What has been the impact of the sexological model? The primary influence has been on the parameters of sex research—what’s been included and what’s been excluded. The elements of the model provided the assumptions and norms that shaped sexology. Issues for sexology were those suggested by the model: working out the various elements of biology that contributed to sexual arousal, looking for differences between men and women in a million elements of sexual activity and attitude, looking for correlates of heterosexual and homosexual identity, classifying sexual behaviors around the world, and so forth. Among issues sexology ignored were those that focused on cultural and commercial construction of sexual meanings and expectations, how these played out in the lives of people with and without social and economic privilege, the view of sexuality not as a property of individuals, but as a cocreation of interaction, and the subjective elaboration of sexual experience over a lifetime.
Widely read professional publications published since 1965 such as The Journal of Sex Research, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, as well as several lesser-known sexology outlets, are full of measurement-oriented empirical studies not unlike those found in other psychology journals. There is very little theory. A British journal, Sexualities, appeared in 1998 with a focus on theory. There is no feminist sexology journal.