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HIV prevention, gay communities and outreach work
Published in Katie Deverell, Sex, Work and Professionalism, 2013
The relationship between gay men and AIDS is complicated. Several writers have discussed how the development of gay communities in the 1960s and 1970s meant that there was a basis for organised responses to the disease and groups for governments to consult with and recognise (Altman 1988, 1994; Patton 1985). However, it also meant that there were clearly identified targets for scapegoating, as well as routes for the virus to travel along. The association of AIDS with gay men means that for some it has been seen as a disease of choice, self-inflicted by ‘gay lifestyles’ (Watney 1995a). This has meant that at times AIDS has been seen as a gay rather than a public health issue, something that Altman suggests symbolises the marginalisation of gay men from society (1988). These reactions are built on what Patton (1985) has called the trilogy of ‘homophobia, erotophobia and germophobia’, and for some AIDS has provided a new space in which to vent their homophobic feelings. The fact that so many out gay men and lesbians are involved in AIDS organising meant that they were an easy target and AIDS organisations have often been attacked for wasting taxpayers' money on promoting homosexuality.
What is the relevance of sociology for health promotion?
Published in Robin Bunton, Gordon Macdonald, Health Promotion, 2003
Critiques drew attention to the racism, homophobia, and erotophobia (e.g. Watney 1988b) that underpinned national HIV/AIDS health education and promotion strategies. The consequences of this, however, was not simply to increase prejudice but to reduce the effectiveness of these measures. The targeting of ‘high-risk groups’ drew attention away from the fact that it was the behaviour, not the group membership, which carried the risk, thereby engendering complacency amongst those whose sexual behaviour was ‘risky’, but whose group membership identity was not. It also fails to make the information relevant to the lives of the target group.
Older Women and Sexual Health
Published in Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz, Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2019
Camille J. Interligi, Maureen C. McHugh
Older women’s intersecting identities can qualify, compound, and/or exacerbate the cultural narratives and socially-sanctioned oppressions they face related to sexual expression. Older women of color, LGBTQIA2S+ older women, mentally/physically disabled older women, and working class/poor older women—as well as older women who inhabit other marginalized identities—experience further discrimination regarding their sex lives. For example, older adults who live in care homes due to severe illness or disability face multiple layers of assumptions regarding their sexualities. Research demonstrates that care home workers tend to think of and react to their disabled residents as asexual and that learning to understand and appropriately oversee the expression of these individuals’ intimate or sexual needs is experienced by workers as a challenge (Rushbrooke, Murray, & Townsend, 2014). This is related to inherent cultural bias against the perception of disabled persons as sexual beings, as well as larger, systemic oppression of intellectually disabled individuals as evidenced by the facility’s policy (or lack thereof). A survey of 175 long-term care facility medical directors demonstrated that only 13% of care homes provided training for staff regarding how to address sexual behavior in the care home, only 20% of care homes had a policy regarding residents’ ability to consent to sexual activity, and only 23% had any policy on sexual/intimate behavior (Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, 2016). Simpson and colleagues (Simpson et al., 2015, p. 243) presented data from a number of studies that highlight the ways older adults in the UK’s care homes experience “ageist erotophobia” (i.e., discrimination regarding sexuality based on advanced age). They contended that care home policies and procedures perpetuate a view of older adults’ sexuality as limited/nonexistent as a result of physical and mental decline.
No Gender Differences in Enrollment for Replicated, Minimally-Different ‘Pornographic’ Versus ‘Photographic’ Studies
Published in International Journal of Sexual Health, 2022
Melanie MacEacheron, Taylor Kohut, William A. Fisher
In order to broadly estimate how similar or dissimilar this study’s samples were in terms of the three, individual difference measures assessed, it would be helpful to show apparent absence of gross differences between (1) typical scores in each found elsewhere and (2) our participants’ scores. Men’s erotophilia scores in this study were higher than women’s in each execution. This has been previously reported in essentially every study of erotophobia/erotophilia known to the authors. Means on erotophilia of university convenience samples for studies that did not explicitly involve exposure to pornography in recruitment materials (from Canada, the U.S., Israel, Hong Kong, and India: recruited for “sex research” in Canadian and US samples, only), ranged from 59.17 to 78.22 for males and from 47.89 to 71.81 for females. In these studies, moreover, there was a significant difference between each male and (paired) female score (Fisher et al., 1988). In this study, the range of women’s erotophilia mean scores, broken down by execution and study advertisement version (i.e. 62.69–70.33), were within the just-noted female range. All of those of men, however, were higher (i.e. 78.75–87.29) than the upper end of the just-noted male range. It should be noted, however, that it is not necessarily true that sampled men were atypically high in erotophilia. That is so, as this higher, average score among men may reflect, for instance, an average increase in erotophilia in that gender, over the past 30 years.
Homonegativity Scores in Response to Static Same-Sex Imagery versus Observable Behavioral Change in Response to an Interactive Gay Male Target
Published in Journal of Homosexuality, 2021
While care was taken to ensure that the stimuli would not be confounded by sexually explicit depictions, the images selected on the basis of the pilot testing procedure may have been too inexplicit to provoke meaningful differences between groups. Due to the increase in depictions of gay men and lesbian women in popular media mentioned previously, it is possible that behaviors such as hand-holding or a simple kiss among same-sex couples may have become more normalized than they were even 10 years ago. Indeed, the days of discretionary messages warning viewers that a given television program contains “gay-themed content” are behind us (Mc, 2013). If this is the case, more explicit stimuli may be required to achieve the same degree of response that more mild imagery was able to elicit even a few years prior (e.g., Bishop, 2015). However, if more explicit stimuli is required, development of new and effective approaches for the detection and controlling of erotophobia are needed. To further address these concerns, more stringent pilot testing of stimuli using participants from the target population, instead of graduate students, is recommended. The importance of this shift is emphasized in the findings that students pursuing graduate degrees tend to be more liberal than those pursuing undergraduate degrees (Pew Research Centre, 2016). Therefore, the scores from graduate students may not be reflective of the general ideological beliefs of an undergraduate sample.
Teaching sex therapy as a method of transformative learning: a mixed-methods analysis of efficacy
Published in Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 2021
Christopher K. Belous, Lindsay Langbartels, Adrian Weldon
Courses devoted to sex therapy are useful for numerous applications that can benefit both the student therapist and their clients. These courses require students to examine their attitudes towards sex and sexuality, which therefore increase their levels of self-awareness. This increase in self-awareness can lead the student therapist to feel more comfortable in their own sexuality, thereby allowing them to assess, diagnose, and treat sexual dysfunctions and disorders more comfortably (Diambra et al., 2016). Current research has found that human sexuality courses can also lead to decreased homophobia (Finken, 2002; Rogers, Mcree, & Arntz, 2009; Stevenson, 1988; Wright & Cullen, 2001) and decreased prejudice towards the transgender population (McGrath, 2014). In addition to less phobia towards the LGBTQ + population, current research has also found that human sexuality courses have an affect on other attitudes of students, as well as their own behaviors. Erotophobia, the learned “disposition to respond to sexual cues with a negative affect and evaluation” (Fisher, White, Byrne, & Kelley, 1988, p. 124), has been found to reduce in students after taking a human sexuality course, as well as overall levels of sexual conservatism (Wright & Cullen, 2001). In essence, taking human sexuality courses leads students to be more sex-positive, or more open and accepting of individuals’ differences in sexuality and sexual behavior (Williams, Prior, & Wegner, 2013).