Scholarly Vs. Popular Media Focus on Sexuality Paper

Scholarly Vs. Popular Media Focus on Sexuality Paper

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to review and summarize one scholarly article and one article published in popular media. The paper then subsequently includes the comparison of the two sources of information on different aspects. The articles selected from both the sources pertain to the subject area of sex and sexuality (Barlow, 1998).

Summary of the Scholarly Article

The central subject and area of the focus of the scholarly article by Jason D. Hans and Claire Kimberly in the article under discussion is the understanding of the meaning and definitions of various sexual terms (Hans & Kimberly, 2011). The underlying hypothesis for the study is that the difference and ambiguity in the definitions pertaining to the actions and behaviors which comprises the terms abstinence, sex and virginity might be a cause of capricious and subjective elucidation of the meaning or flawed communication, which can turn out to be specifically problematic in the contexts of research, education and health care (Hans & Kimberly, 2011) (Barlow, 1998).

The fundamental aim of the study by the scholar was to look at and evaluate the definitions of abstinence, sex and virginity. For this purpose, the authors collected and studied the samples of 454 university students and compared them against the samples of 126 sexuality professionals who were certified from AASECT. For the purpose of taking the samples, online survey method was utilized for both categories of participants (Hans & Kimberly, 2011).

The results and findings of the study lead the scholars of the article maintain that when the samples of students were compared with those of AASECT professionals, it was found that students are less prone to categorize ten out of eleven behaviors to be described as sex. Students are more prone to consider that a person's virginity is maintained by the oral genital contact. Students are also more prone to assert that hand genital contact and oral genital contact are unswerving with the behavior that is abstinent (Hans & Kimberly, 2011) (Cole, 2000).

The authors conclude that when the results of this study are compared with the previous studies on the similar topics (Bogart et.al, 2000) & (Bersamin et.al, 2007), it is found that conception of abstinence and categorization regarding the oral and hand genital contact might be altering in the population of young adults. On the whole, the principal inferences of this study includes that sexual health professionals needs to be watchful and careful regarding the interpretative scope given to the people while employing expressions purposed for referring to various sexual actions more willingly than overtly spotting the targeted actions (Cole, 2000).

Summary of the Popular Media

The article regarding sexuality published in one of the popular media (magazine) is based on the trend of sex and sexual acts among the college students (Pulskamp, n.d.). The author provides that, for many years, the college has been given an image as being a centre of drugs, delights, booze and most importantly ...