SEXUALITY PROBLEMS

Sexuality Problems

Sexuality Problems

Population-based studies of human sexuality investigate the sexual expression of women and men at different stages of the life course and across groups and societies. Sexual expression is composed of sexual functions, or capacities, of males and females; sexual behaviors, both partnered and alone; and sexual attitudes-interests, preferences, and beliefs about sexuality. Identifying and investigating biological, psychocognitive, demographic, and sociocultural determinants of sexual expression as well as the interrelationships among sexual attitudes, behavior, and function are a central concern. This research also assesses the consequences of sexual expression, which include but are not limited to effects on wellbeing, health, relationship quality, sexual satisfaction, fertility, the stability of sexual partnerships, and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV and AIDS (Bearman, & Brucknerm, 2001).

In the 1990s the increasing availability of large-scale probability samples on sexual behavior, a result of international concern about HIV/AIDS, facilitated advances in the study of human sexuality. Studies employing nationally representative data on adult sexual behavior were published for several developed countries, including Great Britain, Finland, France, and the United States, along with cross-national comparisons of European, African, and Asian countries. The United States in particular has conducted additional large-scale, representative-sample surveys featuring modules on sexual behavior-the National AIDS Behavioral Survey, the National Survey of Adolescent Males, the National Survey of Men, the National Survey of Women, the General Social Survey, and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health-which represent vast improvements over research derived from convenience, local community, or self-selected samples.

These studies also marked the emergence of human sexuality as a distinct topic in population studies. Previously, many researchers had focused only on the limited set of sexual behaviors that are consequential for fertility outcomes (e.g., frequency of coitus, out-of-wedlock fertility, contraceptive practices). Lacking basic information about sexual attitudes and behavior, researchers were spurred by the threat of HIV/AIDS in the 1990s to develop a comprehensive approach focused on sexual expression. Many of these studies collected information on partnered sex, an approach that captured variation in status (e.g., married versus nonmarried), gender, and patterns of multiple partners or sexual networks.

Basic Concepts

Sexual expression has sociocultural, psychocognitive, emotional, physiological, and behavioral dimensions. It encompasses the content of sexual action: how people think about sex, what they do sexually, and the concomitant psychophysiological states. Sexual attitudes are the beliefs, preferences, and interests individuals express about sexual issues, conduct, and partners. Sexual behaviors specify the sexual practices individuals engage in alone, with another person, or with multiple others. Sexual functioning refers to how individuals experience sexual desire, pleasure, and other psychophysiological states associated with the sexual response cycle (Chirayath, 2000).

Although researchers recognize the significance of biological factors, particularly physiology, maturation, and aging, on sexuality, those working from a population perspective tend to emphasize the social control, or social organization, of sexuality. Of particular importance are institutional controls-religion, kinship, law, and medicine-and traditional demographic attributes, such as ethnicity, which imbue cultural meanings into sexual behavior, thus defining the proximate costs and benefits of sexual ...