День: 09.11.2015

Cervical Barrier Devices

The practice of covering the cervix to provide protection from pregnancy has existed for centuries. In 18th-century Europe, Casanova promoted the idea of using a squeezed — out lemon half to cover the cervix, and European women shaped beeswax to cover the cervix. In 1838 a German gynecologist took wax impressions of each patient’s cervix […]

HOW GOOD ARE THE DATA?

It is often easier in social enquiries to pose concerns and ask questions than to answer them. To what extent can the data available be taken as telling us definitively and with surety about the relationship between children’s experience of family life and family change and their well-being and achievement in childhood and adulthood and […]

Physiology

Two articles in the early 1990s reported differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men (S. LeVay, 1991; Swaab & Hofman, 1990). Both studies found that certain areas of the hypothalamus, known to play a strong role in sexual urges, were either larger or smaller in homosexual men than in heterosexual men. Even though […]

How to Use Vaginal Spermicides

Spermicides are less effective in preventing pregnancy than are most other methods, so they need to be used with condoms. Complete instructions for use come with each package of vaginal spermicide. For maximum protection, it is important to use the product as directed. Another application of spermicide is necessary before each addi­tional act of intercourse. […]

Phase 1: The Attention Phase

During the ‘attention phase’, off-line a person (usually the woman) will try to attract a person of the opposite sex by displaying subtle non-verbal signals. With online dating, one does not have an immediate target to display subtle interest in. Instead, the person displays signs of attraction by selecting an attractive photograph to represent themselves. […]

Birth Order

Researchers have also examined effects of birth order. Many gay men have been found to be born later than their siblings and have older brothers, but not older sisters (Blanchard, 2004; Camperio-Ciani et al., 2004; Ridley, 2003). Overall it has been esti­mated that 1 in 7 gay men’s sexual orientation was a result of fraternal […]

The politics of orgasm

More generally, sexuality became one of the central issues of second-wave feminism. The sexual oppression of women came to be seen as a central — by some theorists, as the most central — area of male power over women. The new women’s movement thus adopted the slogan ‘the personal is political’, expressing the idea that […]

THE FIVE PHASES OF ONLINE DATING

Theorists have devised models to explain formal matchmaking services, such as personal ads, video dating and computer matchmaking. Ahuvia and Adelman (1992), for example, have devised the SMI model (searching, matching, and interact­ing model). They parallel matchmaking services with basic market functions. For instance, in the market place initially ‘searching’ is required, that is, gaining […]

Biological Theories: Differences Are Innate

Biological theories are essentialist—that is, they claim that differing sexual orientations are due to differences in physiology. This difference can be due to genetics, hormones, birth order, or simple physical traits. Genetics In 1952, Franz Kallman tried to show that there was a genetic component to homosex­uality. Kallman compared identical twins (who come from one […]