Sex and politics: Where the candidates stand
Earlier this semester, Dr. Gravlee distinguished between fact and value and clarified that our job as social scientists is to examine the range of variation in human sexuality across time and space. It is up to you to incorporate knowledge about human sexuality into your own value system.
The upcoming presidential election is an opportunity for you to put this principle into practice. For most of you, it will be the very first opportunity to vote in a presidential election. Don’t miss the opportunity. To vote in Florida, you must be registered by next Monday, October 6. Register, read up on the issues, and get to the polls to vote.
This year, as in other recent elections, the candidates are divided on issues related to human sexuality. Here’s a breakdown of where the presidential and vice-presidential candidates stand on abortion, sexuality education, and civil rights related to gender and sexual orientation. Read more
Teenage pregnancy and sex ed
With the news that the 17-year old daughter of Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, is five months pregnant, there has been a surge of media attention on teen pregnancy and sex education in the US. But the discussion has been going on for some time. Here’s what NPR had to say in 2004 about a study that had just been published:
The debate over whether to have sex education in American schools is over. A new poll by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government finds that only 7 percent of Americans say sex education should not be taught in schools… Nearly three-quarters of the principals (74 percent) say there have been no recent discussions or debate in PTA, school board or other public meetings about what to teach in sex ed. Likewise, few principals report being contacted by elected officials, religious leaders or other people in their communities about sex education.
Although there may broad agreement that sex ed should be taught, there remains plenty of debate over how to teach it. Palin, for instance, is a proponent of abstinence-only education. She does not support teaching children about safe sexual practices, including the use of condoms. Others believe that children should be provided all the tools necessary to make the most informed decision possible.
The message provided to teenagers is important. According to some estimates, each year approximately 750,000 teens get pregnant. That’s one-third of all teen girls. Teen pregnancy obviously has a major impact on the lives of people directly affected, but it also has broader implications for society. For example, by one estimate, more than two-thirds of teen parents do no complete high school, costing the US economy some $7 billion annually.
- What do you think should be taught in high school sex ed classes?
- Did you have sex ed in school? What was the message?
- Did your sex ed class influence your decisions?
- Should the focus be less on what is taught in school and instead be placed elsewhere, like encouraging sex education in the home?
Sexuality news roundup
If you have any doubt about the relevance of this class to the real world, just pick up a newspaper. Sexuality has been all over the news lately. The “Mommy Wars” inspired by Sarah Palin’s VP nomination, which we discussed in class, is just one example. Other stories appear faster than we can keep up with them on the blog, so here’s a roundup of some recent news about sex around the world.
- Sex, drugs, and oil. This morning news broke about a scandal involving drug use and sexual relations between people in the oil industry and federal officials who oversee that industry.
- Mate choice and the Pill. The film we watched earlier this week discussed research on the role of smell in mate choice. That research indicates that we can literally sniff out mates whose immune function complements our own. A recent report suggests that oral contraceptives interfere with that ability.
- Why men cheat. Again, picking up on themes from this week’s film, researchers recently reported that they had identified a genetic variant that appears to influence the likelihood that men will remain faithful to a partner.
- Baby smells and parenting. With still more news related to this week’s film, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that male marmoset monkeys experienced lower testosterone levels after catching a whiff of their offspring. Researchers speculate about whether the changes in hormone levels affects parenting behavior.
- Sexy symmetry. Yesterday I asked you to comment on how Brad Pitt embodies masculine ideals. Several of you remarked on his six pack, broad shoulders, and angular jaw, but none of you referred to how symmetrical he is. New research by evolutionary psychologists in the UK shows that more symmetrical people are rated as more attractive, on average, by people of the opposite sex.
- HIV in NYC. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City recently reported that the rate of new HIV cases in the city is three times the national average.
- Crackdown on sex workers in Nigeria. The BBC reported that Islamic authorities in the Nigerian city of Bauchi began rounding up sex workers who had been identified by a Red Cross census that was designed to help stop the spread of HIV.
- Nigeria arranging “HIV marriages.” Also in Bauchi, the BBC reports that Nigerian officials had begun arranging marriages between HIV-positive couples as a way of containing the virus.
- Natural immunity to HIV. A team of Canadian and Kenyan researchers identified a set of proteins that appeared to provide natural immunity to HIV infection in a sample of 3,000 Kenyan sex workers.
- Abstinence-only education. Sarah Palin’s nomination also cast new attention on questions about abstinence-only education. But even before Palin burst onto the scene, there were recent reports about growing evidence that the policy is ineffective.
- Thai sex trade. Prospect magazine published an exposé on the Thai sex trade, drawing attention to how poverty and power inequalities drive vulnerability to sex work.
- Transsexual professor. A professor at Yeshiva University stirred controversy by returning to campus after becoming a woman.
- Gender gap in wages. The persistent pay gap between men and women became a campaign issue after the Democratic National Convention.
- Growing gender gaps? The New York Times ran a controversial story citing the work of evolutionary psychologists who argue that increased gender equity in social and economic conditions exposes allegedly natural personality differences between the sexes.
- Russian judge allows sexual harassment. A female executive fell short of becoming only the third Russian woman to win a claim of sexual harassment against a male employer. Why? The judge said it was OK, according to news outlets. “If we had no sexual harassment,” the judge ruled, “we would have no children.”
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Leave a comment to share your reactions to any of these stories—or to let us know about one we missed.
Gender, work, and the White House
At the end of class yesterday, I played a clip from a recent NPR story the debate over gender roles and work-life balance, sparked by the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President. The New York Times also recently published a story on how Palin’s nomination reignited what they dubbed the “Mommy Wars.”
Regardless of your political views, the spotlight on Gov. Palin raises many important questions about gender. Listen to the story again and leave a comment to share your thoughts.
Who hyped Gardisil?
One of the goals of this course is to help you think critically about how you know what you think you know about human sexuality. Among other things, this goal means learning to think critically about how the media covers news related to sexuality. That issue is the focus of a recent post on the New York Times Well blog, in which Tara Parker-Pope considers the media’s role in hyping Gardasil as “the only cervical cancer vaccine.”
Parker-Pope points out that, lately, the media has questioned Gardasil’s efficacy and the way it was marketed. But a new report from a branch of the conservative Media Research Center suggests that media observers weren’t always so critical. On the contrary, the report argues that the news media, not just the drug’s manufacturer, helped to stir the hype over Gardasil.
Read the full report and leave a comment to share your thoughts. What role and responsibilities do the media and pharmaceutical industry have in disseminating information about sexuality?
David Duchovney in rehab for sex addiction
In Friday’s class we viewed clips from the popular TV show “Californication.” But also yesterday, in a real-life twist, the show’s star, Duchovney, checked into rehab for sex addiction. The Reuters news story likens sex addiction to alcoholism:
Duchovny’s announcement on Thursday that he was voluntarily going into rehab for sex addiction after years of denying he had a problem, threw a spotlight on a disorder that few celebrities, and even fewer ordinary men and women, admit to.
Often likened to alcoholism, drug addiction or gambling, sex addiction is a form of compulsive behavior which is sending growing numbers of people into therapy but which is not formally recognized as a “diagnosable disorder” by the American Psychiatric Association. “The concept of sexual addiction is a controversial one and that’s because it is difficult to define,” said Dr. Steve Eichel, an addiction specialist who works in Delaware. “There are a lot of people who are critical of the concept because we live in a society that tends to over medicalize and which makes every behavior, which deviates from the norm, an addiction or a disorder,” Eichel said. Sexual health experts estimate that about 3-5 percent of Americans have the disorder, including women.
The full report from Reuters raises several important issues we will cover later in the semester. What are your initial thoughts about sex addiction? Do you consider it a serious disorder similar to alcoholism or gambling addiction? When does enjoyment become addiction? And what do you think the expert quoted in the story meant by the suggestion that our society tends to treat deviations from the norm as medical disorders?
Yale art student stirs abortion controversy
Aliza Shvarts, a senior art major at Yale, provoked strong reactions last week after the Yale Daily News broke this story:
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock — saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.
There seems to be some confusion about the facts. In a statement issued on Friday, Yale spokesperson Helaine Klasky said that Ms. Shvarts had twice assured university officials that she had not impregnanted herself or induced miscarriages. But the same day, Shvarts began an op-ed in the Yale Daily News with this sentence: “For the past year, I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages.”
Although some scholars defend the project on grounds of intellectual freedom, most people across the political spectrum—in academia and in the broader public sphere—have condemned the project. In particular, Yale officials have distanced themselves from Ms. Shvarts’s project. The Dean of the Yale School of Art, Robert Storr, said, “If I had known about this, I would not have permitted it to go forward.” Peter Salovey, Dean of Yale College, went further: “I am appalled. This piece of performance art as reported in the press bears no relation to what I consider appropriate for an undergraduate senior project. The Dean of the School of Art and I are reassessing what constitutes an appropriate senior art project and the manner in which those projects are mentored.” Indeed, this morning the Yale Daily News reports that Yale has disciplined two faculty members for exercising poor judgment in mentoring the student.
In my view, Ms. Shvarts’s claim that she impregnated herself artificially and induced miscarriages with abortifacient drugs is morally reprehensible—and an abuse of intellectual freedom. The high value that universities place on intellectual freedom does not mean that anything goes. Students and faculty still must exercise that freedom responsibly.
What’s your take?
Update: Yale administrators have indicated in a statement that Ms. Shvarts will not be allowed to exhibit her work unless she admits that it is a work of fiction—specifically, “that she did not try to inseminate herself and induce miscarriages, and that no human blood will be physically displayed in her installation.”
Thinking about sexuality? “Me too.”
In today’s news, the Chronicle of Higher Education writes about a confessional web site started by students at Duke University to dispell the myth of “effortless perfection” at that institution. The blog, “Me Too,” allows students to express their concerns and to hear from other students who may have similar experiences.
Perhaps it’s no surprise—but it’s striking all the same—that a lot of posts relate to sexuality. When I checked this afternoon, more than half of the most recent comments dealt with relationships (1, 2, 3), body image (1, 2), sexual orientation (1, 2, 3, 4), or sexual violence.
Students at any college or university can contribute to the blog, and readers can comment on any existing post. “But,” according to the Chronicle, “the only response allowed is ‘Me too.’”
Texting for sex(info)
Last week we discussed the state of sexuality education in the U.S. and elsewhere, and we examined some of the evidence that more pragmatic approaches to sex ed are associated with lower rates of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted infections. We also saw that most Americans think young teens should have access to reliable information about all aspects of sexuality.
In a related development, last month’s American Journal of Public Health included a brief report about SEXINFO, a sexual health text messaging service developed by Internet Sexuality Information Services, Inc., in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
The service was developed as a response to rising gonorrhea rates among African American youth in San Francisco. In developing the service, ISIS and the health department sought input from young people ages 15-19 to ensure that it was relevant to the groups they were trying to reach. So far, SEXINFO has exceeded expectations. According to the report in AJPH, there were more than 4,500 inquiries in the first 25 weeks of the service. More than half of those inquiries led to follow-up information and referrals. The top three inquiries, according to the developers, were (1) “what 2 do if ur condom broke,” (2) “2 find out about STDs,” and (3) “if u think ur pregnant.”
The service is currently available only in the San Francisco area, but it wouldn’t be difficult to replicate elsewhere in the U.S. How valuable do you think it would be to have access to such a service where you live? Do you think young people would use it? Why or why not?
“Polyamory” and the Internet
Last week we learned that polygamy, or plural marriage, exists in many societies around the world. This week we discussed how changes in technology alter the experience and expression of sexuality. Those two themes come together in a recent commentary from Wired, which suggests that polyamorous relationships are on the rise in America, in part due to social networking outlets on the Internet that offer new ways of interacting with similarly minded people. From the Wired piece:
While having multiple committed partners is not a new concept, many polyamorists have told me they felt lost, guilty, alone or freakish until they came across the word polyamory on the internet and for the first time had a context for the way they felt about love.
“You can argue that before the internet, the poly community didn’t exist,” says Franklin Veaux, author of What, Like, Two Girlfriends?, a respected polyamory FAQ. “There’s no question that the rise of the internet and the rise of polyamory coincided, although poly does predate the net by 6,000 years or so.”
Polyamory may not be a new practice, but the concept is probably new to most Americans, and relatively few research papers have been published on the subject. What do you see as the benefits and difficulties of a polyamorous lifestyle? If you could have two partners consent to such an arrangement, would you be interested? What moral or ethical issues does polyamory raise for you?
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This is the website for ANT 2301, Human Sexuality and Culture, at the University of Florida, Fall 2008. The professor is Dr. Clarence (Lance) Gravlee. Meet the TAs on our instructors page.
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