II        THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES
The definition of homosexuality as a medical or psychological condition led to a preoccupation with the “causes” of homosexuality. The fact that few people have undertaken enquiry into the causes of heterosexuality indicates the dominance of the view that homosexuality was an abnormality that needed to be explained, while heterosexuality, which leads to procreation, was, and still is, seen as the unquestioned norm of human sexuality. However, after a century of debate and scientific enquiry, the question of causation remains as inconclusive as ever.
The biological theory argues that homosexuality is an inbuilt, and probably hereditary, condition that affects some people and not others. Negatively, it can be seen as a pathological distortion of the natural sexual drive, caused perhaps by imbalances of hormones or chromosomal (genetic) accidents, or more recently, in a surprising rebirth of biological explanations—the result of a “gay gene“ or a “gay brain“,  as suggested by the American scientists Dean Hamer and Simon LeVay. Such explanations have led in turn to more positive views of homosexuality. If homosexuality has a biological explanation, and is a specific sexual orientation, might it not be as “natural” as heterosexuality? Many homosexual activists have in fact argued this since the 19th century. However attractive such explanations are to homosexual activists, they—like the negative views—have the misfortune of being completely unproven, and one suspects, unprovable.
The second approach has concentrated on understanding the psychological reasons for homosexuality. The most famous thinker associated with such explanations is Sigmund Freud, who, building on earlier sexological explanations, attempted to understand what he called “sexual inversion” in terms of the universal bisexuality of human beings rather than in terms of the biological make-up of a distinct group of people. Accordng to Freud, homosexuality resulted from the specific patterns of interaction with parents and the complex and universal processes through which the naturally bisexual infant became an adult. Homosexuality, then, like heterosexuality, in fact resulted from an inhibition of the sexual drive. As a working hypothesis this has been enormously influential, though in subsequent debates it has also led to enormous confusions. Does a child become homosexual because of a weak father and strong mother, or because of an over-dominant father and a weak mother? Both explanations have been frequently offered, and equally often fail to match the biographical facts of individual  homosexuals.
                III    CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN ATTITUDES
One further problem is what is claimed as a universal process can be refuted by the sheer variety of patterns of sexuality on a world scale. Recent approaches have tended to try to understand  homosexuality in social and historical terms, concentrating less on what causes homosexuality and more on what shapes attitudes towards it. Different cultures respond to homosexuality in different ways, and this in turn helps to determine whether it is possible to live a homosexual life or develop a distinctive homosexual identity.
On a world scale there seems to have been two social patterns that allowed a certain acceptance of some aspects of (usually male) homosexuality. The first, which can be seen historically in cultures as far apart as East Asia, Melanesia, the Islamic world, and the ancient Mediterranean, more or less tolerated homosexual behaviour as long as it was between an adult male and a youth, usually as part of the processes by which the young male was accepted as a full man. It did not normally affect traditional family life. The second great pattern, embracing cultures from the Philippines to Madagascar, and some tribal societies in Africa and North America, accepted some forms of same-sex behaviour as long as the homosexually inclined man “became” or lived as a woman, or the woman became or lived as a man.
There have been various attempts to assess the percentage of the population that is predominantly or exclusively  homosexual. The work of Alfred Kinsey in the late 1940s has been used to suggest that this was as many as 10 per cent, although more recent research has tended to suggest a much lower figure—perhaps 1 to 2 per cent in Britain, France, and the United States. However, the worldwide evidence suggests that this is a misleading way of posing the issue or assessing incidence; while Western-style identities have begun to spread throughout the world, they are by no means the dominant or only ways of living homosexuality. In many parts of the world, ranging from Turkey to large parts of East Asia, Africa, and South America, homosexuality remains a taboo. Even in Western countries, prejudice remains, and legal systems are often discriminatory.
                IV     RECENT SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS
Neither the Mediterranean nor the tribal cultural pattern allowed the emergence of what has become the dominant Western pattern in the 20th century: the idea that homosexuality could form the basis for a separate sexual and social identity and way of life. This idea probably first emerged in the new urban cultures that developed from the early modern period. Cities allowed groups of people who felt differently to come together in relative anonymity, and develop alternative lifestyles. At first, these subcultures, usually of what were seen as effeminate men, and to a smaller extent masculine women, were secretive and subject to strong persecution. During the 20th century, however, they gave rise to ever more complex social networks, and to a strong sense of community among self-identified homosexuals, who were beginning to resist the hostile labelling of them as sick or inadequate.
This was the basis for the gay liberation movement which emerged powerfully in the United States in 1969, symbolically originating in the New York Stonewall Riots in June of that year, and soon rapidly becoming influential throughout North America, Australia, and Western Europe. This movement has been very influential, even for the many who never took part. It asserted the equal validity of homosexuality with heterosexuality; it rejected medicalizing terms, and popularized new self-descriptions, such as “gay”; it emphasized the importance of “coming out”—becoming identified—as a lesbian or a gay man; and, above all, it affirmed the importance of pride in being lesbian and gay.
                V         THE EFFECTS OF AIDS AND BEYOND
The strength of these new identities, and the communities that were built around them, was demonstrated in the early 1980s with the sudden emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. First emerging in American cities, where the gay communities were strongest and most visible, it disproportionately affected gay men, and fed a growing moral backlash against the gains of the gay movement over the previous decade. This had the effect of producing a new solidarity among lesbians and gay men, which in turn provided the means for a concerted campaign to fight the epidemic. It was from within the gay communities themselves that care and support for the sick, the idea of “safer sex”, and large-scale fund-raising emerged. In combating a frightening epidemic, the lesbian and gay community came of age.

The idea that lesbians and gays are a distinct group of people has been challenged radically by “queer activists” who argue that sexuality is a matter of choice, and that the divide between homosexuality and heterosexuality is a social and historical one, rather than one based in any fundamental, essential, or biological reality. This has returned the focus of the debate to causation. It is possible that some people develop predominantly homosexual desires as a result of a variety of genetic, psychological, or social factors; this is still not known. In the end, however, causation is not the important question. What ultimately matters is whether homosexuality offers the possibility for viable life choices, and a fulfilling way of living. The evidence of recent years is clearly that it can, though resistance to this evidence is still very strong.

Contributed By:
Jeffrey Weeks
[1]


Sexism
                I            INTRODUCTION   Sexism, set of attitudes and behaviours towards people that judge or belittle them on the basis of their gender, or that perpetuate stereotypical assumptions about gender roles. The term is most often used to refer to men's attitudes towards women, although in recent years there has been increasing discussion of sexism by women towards men.
                II        HISTORY
While the term “sexism” dates from the mid-1960s and came into frequent use after the rise of women's liberation movements in 1968-1969, the practice of sexism has a long history. Many of the predominant cultures in the world today were founded on a patriarchal system (rule by fathers). The religions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Confucianism—which together cover much of Europe, the Americas, North Africa, the Middle East, India, and China—have all produced patriarchal cultures. Traditionally, rights to property and nationality passed through the male line, with the result that women's legal status was generally inferior to that of men: until the 20th century, women had no voting rights, limited rights to property, and were, in most respects, subject entirely to their fathers or husbands.
Although British feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft made a powerful statement for women's rights in the 18th century, little changed until the campaign for women's suffrage in Britain and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 20th century, activists in many parts of the world have achieved a steady improvement in women's legal rights. Change has happened more slowly in Eastern cultures, where practices such as purdah (the confinement of women to the home), female circumcision, the killing of female children, and the husband's privileged right to divorce are still found. Legal reform in some states has sought to improve women's position; India, for example, has made reforms to combat purdah. Feminists in Eastern countries have also appealed to the United Nations to enforce women's rights. In the West, discussion has shifted from legal rights towards attacking prevailing sexist attitudes in society; authors Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir were among the earlier exponents. The women's and gay liberation movements which emerged particularly in Britain and the United States in the late 1960s also succeeded in raising public consciousness about sexism.
More recently, the issue of sexism against men has come into public debate, in the writings of David Thomas, Neil Lyndon, and Warren Farrell, among others. An important issue has been men's lack of rights, particularly those relating to child custody. American feminist writers Susan Faludi and Naomi Wolf have described arguments such as these as part of a “backlash” against women by men following the successes of feminism.
                III    SEXIST LANGUAGE
Linguists have pointed out that the English language is inherently sexist because it carries certain assumptions about gender roles. Casey Miller and Kate Swift, authors of several influential guides to non-sexist use of language, have identified a number of core problem areas. These include expressions which imply that all people are male: for example, the use of “he” as a generic pronoun; “man” as a typical person (as in “the man on the street”); or the inclusion of “man” in job titles (for example, “chairman”). Other expressions they believed demean women: the habitual listing of the masculine first, (“men and women”) or the use of the diminutive endings, “-ess” or “-ette” to apply to women's jobs (such as “usherette”). Non-sexist alternatives to many of these terms are often used—”they” instead of the generic “he” (gramatically incorrect), “person” instead of “man”, and neutral job titles such as “chair”. Many organizations, particularly universities, have issued guidelines to their members prescribing certain expressions and prohibiting others.
However, the debate about non-sexist language has been subsumed into a wider debate about political correctness, with detrimental results. The doctrine of political correctness, which advocates vigilance for discriminatory practices in language and behaviour, has been criticized (particularly by the media) for inhibiting freedom of speech and ridiculed because some of the terminology it prescribes is considered pedantic and ugly. The result has been that even some advocates of non-sexist language have become disillusioned because it seems increasingly impossible to change attitudes by making changes to language.
                IV     SEXISM AND CULTURE
Cultural media such as television and film may help perpetuate sexism by presenting uncritically stereotypical images of men and women. For example, a television drama might present women only as housewives and mothers and depict men doing exciting work outside the home, thereby implying that men have no involvement in their homes and families and that women have no interest in the outside world. To take another example, an action film might feature women who are physically attractive but who lack believable characterization. Such films have been criticized as demeaning women by presenting them as passive objects for the fantasies of male viewers. However, there are many writers and artists whose work makes a conscious effort to question sexist assumptions and to subvert gender stereotypes. For instance, “alternative” (non-subsidized) theatres have sought to give expression to women's and gay people's experience. In addition, some writers have developed children's stories that avoid narratives which endorse marriage or demean women by casting them as witches and wicked step-mothers. It is argued that it is important to introduce children to non-sexist culture and behaviour from an early age because cultural pressures within and outside the home mean that even very young children have absorbed sexist attitudes which affect the way they perceive themselves and other people.
                V         SEXISM IN THE WORKPLACE
The workplace is the area in which sexism is most commonly found. Sexism is in evidence in unfair recruitment practices, unequal pay, and intimidating behaviour towards colleagues. Although legislation is now in place in many countries that prohibits unfair treatment of staff on the grounds of their sex, such legislation is in practice often difficult to apply. In the United Kingdom, the Equal Pay Act (1970) requires employers to provide equal pay for equal work, and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) makes stipulations on fair recruitment policies. The European Equal Pay Directive (1975) and the Equal Treatment Directive (1976) are also in force and individuals have the right of appeal to the European Court of Justice. Sexual harassment—suggestive or abusive behaviour made towards colleagues which has a sexual motive, or unwelcome sexual advances by colleagues—is not mentioned in sex discrimination legislation, although such legislation has been used in a considerable number of harassment cases. There is a European Code of Practice that advises employers on how to prevent sexual harassment, but employers are not legally bound to comply with it.
It is possible for employers to comply with existing legislation but to continue to make sexist assumptions when appointing or promoting staff. The “glass ceiling effect”—whereby women are able to rise up the career ladder to a certain position but no further—is probably the result of presumptions about women's abilities and lifestyles. In Western societies, there is still a high proportion of white, middle-class men in the senior jobs in most organizations. At the same time, there are more women than men in lower-paid jobs. Women also make up a sizeable percentage of the part-time workforce (often due to family commitments preventing them from working full-time), which can mean that they have no rights to pensions or redundancy pay. In developing countries, women are paid 60-70 per cent of the amount that men receive for similar work, and there are more women than men in seasonal (rather than full-time or permanent) jobs. It has also been argued that sexism prevails in domestic work, too, for most housework worldwide is still undertaken by women.
In an attempt to address covert sexism, many Western organizations have adopted positive discrimination policies which give preferential treatment to women and homosexuals when recruiting staff. However, this practice is controversial, particularly because it results in discrimination against others, and it has been criticized strongly by the media.
                VI     THE FUTURE
Despite the progress made to improve women's rights in many parts of the world, it is clear that equality between women and men has not been achieved in many respects, particularly in the developing world. In recent years, there have been initiatives to tackle sexism on an international level. For example, four United Nations (UN) Women's Conferences have been held, bringing together an international group of delegates to work towards the promotion of women's rights worldwide. The Conference has outlined a number of sexist practices which governments need to take action against, including rape, domestic violence, female circumcision, the killing of female children, unsafe abortions, property laws which discriminate against women, and women's unequal share in education and power. These are complex issues which demand careful treatment and it is likely that they will remain causes for international concern for many years to come.


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