Heterosexual Encounters Research Articles

Unpacking categorizations in researching GBTIQ+ parents

In this article, based on anthropological research conducted in the Netherlands and Switzerland, I show the diversity and multi-faceted nature of GBTIQ+ (gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and queer) parenting. In contrast to recent research on GBTIQ+ parents, which often distinguishes between parents who have children through a (former) heterosexual encounter, adoption, fostering, surrogacy, co-parenting, or trans pregnancy, I deliberately chose not to study just one form of family formation. Drawing on 37 biographical, narrative, and thematic interviews and two group discussions with GBTIQ+ parents, I adopt a processual understanding of parenting that takes into account its fluidity and transformations over the life course. I argue that we should pay attention to how both the unique ways of forming and being a GBTIQ+ family, and common notions of imagining and doing family, intermingle in practice. Furthermore, I stress the importance of taking into account the intersecting differences within the category of GBTIQ+ parents, and accordingly, we should critically analyze which factors are relevant to an individual in a particular time and space.

Effects of ACK and KAG Teachings in Sexual Behaviour Choices of Students in Selected Universities in Nairobi County, Kenya

Purpose: This study sought to understand how the ACK and KAG sexuality teachings shaped the sexual behaviour choices of students in selected universities in Nairobi, Kenya.
 Methodology: The study utilized a mixed research design, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data were gathered through a questionnaire, focusing on numerical analysis. The research covered three universities, employing probability sampling to select 334 participants proportionately. Additionally, qualitative insights were obtained through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 42 knowledgeable respondents, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the research objectives.
 Findings: Descriptive statistics revealed that cohabiting, internet sex, and browsing porn were the most frequently observed behaviors, while heterosexual encounters scored the lowest. Principal component analysis identified two major clusters of negative sexuality: internet sex and cohabitation, and extreme sex. Internet sex and cohabitation accounted for 42% of all variance, while extreme sex accounted for 20%. T-test results indicated a significant effect of Protestant teachings on sexual behavior choices. While Protestant teachings explained a small proportion of the variance in these behaviors, they had a significant effect, suggesting a moderate relationship between these teachings and sexual behavior choices.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Knowledge gleaned from this exercise would contribute to availing prompt well-intentioned information on how Christian beliefs can be enhanced to fight negative sexuality

Reconfiguring the relationship between the ‘good (hetero)sexual subject’ and the grey area between sex and rape

Though many advocates argue that ‘rape is rape’, empirical research demonstrates that many incidents and experiences are ambiguous. This article explores how heterosexual norms play into the construction of a grey area between ‘just sex’ and rape. Based on an analysis of 30 interviews with Norwegian men and women about alcohol-related heterosexual encounters, the article explores how such encounters can become ambiguous. There is a mutually constitutive relationship between what is ‘normal’ and what is not. Simultaneously, heterosexuality and sexual norms are fluid, contextual and constantly developing, so when norms regulating ‘normal’ sex shift, transgressions from these norms probably do as well. By using Gavey’s (2005) model of normative heterosexuality as a scaffold that supports rape culture as a heuristic device, I examine these stories of alcohol-related heterosexual encounters to investigate how norms about heterosexual sex are involved in how people constitute themselves as ‘good sexual subjects’ today. Based on these findings, I discuss how the pathway to becoming a good sexual subject may simultaneously lead into murky and ambiguous territory.

Testing the effectiveness of two psychosocial interventions – ACCENT and Didactic – to prevent HIV/AIDS behavioral risk factors in Mozambican women: a randomized controlled study

ABSTRACT In Mozambique, women are the most affected by HIV/AIDS and heterosexual encounters remain the main route for HIV/AIDS. Condom use is the most effective method of HIV/AIDS prevention, and the intention to use and buy/get condoms has a significant role in safe sex behavior. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of two psychosocial interventions – the Didactic and ACCENT Interventions – to prevent HIV/AIDS among Mozambican Women. Participants were Mozambican women (n = 150), users of the gynecology clinic of the Central Hospital of Beira. The study design was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with assignment to three groups: Didactic intervention, ACCENT intervention, and Control group. Measures were from an adaption of the Women's Health Questionnaire, which includes questions about sociodemographic, clinical, and behavioral variables related to HIV prevention/risk. There was a significant group effect on condom use and safer sex preparatory behaviors, F(2, 146) = 6.45, p = .002, with Bonferroni post-hoc tests showing differences between the ACCENT vs. Control groups and ACCENT vs. Didactic groups (all p = .022). There were no statistically significant time effects on both condom use and safer sex preparatory behaviors. Results are promising for HIV/AIDS prevention in Mozambican women at sexual risk, but replication is needed for generalizability of findings.

Sexual Assault and Trauma as Reflected in Amadu Maddy’s “No Past No Present No Future” (1973) and Zakes Mda’s “The Madonna of Excelsior” (2002)

This study aims to analyze the causes of sexual violence and conduct a critical examination of the traumatic impact of sexual violence as portrayed in Amadu's novel "No Past No Present No Future" and Mda's novel "The Madonna of Excelsior" by incorporating the theories of trauma by Freud, Van der Kolk, and Greenberg as the basis for the analysis. The results of this study reveal that betrayal and negative heterosexual encounters are the causes of trauma and, ultimately, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Amadu’s novel. Based on these findings, using literary texts that specifically focus on the consequences of sexual violence to educate the public about victims' reactions to rape is highly recommended. This research also suggests that psychology researchers are expected to be able to use the implications of this study to explore further the role of literature in reducing violence, including rape, and creating healthy community life.

Sexual Assault and Trauma as Reflected in Amadu Maddy’s “No Past No Present No Future” and Zakes Mda’s “The Madonna of Excelsior”

Violence such as rape has been and continues to be the major problem in Africa. It is because defective family dynamic, sexualized racism, rape myths, patriarchal dominance, low legal system response to victims’ cases etc. often exert ever more significant obstacles in bringing a paradigm shift in people’s understanding towards victim reaction to sexual assault. Thus, it is vital to create a more trauma informed society and legal system in order to reduce the rate of sexual assault and to develop more effective criminal justice system responses to sexual assault cases. To this end, literary texts can play a paramount role since it can be used as a signpost to display victims’ reaction to sexual assault. Therefore, the main objective of this article was to undertake a critical examination of the traumatic impacts of sexual assault reflected in Amadu’s Novel “No Past No Present No Future” and Mda’s novel “The Madonna of Excelsior”, hoping to send signals to researchers to see the immense contribution which literary works can have to bring a paradigm shift in people’s understanding towards the drastic emotional, and psychological damages of rape. A trauma theory dominantly informed by Freud, and Van der Kolk and Greenberg was applied to analyze and discuss the causes of sexual assault and its resultant impact towards the victim characters in the novels under study. The study findings revealed that betrayal and negative heterosexual encounters as the causes of trauma and eventual PTSD in Amadu’s novel: “No Past No Present No Future”. In addition, the study has also found that homosexuality has been presented as the haven for the traumatized character to come at peace with his present condition leaving his traumatic experience behind. On the other hand, sexualized racism, racial injustice, and poverty caused sexual victimization of the major character in the Mda’s novel “The Madonna of Excelsior”. In addition, the study also found that rape exposed the victim character to experience trauma, which was very hard to bear, and its impact cut through the victim character’s life with emotional and psychological scars left behind. Furthermore, the study revealed that the victim character became prone to having flashback to memories which is a strong sign that PTSD develops in the novel “The Madonna of Excelsior”. Based on these findings, using literary texts which specifically focus on the consequences of sexual assault to educate society about victims’ reaction to rape is inexorably advisable and researchers in psychology can hopefully use the implications in this study to explore further the role of literature in reducing violence including rape and creating a health community life.
 
 Received: 8 January 2023 / Accepted: 19 February 2023 / Published: 6 March 2023

Conceptual Overview (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Conceptual Overview (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Sex Acts (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

Sex Acts (Portrayals of Sexuality in Pornography)

The influence of mainstream pornography on changing sexual practices

Mainstream heterosexual pornography is freely available on the internet via pornography tube sites such as Pornhub. The popularity of these tube sites cannot be overstated, with Pornhub reporting 42 billion site visits in 2019 alone. Mainstream pornography is often infused with themes of male dominance, aggression, and female subservience. Much mainstream content fuses sex with aggression and eroticises inequalities between men and women. In so doing, mainstream pornography has the potential to normalise certain sexual ‘scripts’, thus seeding and structuring mainstream social attitudes and norms about aggressive sex as normal, common or expected in heterosexual encounters.

Feminist Men and Sexual Behavior: Analyses of Men’s Sex with Women

Men’s identification with and support for feminism has attracted the interest of masculinity scholars. This study explores an under-researched dimension of this phenomenon, investigating the relationship between feminist identification and sexual behavior. In heterosexual encounters, do feminist men report having sex more recently than those who do not call themselves feminists? During sexual encounters, do feminist men behave differently than non-feminists? In particular, do feminist men organize their sexual behavior in a way that prioritizes their partners’ sexual pleasure to a greater extent than non-feminists? Using representative survey data of Canadian adults, we examine the self-reported sexual behavior of heterosexual Canadian men. We find that self-identifying feminist men report having sex more recently and are more likely to report engaging in breast stimulation and performing oral sex on their partners than non-feminists. We discuss the implications of these findings on the sociological literature on gender and sexuality.

From Herland to #MeToo: Utopia or Dystopia?

Abstract Some of the impetus of the #MeToo movement may derive from feminist imaginings of utopia—popularized recently in films like Wonder Woman (2017). One hundred years before the #MeToo movement, a feminist utopia was envisioned in the novel Herland (published serially between 1910–1916) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a first-wave American feminist novelist and sociologist. This article explores the tropes of #MeToo’s parallel mythological construction of shaming and exclusion of male characteristics in a literary scope. It suggests that Gilman’s Herland reflects archetypal blueprints for the feminist impulse driving #MeToo. The conclusion of the article argues that there are some weaknesses to this scope, in light of examples of heterosexual encounters in other artistic forms, through the lenses of social theory and theology’s views of sexuality.

Negotiating HIV and pregnancy prevention and sexual pleasure amongst heterosexual men and women in South Africa

Heterosexual sex, foremost its gender-power dynamics, is embedded in and informed by the socio-historical context in which it occurs. While safer sexual communication skills are well documented as key to the success of sexual and reproductive health programming and education, communication skills about the positive aspects of sexuality such as sexual pleasure are often limited if not absent. Using data from in-depth qualitative interviews with men and women aged 26–39 from a diverse set of backgrounds in Cape Town, South Africa, this study examines the ways in which gender-power dynamics manifest in negotiations of HIV and pregnancy prevention and sexual pleasure in the intimate spaces of heterosex. Findings fall under three themes: 1) condom negotiation as a replacement for other aspects of sexual communication; 2) self-efficacy in negotiating prevention and negotiating one’s own sexual pleasure; and 3) the integral role men play in heterosexual encounters in the facilitation of women's sexual autonomy and women's sexual pleasure. This study contributes to research not only examining the positive and more nuanced realities of heterosex in the South African context, but also argues for the need to integrate positive aspects of sexuality into sexual and reproductive health programming in general.

Orgasm Equality: Scientific Findings and Societal Implications

Studies have consistently found that there is a gendered orgasm gap, with men experiencing orgasm more frequently than women in heterosexual sexual encounters. This literature review aims to highlight the current state of research on orgasm equality and to explore the reasons underlying this orgasm gap. Our review of recently published studies indicates that the gendered orgasm gap still exists today. Additionally, these studies underscore how sociocultural factors can contribute to the differences in reported orgasm frequency between men and women in heterosexual encounters. This review suggests that our cultural prioritization of penile-vaginal intercourse over more clitorally focused sexual activities is linked to the gendered orgasm gap. Additional related contributing sociocultural factors may include women’s lack of entitlement to partnered sexual pleasure, societal scripts about masculinity, and women’s cognitive distractions during partnered sex. Recommendations to increase orgasm equality are discussed.

‘He enjoyed it more than I did’!: young British Sikh women negotiating safe sex in heterosexual encounters

ABSTRACT Sex education and relationship strategy of the U.K. allows parents to withdraw their children from sex education, which has left many young people especially those from Black Minority and Ethnic communities with low or no sex education. Similarly, the government's policy environment enables faith schools to teach these subjects under the tenets of their faith. This empirical research was carried out in South-West London using 12 qualitative interviews with women and men (ages 18–20 years) discusses young women's experiences of their first sexual encounter who navigate their reputations, relationships as well as negotiate safe sex in the absence of appropriate relationships and sex education. Sex education not only brings into focus sensitivities around gender but also tensions around religion in the U.K. Evidence from the study suggests that despite the importance placed by the Indian community on maintaining virginity, young women asserted that religion and culture did not prohibit them from exploring their sexuality. In this study, the priority is to present young women's voices and experience of sexual encounters.

Socio-demographic, marital and psychosocial predictors of safe sex behaviour among Mozambican women at risk for HIV/AIDS

Heterosexual encounters remain the primary route for HIV transmission in Africa. Safer sex behaviour is not adopted by many women due to several social and psychological factors. This paper aims to identify socio-demographic, marital and psychosocial predictors associated with current sexual activity and condom use in Mozambican women at sexual risk for HIV/AIDS. Women (173), patients at a public hospital and at risk for HIV infection, completed measures of condom use negotiation self-efficacy, perceived barriers against safer sex, current sexual activity and condom use. Having more than 6 years of education and being younger and single were significant predictors for current sexual activity and condom use. Regarding psychosocial factors, talking about AIDS with partners, condom use negotiation self-efficacy and fewer perceived barriers to safer sex were significant predictors for current sexual activity (intention to use and buy/get condoms). Condom use negotiation self-efficacy is a significant predictor for condom use. These results should be considered in new HIV prevention intervention design in Mozambique.

‘I will not be a 17 year old virgin’: female virginity and sexual scripting in graphic narratives for teenagers

ABSTRACTThis manuscript examines how YA graphic narratives represent sexuality with particular attention to the loss of virginity as experienced by girls and young women. It draws on the notion of sexual scripts, which are the socially learned strategies that signal what makes a situation sexual. Sexual scripts matter because of the expectations that are placed on, especially, teenagers. Through the lens of sexual scripts, we study four graphic narratives that portray young adult women losing their virginity, however they conceptualise that. The focal narratives are Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, Sarah Oleksyk’s Ivy, Ariel Schrag’s Potential, and Julie Maroh’s Blue is the Warmest Color. By looking at the texts through the theory of sexual scripting, these sexual relationships show that these contemporary females are more agentive than those seen in traditional media portrayals. However, they still adhere to many of rules of gendered sexual scripting, such as having men’s pleasure foregrounded. Ghost World and Ivy showcase heterosexual encounters in relationships that leave the young women unsatisfied. Potential and Blue is the Warmest Color contrast heterosexual relationships with loving lesbian relationships that provide a stronger emotional connection and greater physical pleasure. Thus, more opportunities for subverting potentially harmful ideologies still exist.

Intimate Navigations, Refracted Perspectives

Intimate Navigations, Refracted Perspectives

‘All in all it is just a judgement call’: issues surrounding sexual consent in young people’s heterosexual encounters

ABSTRACTIn the UK, there has been growing concern about young people’s understanding of sexual consent, with the views of young people themselves often lost in academic and educational policy debates. However, the focus on high rates of sexual violence has meant a lack of attention on the everyday negotiation of consensual heterosexual activity, leading to assumptions being made regarding young people’s lack of understanding of sexual consent. This paper emerges from a wider study of over 500 young people which sought to uncover their understanding of the issues. Drawing on data from workshops and the open text responses to an on-line survey the findings presented in this paper show that the majority of heterosexual young people understood the complexity of sexual consent as an embodied process, which can be difficult to define, talk about or practice uniformly. This complex understanding, in which sexual consent is a continuum rather than a dichotomy, has implications for sexual education initiatives. We argue that it is only by providing a closer understanding of how – within consensual sexual activities – young people understand and enact sexual consent through a range of embodied communication strategies that education surrounding sexual assault will become meaningful.

Call divergence in three sympatric Rattus species.

To reduce errors in species recognition and the probability of interbreeding that lowers fitness, individuals within sympatric zones shift the signals to differentiate from those of other species. In the present study, the differences of the acoustic features of ultrasounds (courtship calls during heterosexual encounters) and audible calls (distress calls during tail-clamp stress) are compared among three sympatric Rattus species (Rattus andamanensis, R. norvegicus, and R. losea). Results showed that the three species have significantly different call parameters, including call duration, peak frequency, bandwidth, pitch, goodness of pitch, frequency modulation, and Wiener entropy. This study provides quantitative evidence for character displacement in the acoustic signals of closely related sympatric Rattus species. Results indicate that the divergence of acoustic signal has arrived at the quite meticulous degree of evolution. Therefore, the acoustic signal trait is likely involved in the evolution of species diversity in rodents.

Effects of quinestrol on the vocal behavior of mice during courtship interactions

Vocalizations are a crucial part of courtship and mating in a wide variety of species. Mating behavior, including courtship calls, is modulated by sex steroid hormones. Male mice produce courtship ultrasonic vocalizations to attract females during heterosexual encounters. However, rare is the knowledge on whether vocal behavior of mice changes under sterilant treatment which will affect gonadal hormone levels. In the present study, we treat male mice with quinestrol, which interferes with the release of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and has a significant anti-fertility effect in rodents. We compared the differences in the syllable structures (including peak intensity, peak frequency, duration, and bandwidth), total number of calls, and harmonic syllable proportions between quinestrol treated and control male mice. Male mice treated with quinestrol produced more courtship calls and more harmonic syllables than control mice, whereas the parameters of call syllables showed no significant change between the two groups. The results indicate that normal male vocal behavior during sexual interactions could be retained or even reinforced after quinestrol treatment. In addition, female mice approached male mice treated with quinestrol more than control mice, suggesting that the treated male mice were more attractive to the female mice than the controls. Thus, competitive reproductive interference is enhanced. Further, findings provided behavior mechanism in vocal context of the fertility control in mice.