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Our bodies respond to the world around us. Anything that makes our bodies respond is called a stimulus. We sense stimuli by our five senses: touch, sight, smell, hearing, and taste. We may see our bodies’ response to a stimulus, such as sweating; when it’s hot or getting goose bumps when we’re scared. Or we may not see the response—it may be inside our bodies, such as digestion of food when we eat, increase in heartbeat when we’re scared. These responses happen involuntarily—we don’t even have to think about them.
АД of our senses pick up sexual stimuli just as they do other stimuli. Sexual arousal can be caused by what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Our bodies become sexually aroused in predictable ways.
Often we think of touch as the main sexual stimulus when we think of sexual activity. Touching our own skin or someone else’s can be very sexually arousing. Areas of our body where the skin is very sensitive to sexual stimulation are called erogenous zones. Our external sex organs are highly sensitive to touch—such as the glans of the clitoris or penis. However, other parts of our skin can be touched and also produce sexual arousal: arms, legs, back, neck, nipples, buttocks, ears, fingers, feet. In fact, any part of our skin can be an erogenous zone. People have different likes and dislikes about where they like to be touched. Our erogenous zones are unique to each of us.
Touch is not the only sexual stimulus. As we grow, we learn to associate certain sounds, such as music or voices, and sights—parts of the body, for example—with sexually stimulating experiences or thoughts. This is also true of smells and tastes. In each society and culture, there are characteristics, personalities, and behaviors that are thought to be attractive and sexually stimulating. For example, long hair, dancing, a certain physical stature, or shyness may be very attractive and sexually stimulating for someone. Tight clothing or certain kinds of underwear may be stimulating for someone else.
When and how we learn about these characteristics, behaviors, and personalities will affect what we fund attractive and sexually stimulating. Later on in life when we see car hear those things again, our bodies respond. What each of us learns and experiences is different from any other person. This learning and experiencing continues throughout the rest of our lives. We are never too old to find stimuli and new sources of sexual stimulation. Nor do we forget t that aroused us during our younger years.
Imagination can produce stimuli that can be seen, heard, tasted: touched, and smelled in our minds. Sometimes our sexual experiences begin and end in our imaginations. We can also heighten sexual responses with imagination. The use of our imagination sexual arousal is called fantasy. It can be the most stimulating aspect of our sexual experience.
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Menarche is occurring at younger and younger ages. In 1840, the average age for menarche was between 17 and 18. Today, the average age that girls have their first period is 12.5! It is no longer unusual for girls to enter menarche at the age of 10. Physiologists believe that earlier menarche is related to better nutrition, which leads to increased amounts of body fat in modern girls. The hormones responsible for the menstrual cycle are stored in body fat.
On the other hand, many young women today are very athletic and maintain a naturally lean body. Menarche may be much later for them. Even after menarche, their menstruation may be very irregular and light.
The range of years during which menarche may happen is very wide. It is difficult to predict when it will happen. Family members, educators, and clinicians may not anticipate it in time to counsel young women about the changes that are happening in their bodies. This is one of the reasons menarche may come as a complete surprise to many young women—especially if it is early.
Girls who have early menarche are likely to start having erotic dreams earlier than other girls. They are more likely to have sexual intercourse at younger ages. They need earlier counseling about sexuality, safer sex, and birth control.
Girls may experience anxiety about breast development. The beginning of breast development is called thelarche. For some, breast development seems to happen too soon and is embarrassing. Others are frustrated that it isn’t happening soon enough. Many worry that their breasts won’t be the size they want or expect. Many wonder when it is appropriate for them to wear a bra for the first time.
Menarche, thelarche, and other events during puberty are likely to be accompanied by many uncertainties. Girls have a lot to adjust to, whether puberty is early or late. Menstruation may occur very irregularly. Early periods may be quite uncomfortable or even painful. Often in puberty, girls have a white, sticky vaginal discharge called leukorrhea. It may upset girls who do not know it is normal.
It is also normal for one breast to develop faster than another. But the experience may be unsettling. Likewise, the onset of sexual desires and dreams may be very confusing for girls who don’t know what to expect. Some girls may become unnerved by the experience and may need counseling. Girls who have been prepared with helpful information may have a much more positive experience with menarche, thelarche, and the other events of puberty.
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The other external sex organ is called the scrotum—the sac that hangs directly under the penis. The scrotum contains some internal reproductive organs. In the scrotum are two ball-shaped glands. These are called testes, and they produce sperm. Part of the function of the scrotum is to protect the testes. Another word for the testes is testicles.
The scrotum changes in appearance. Sometimes the scrotum is loose so that the testes hang far from the body. At other times the scrotum is small, and the testes are tight against the body.
Changes in the shape of the scrotum are necessary for the production of sperm. The testes produce sperm only if they are at temperatures a few degrees below the temperature of the body. The scrotum holds the testes away from the body to maintain this cooler temperature. On hot days, the scrotum becomes larger, and the testes hang far from the hot body. On cold days, or after a cold shower or swim, the scrotum draws the testes closer to the body to share its heat.
A muscle named the cremaster muscle is attached to the scrotum.
It is responsible for adjusting the distance that the testes hang from the body. The cremaster muscle also tightens or relaxes the scrotum when the inside of a man’s thigh is touched. The cremaster muscle operates involuntarily. Men and boys have no control over it. The muscle’s response to temperature and touch is called the cremaster reflex.
Some men notice that their testicles are lopsided. It is normal for one side of the scrotal sac to hang lower than the other side. It is also normal for both sides to hang at the same level.
Self-examination of the external sex organs and structures once a month is an important part of good health care. Men should ask for medical advice if they notice any sores, swellings, or bumps on the penis or scrotum.
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Gay Liberation
On a Friday night in the summer of 1969, a group of police officers raided a gay bar in Greenwich Village in New York City in order to arrest women and men who they thought were gay. Such raids were common, but on this night the patrons of the Stonewall Inn decided they had had enough of this legalized form of harassment. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people resisted arrest, overcame the police, and launched a demonstration that lasted several days.
Within weeks, the Gay Liberation Front was formed to seek justice and equal protection under the law for all members of the gay community. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people began making themselves visible at political rallies and antiwar demonstrations. Gay activists challenged the socially approved heterosexism that oppressed them, and they began to “come out”—to publicly acknowledge their gayness. Finally, in 1974, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
The gay liberation movement continues to seek changes that will make it illegal to deprive women or men of their civil rights because of their sexual orientation.
The Struggle for Responsible Sexuality Education
Most American parents want their children to receive comprehensive, age-appropriate, reality-based sexuality education. Public schools, however, have become major battlefields in the struggle to provide young people with the information they need to develop sexual health and well-being.
Many of the same people who oppose legal abortion, safer sex education, birth control, and civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people also oppose responsible sexuality education. Few in number, but well organized and often belligerent, opponents include political extremists affiliated with the religious right. They belong to organizations such as the American Family Association, Citizens for Excellence in Education, the Christian Coalition, the Eagle Forum, the National Association for Abstinence Education, Concerned Women of America, and Focus on the Family. These advocates of abstinence-only, fear-based programs continue to infiltrate school boards by mounting “stealth candidates” whose political ties and agendas are disguised until after election ballots are counted.
In contrast, Planned Parenthood, the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, the Sexuality Information and Education Council for the United States, and more than 90 other organizations are committed to exposing and opposing these political maneuvers. The outcome of this struggle remains to be seen.
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WORLD WAR II AND CONDOMS
Between the World Wars
The events of war created a new openness about sexuality. American soldiers overseas became acquainted with the sexual norms of other cultures. As brothels in the United States were closed, men were more likely to establish sexual relationships with women who were not sex workers, especially unmarried women. Despite the increase in sexual activity during the 1920s, federal funding was cut for programs to fight sexually transmitted infections.
During the Great Depression, rates of infection increased because so few people could afford treatment. People with sexually transmitted infections were stigmatized. Hospitals refused to treat them. As a result, infections increased and the stigma against people with them became stronger.
In the 1930s, social hygienists came under fire. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Thomas Parran as U.S. Surgeon General in 1936. Parran was determined to deal with sexually transmitted infections as a health problem, not a moral dilemma. He had a five-point plan to control syphilis:
1. Identify women and men with syphilis.
2. Treat them.
3. Contact and screen their sex partners.
4. Mandate blood tests before marriage and early in pregnancy.
5. Educate the public about syphilis.
Parran rejected the moral stigmas that prevented the development of effective public health programs. In 1938, his National Venereal Disease Control Act was passed by Congress. It provided funding for treatment and prevention programs.
Moral stigma and the fear of syphilis—syphilophobia—undermined Parran’s program, however. Myths emerged that associated syphilis with certain ethnic groups and social classes. Twenty-six states prohibited marriage of infected people.
In 1932, the Public Health Service began a tragic experiment that would last for 40 years. This unethical experiment was known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Public health officials wanted to find out what would happen if syphilis went untreated. Four hundred African-American sharecroppers in Alabama were selected for this study. For 40 years, they believed they were receiving treatment for syphilis when they were not. About 100 men died as a result. It wasn’t until the public found out about the experiment in 1972 that it ended. The doctors who designed the study made the racist assumptions that all blacks were infected and that the subjects would not have sought treatment, anyway.
Although the condom was known to protect against sexually transmitted infections, the American Social Hygiene Association opposed its use, despite the commonsense arguments of the Birth Control Federation of America. Discovered in 1928, penicillin wasn’t found to be an effective treatment for syphilis or gonorrhea until the 1940s.
World War II and Condoms
As many as 50 million condoms were distributed to American soldiers each month during World War II. The army also provided fear-based sexuality education classes and medical prophylaxis. The law that docked the pay of infected soldiers was repealed.
Prostitution was suppressed once again, although a number of health officials saw “benefits” to prostitution. They suggested that prostitution reduced the incidence of rape and homosexuality. They advocated segregating prostitutes in areas near the bases and providing them with regular medical exams. Despite this advice, more than 700 cities and towns closed their red-light districts.
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